Improve the in-store grocery shopping experience.

We'll assume that we're doing this question as if we are Google. We'll focus our efforts on large grocers like a Kroger or Whole Foods and ignore more niche grocery shopping experiences like a gourmet goods store or a bodega.

Furthermore, we will not qualify ordering online and picking up in-store as part of the in-store grocery shopping experience.

Goal

Before we dive into solving this problem, let's first take a step back and think about why are we doing this? What is our motivation here and what are we trying to achieve?

A good way of getting at that is thinking about Google's mission statement which is to organize the world's information and make it universally useful and accessible. I think this relates to wanting to improve the in-store grocery shopping experience in the sense that there are a million different products in grocery stores with various different prices and nutritional content. There is a lot of data and information there, which can be hard to navigate.

If there isn't a specific focus area the interviewer wants us to improve, let's focus on making the shopping experience simpler and less complicated.

Users

Literally all adults, aside from college students in dorms and service members in barracks, go grocery shopping to some degree. For an experience as ubiquitous as grocery shopping, it's hard to come up with a magic bullet that solves everything for everyone. One of the ways in which I like to narrow scope is to look at the different the different user segments and choose one to focus on:

Young Professionals
Heads of Households
Senior Citizens
Local Business Employees

Out of the above user segments, I'm going to suggest we focus on the Heads of Households. This user segment likely does the most shopping at grocery stores in terms of both frequency and market basket size. Based upon this I think they will give us the biggest opportunity for making the shopper experience simpler and less complicated.

Pain Points

It's hard to manage kids while shopping
How do you find the best deals? If you're buying groceries for a whole family it is going to get expensive
They have a million other errands to run, they just want to get this done quickly
If they buy or try something new how do they know if their family is going to like it

Solutions

Fastest Route Map - Users could upload their grocery list to Google then inside of Google maps we could display the most optimal route inside of the store to acquire all of the items on the list. Addresses pain point #3 and tangentially #1.
Expected Time in Store - Google already offers estimate on busy times for different stores and locations, what if we took this a step further and based off of the business estimate of the store plus the items on the users grocery list we could give them an accurate estimate of how long it would take them to grocery shop. Addresses pain point #3.
Deal Alerts - Users would receive alerts, something like push notifications, texts, or emails, whenever one or several of their routinely purchased items goes on sale at a grocery store near them. We could even mail them digital coupons for items. Addresses pain point #2.

Prioritization

In all likelihood we won't have the bandwidth or the resources to build out all three solutions in parallel so let's pick one to focus on. To help guide that conversation I'm going to use a comparison matrix:

Ease of Implementation, Value to User, Relevance to Goal

1. C+, A, A+ -> This would require have a map of the store's lay out which is going to be hard to do at scale. I can definitely see users using this if they are in a hurry. This would directly help grocery shopping experience less complicated by guiding users towards where they need to go, we just need to make sure our UI isn't cluttered or confusing.

2. B, C, C+ -> We might run into the same in store mapping problem as solution #1, but if we did an MVP based off of the number of items in a persons list it might be easier to build. I feel like this would be marginally useful to users, I'm sure people already have a good sense of how long it takes them to do their grocery shopping and the benefit of knowing how long it takes is only really valuable when the shopper is under an extreme time crunch.

3. B+, A-, C -> The alerting mechanisms wouldn't be hard to implement but we would need to figure out how to set up a data feed of grocery store sales which could be challenging. If this is actually able to save the user a non insignificant amount of money it will definitely be valuable to them. This doesn't really do a good job of helping making the in store shopping experience less complicated, I guess it kind of adds clarity in terms of the best price available for certain items but that is very minor progress towards our goal.

Summary

In order to make grocery shopping a less complicated experience for the Heads of Households, we are going to prioritize building a Fastest Route Map feature inside of Google Maps which will show users the optimal route to take for acquiring all of the groceries on their list.

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Self Critique:

I feel as if all of my solutions were fairly practical and not as imaginative as they could've been.
I touched upon our goal of the improvement and how it relates to Google's mission statement at the start but never it brought it back full circle at the end. I should've included verbiage about how we would be collecting a lot of new data and information on people's grocery shopping habits whenever they sync their grocery list to us to enable the Fastest Route Map.
I didn't mention metrics or KPIs.

Lokesh Kumar R · Answer 2 · 2021-04-30T13:57:33+0000

Clarification:

Where is this targeted at? Is it India or Worldwide? Targeted at India initially. Will later upgrade worldwide

Are we partnering with some particular Grocery? If yes What are their strengths and weaknesses? NO, We are not partnering with any particular Grocery Store. You can assume a normal Grocery store for this answer

Do we have any limitations/constraints in terms of Tech, Monetary Limit or something? NO, there are no constraints.

Thanks for the above clarification.

So from our discussion I can deduce that, We are planning to improve the User Experience within the store and are not limited by anything. The solution will be initially deployed at India and depending on the success, this will be upgraded to World-wide.

Next, I would like to discuss about the different user segments and their pain points. Will prioritize at each step and then will come up with a list of solutions. Finally will Prioritize and select one from the solution list and then discuss some success metrics for the same.

User Groups:

Young Professionals-These are the new working professionals. They tend to be youthfull, explorers in food and also a bit of Health Conscious. They try to spend as minimal time as possible at stores like this.
Family People- They are highly conscious of health and healthy foods. They rarely try to explore new random dishes. They tend to spend more time compared to youths as they take time to think about the healthiness and quality of the product.
Kids- They are normal kids between the age 10 and 18. Often come to grocery stores to get products listed by their parents or some elder and sometimes along with their elders as well.

Of this, I would like to choose Young Professionals as my target group as they tend to adapt to new technological changes pretty soon and are also more into experimenting with their Youthness.

Pain Points/Usecases:

They want to cover their shopping at grocery stores as fast as possible. This includes both finding the products as well as payment.
Often, they don't know what the product is for or its name in the first place?
Often it is difficult for them to find a parking space.
They want to try new food/dishes once in a while.

Of the above painpoints, I would like to choose the first and fourth point compared to others. This is because, these are more unique to them and solving them will create a totally new experience at the store. Moreover, any user would love when his/her time spent gets optimized. Thus the first problem is one of the major issue that influences a lot when it gets solved efficiently.

I will also link the second one as it is more connected with the final pain point.

Solutions:

A device can be installed that has a random sets of cuisines every day listed along with the needed materials. The dishes will be categorised as the ones that can be done easily in any homes and the other category that has dishes that requires experience and special equipments. The device also has a QR code reader. On reading a product's QR it gives information on what the product is and dishes that can be made from it.
The products can be attached with a RFID technology that can be read by the Grocery store's app installed in the user's phone. On bringing the product near to the phone's cam with the app opened, The product gets added to the bill and the user can pay for the Bill through payment method that he likes through the phone itself.
The User can install an app that on searching for a product gives information on where to find the product including the Row and Column details.

SolutionReach
(to the customers)Impact
(to the Grocery Store)Effort
(to the Grocery Store) Confidence
(How confident I am wrt the idea)

Solution-1	High	High	Medium	Medium
Solution-2	High	High	Medium	High
Solution-3	Medium	Medium	Low	Medium

Reasons:

In the case of solution-1, the reach will be higher as people who love to explore their food options are going to know new dishes along with the required products with just a tap away. The impact to the grocery store is high as people who came with the idea of buying one product may buy three more on being encouraged to rey something new through the device. While the effort is medium as these are pretty much available in the internet and the device just selects random set and showcases there in the display.

In the case of Solution-2, the reach will be high as this helps user get his billing and payment done right at the place where he found his/her product. The impact to the Grocery Store is high as this certainly reduces the queue in the billing section to a large extent. The Effort is significant as each product should be RFIDed properly at every stock refilling. One major con in this case is that, People need not scan all the products that they are taking and thus might affect a loss for the firm. Something Similar to Contactless Card payment.

In the case of Solution-3, the Reach is Medium compared to the others as this job is always done by the workforce present at the firm anyways. While the effort to the store is comparatively low as the placement in a grocery stores don't change often and thus once updated at the start will be good enough for lot of days.

Thus, from the above analysis, I would like to prioritize Solution 1 as the con in solution 2 might cause huge loss to the owner.

Success Metrics:

# of clicks on the device per session-A session ends when the device is inactive for two mins continuously
# of scans made per day.
Most clicked on cuisines per month.

Summary:

The aim was to improve the in-house grocery store experience. On choosing the Young Workforce as the target customers, their pain point was analysed and the chosen painpoint was that they want to do their shopping as soon as possible and also found their nature of exploring different dishes. With this in mind Solutions were discussed and came up with a final solution of setting up devices that could list out many dishes randomly which on clicking by the user lists the products needed and thus improve their experience inside.

Gunjan Doshi · Answer 3 · 2021-07-25T00:38:56+0000

Clarifying question:

Do you want me to improve any particular aspect of the shopping experience? - No, please assume
Do you have any specific type of grocery store in mind? - No, please assume
What is the market you want to pick? - US
Do you have any particular user segment for whom you want to improve the sopping experience for? - No, please assume
Do you have a particular goal in mind? No, please assume

What is an in-store grocery shopping experience in US?

I'm going to consider a grocery store like Trader Joe's that sells only food and beverages and nothing else. The food can be anything ranging from fresh produce to packaged and frozen food. In such a grocery-store, there are two kinds of stakeholders - buyers and store staff.
Buyers pick a cart kept outside the store and after entering the store, start from an aisle and start picking food as per their liking one after the other.
The store is laid out in aisles where food is kept in pre-decided categories such as bakery food, frozen food, herbs and spices, etc. Each aisle has the categories displayed at the top to make it easier for the customers to decide which aisle do they want to enter. Name and price of each food item is displayed in front of it for easy identification.
The store-staff include the cashiers, operations (i.e. people who are managing to fill up different aisles and replacing expired food) and customer support staff to help customers with their queries.

Goal of improvement:

Since, I have to improve the shopping experience and not the selling experience, I'd like to assume that it's the customers for whom I have to improve the experience. I hope you agree with me.
In-store experience can be anything from entering the store to checking out. I'm assuming our goal to be improving the experience while shopping i.e. after the user enters the store and before user decides to join the check-out queue
Within that our goal would be to eliminate any hassles of selecting and picking the food

Probable user segments:

Any adult customer with complete understanding of what to buy, how to buy and checkout
Handicapped customers
Senior citizens or any customer whose dietary needs are very specific and find it difficult to walk through each queue and have slow decision-making which makes their in-store grocery shopping extremely inefficient

I'm excluding any one below the age of 15 years because they would need their parents' assistance to buy at the grocery-store.

I would pick senior citizens as the target user segment for this improvement because I don't see anything specific available for their help within the store, at least not that I know of.

User journey:

The existing journey of the in-store experience for anyone after entering the store:
- Deciding which aisle to start from
- Walking through the aisle and deciding what to pick and what not to pick OR going by pre-made shopping list
- Finishing shopping

Needs of a senior citizen:

Deciding the next aisle to walk the least since it takes a lot of energy to cover every aisle and they want to reduce that
Deciding whether to pick a food or not based on their health conditions
Difficult to pick-up heavy stuff from racks and put them in cart

I'd prioritize the second need because I think solving that problem would help the senior citizens choose better and faster.

Solutions:

A button at each of the name label that announces for which health conditions, the food is not suitable
A tab at the store entrance where the senior citizens can enter their health conditions and as a result they are sent a message of all the food items available based on their health conditions and corresponding aisle number
An app on which a doctor can directly suggest the food to consume to improve health conditions and the patient can add calendar events on it whenever they go for shopping
- The user is sent a list of suggested items within the app based on the grocery store they are visiting

Prioritizing the solution:

Reach - High because every senior citizen once told what the button does will be easily able to recognize the button at every food item stall
1. Impact - Medium to Low (it'll be a nuisance to keep clicking each button if the customer decides to check out each food item),
2. Effort and Cost - High because every time a new food item comes in, the store will have to get in such a button for that item
R - High
1. I - Medium - because the solution will not inform about any other items that are outside the list
2. E - Low but the store will always have to update the availability of various food items in the store which will be annoying unless automated
R - Medium to Low because every customer may not be comfortable in sharing their details to a third-party app outside the ones directly related to the healthcare provider. Also, all the doctors may not take the effort of adding these details without receiving a separate fee
1. I - High because the user will receive direct suggestion from a doctor
2. E - Medium to High because of building suggestions on the app based on grocery store the customer visits

I'll go with 2nd solution because that is the easiest to build and has high reach for all the stores in the US and requires low effort.

Metrics to measure:

Number of searches per device per day/week/month - north-star
Number of devices sold

Guard-rail: Number of performance issues

Vishal Shah · Answer 4 · 2021-05-09T02:26:08+0000

Clarifying Qs: Is this an app or more of a in-store improvement that maybe supply chain oriented? Can we assume this is for US considering that's the market I am more familiar with? Are we attempting to improve experience for certain set of users?

I: Your call on all of these?

Me: Also, is there a specific goal in mind that we want to stive towards per leadership guidance and direction?

I: You define that for the company and present to your leadershp. He is depending on you to showcase company vision.

Me: Ok. Grocery stores care about customer acqusition and retention. Maturity level doesn't matter here much. If they can't get retention the food they order will rot and will result in negative business impact. To increase revenue they would want new customers.

There can be different type of uses we could build solution for 1)Consumers / Customers 2)Employees 3)Vendors. We could sub-segment these users but I think let's stick to these segments. I would ike to focus on Consumers since that's the largest pool of on whom I could make an impact and that user group is the core of what keeps the grocery store alive.

NExt let's think of some of the needs that a consumer segment may have. To think of that I would like to think of me in a grocery store. 1)Plan to go to grocery store 2)I think about what I want to buy and where it might be cheaper. But I realize I don't know current price of x since it wasn't in teh flyer. 3)I think about what the optimu route might be for me.4)I choose a store or route and i get to grocery store but don't remember where to go in the store or end up taking rndom asiles in the end taking me more time. 5)When I get to the item I wonder if it might be cheaper in the other store. 6)I buy the item, but it in my cart and have to now wait in long liens at the asile which is getting me delayed maybe or just not fun to stand in long lines. 7)I finally return my cart and head wherever else.

I realize my pain points are:

a)Not knowing best store to reduce my overall bill

b)Inability to optimize my time in teh store sicne I have to navigate various asiles to find item or look for associate to ask for where I can find x

c)Long lines are frustrating at the checkout.

d)I also forget to get something else.

Let's focus on a and d. Solving c can be done as well but with fast self-checkout lanes this process is becoming more efficient. It can also be a long term thing we could incorporate to enhance user expereince (such as scan and pay via phone and hence checkout on spot). + a addresses a problem to be fixed before c can even come into action. b is interesting but most people don't have so much of that prob considering aisles are fairly well name in the store and most people typically have a store or 2 of choice so they remember store aisles quite well.

Solutions:

A1)I image an app where I keep adding my shopping list. However, the difference here is the app allows for stores to subscribe to my app's business. That way the app can show me updated prices at each store that's marked as my fav. Maybe on teh front page it will show me 2 most fav store prices and then I can click menu or something to see additional store and their prices. I can scroll down and it will show me in a column format TOTAL bill (column 1 would be store 1 and column 2 would be store 2). That way I know what store is better for me to head to. (R=5, V=5, F=5)

A2)The app can tell me "you may want to hold off buying this item today. x store will have better pricing for this next Tuesday per past data." (R=5, V=3, F=3)

D1)Once I get to the store or on my way or the day off, I can open the app and click going today. Or when I get to the store it uses GPS to automatically know I am at the store. The app will look through my grocery list and based on past data notifications will tell me here are the items I don't see on your list but it seems like it may be time to get 2 cans of black beans and some Cauliflower. (R=4, V=4, F=3)

D2)Based on items added to my grocery list, if App finds a recipe that uses many of those items, it could tell me "This receipe includes all the items you are shopping for today but you will also need x. X is only for $.99/lb today, in lines with other stores." (R=3,V=3,F=3)

If I have to pick an MVP it would be A1. I say this because as a consumer I am most likely to want to head to store that saves money. Most consumers don't end up driving distances for bit less pricey grocery unless they are going to be in that area. So here Value to Customer is high since customers care about this cost aspect and this is a simple thing to implement that can be accomplished in just a few sprints if not a month (2 week 2 sprints). The rest of the solutions are great and do add value, however, I feel their value is just not as high.

Trade-offs:

There are trade-offs to my MVP I realize. There could be glitches in price and/or if the price changes after I have chosen to go to that store due to pricing I saw, I wuld be quite frustrated but this is an edge case so I doubt this is an issue we should worry about much. It also will lead to increased competition amongst stores so overtime it may end up that pricing is equal and this feature won't help in moving the needle. Plus such an app has a risk of businesses "price fixing" (violation of Sherman Act) without actually communicating to each other. So we may face some legal issues here, however, considering there are apps like RedLaser (I think), I think we may be fine.

I think these solutions would result in consumers wanting to visit the store that has low prices and will make it easy for consumers to see what store cosistently has lower prices. This will increase retention of that particular store by the consumer.

Summary:

All in all, I thought of focusing to improve grocery experience by thinking of an app that grocery stores could subscribe to. Grocery stores can provide transparency via app to attract consumers to visit them hence improving their retention metrics. Grocery stores would also increase competition in the market place which is good for the consumer, a positive user impact. I understand that this isn't necessarily excatly an "in=store" experience, however, I have taken "in=store" in a broader sense by providing solution to help consumers decide a store to go to based on real time pricing.

Satish Nandi · Answer 5 · 2021-05-02T18:52:23+0000

Clarify the Scope
Just a clarification, while we are saying improve this is more of a product design - Yes.

Can we focus on US market as I am familiar with users and grocery shops - Sure
- Let me also narrow it down to larger grocery stores i.e. Lucky, Safeway and not in big box shops like Costco. or really small mom and pop store.
Negotiate a smaller scope
The focus will be on mobile app as it will be needed while shopping. I will not talk about Web or desktop app - OK
As it is made explicitly in the question, it is all about experience in the store and not delivery.
Choose the Goal for the product (Describe after scope down)
OK, we are designing a mobile app product for better in-store grocery shopping experience in US for large stores i.e Lucky, Safeway, Walmart not considering club stores i.e Costco, Sam's club
List User Groups
I will listing the users in a slightly different way than usual.
1) Busy individuals - Want to get the shopping done as quickly as possible.
2) Family without kids - Who want to have an pleasant experience of shopping together
3) Family with kids - Similar to above but with kids, keeping in mind kids needs to be entertained, and may have different needs. But largely overlap with family.
4) Elderly - For most of them, this is one of the life's activity for them. They don't mind extra time exploring but need help with heavier objects.
Selected Group
For our discussion, let go with Elderly group, it is not the most favorite for many people, so it might bring a different perspective to the discussion.
List User Needs & Pain Points
Needs of Elderly grocery shopping
- Price sensitive, not have a boat load of money to throw, retired people are conservative with spending.
- In some case, may need motor carts to get around the shop
- Due to age, they need to be conscious of health issues. i.e Diabetics, blood pressure etc.
- Need help with heavier items.
- Have plenty of time and for them, grocery shopping is a pastime not a chore.
- Unable to read small print on the items.
- Be able to chime to store keeps when they need help.
- Help with budget shopping, coupon tagging etc. (Add up all your items & price it out as they shop to help them with budget shopping.)
- See if you can make it one stop shopping Grocery, Meds.
List Product Ideas
1) App is aware of all the store aisles and inventory
2) Price information is integrated.(help with budget shopping)
3) Recipe of food & in-app videos for the recipes
4) (a) Medical conditions of each individual is integrated or
4(b) provide generic data food interaction actions.
5) Shopping list/wish list.
6) Easy way to read fine prints.
7) Help request.
Prioritize a solution
In our case, it is factors are Impact , cost to implement,
These are listed in the order of priority.
1) H, M
5) H, L
7) H, L
2) H, L
4b) H, L
---- Below the MVP---
4a) H, M
3) M, H
6) H, L
Describe the Selected Solution
It is a mobile app, the shopper can use to add their shopping list along with wish list items. The app will scan through items prices across different stores and provide options to user 1) best place to shop at one store 2) Cheapest way to shop 3) May even offer to arrange for transportation in future enhancements. 4) Provide the best time to go so it is easy to find parking or cheaper transportation. (Older people are generally in their retirement & have lots of free time)

The app is aware of the store inventory, aisles so it can navigate your through the store for your shopping needs.
It can provide them with total pricing as they put things in their basket, so one does not need to worry if they have blown through their budget.

The MVP includes providing general guidance for food and medical interaction (high sugar items warning, etc)
Define a success matrix
# Number of elderly shoppers /week and /month (for short term tracking) using the app.
# YoY increase in elderly shoppers in the shoppers using the app (to account for season variations.
# Number of stores adoptions.
# User ratings.
Summarize your answer
This is a mobile app which helps elderly to manage their shopping starting with shopping list, directions to store. When in store, it help them navigate through store for their needs with guidance on food contents, pricing and budget.

ajayg · Answer 6 · 2021-01-13T04:22:48+0000

Clarifying Questions:

Is it for a specific grocery retailer/outlet? Or generic? - Let's say a Generic app
Is it for the US market or Worldwide- US
Any specific groceries like Organic only ? etc - No, Anything in general
Can there be an app that goes along with the physical in- store experience - Choice is yours.
Any specific Goal in mind towards improving the shopping experience like increased engagement of users, increase in revenue, sales, improve the customer experiences in-store? - Lets go with improving Customer Experience in-store that can in turn drive higher sales.

Goal: Is to improve Customer Experience in-store

Users:

Elderly - who might need more help
Busy Working Individuals - who need to complete their weekly grocery shopping quickly/easily
A Family with kids
Family with Pets

I will go with the Busy Working Individual, as I feel they need to quickly get their grocery and leave to attend to other demands so we have to make their shopping experience more efficient, productive and thereby this will lead to the increase in NPS ratings and increased sales.

User Journey/Pain points

Sally is a working professional who lives in the city and does her groceries once a week
She typically has a List and updates it once in a while
She is also health conscious and chooses products wisely but she has very little time for grocery shopping and needs it to be easy and convenient.
Since time is of essence, she likes to find a perfect parking spot upon arrival in-store
She struggles at times to find the exact aisles in which the item is located and hence wastes precious time
She does not like long lines at checkout and w’d appreciate a very efficient way of getting items bagged and checked out

I will prioritise a few of these pain points per Sally’s desired experiences and her preferences

Since time is of essence, she likes to find a perfect parking spot upon arrival
She struggles at times to find the exact aisles in which the item is located and hence wastes precious time
She does not like long lines at checkout and w’d appreciate a very efficient way of getting items bagged and checked out
She typically has a List and updates it once in a while

Solution IDeas for the above Pain points - Will go with 1,2,3 based on the pain points above for MVP

Priority	Solution	Value/Effort
1	#1: Finding a Parking Spot easily: The grocery app should be able to use local maps and a list of nearby parking spots. If the grocery outlet itself has dedicated parking structure/open space, must be able to give real time parking spot availability and the time limit for which its available.	High/High
2	Search needs to be improved within store to help Sally find the right items - which aisle, which shelf , etc details for easy discoverability - an in-store voice assistant can be leveraged for this search	High/High
3	Scanners for price should be available at every aisle to help Sally check the price, add to cart or discard from cart. Smart carts will help Sally make payments once the cart is updated, use Credit/Debit/PayPal mechanisms to make payments . Receipts from the transaction will be saved in the app. All this makes checkout faster.	High/High
4	Sally should be able to create Shopping Lists using voice-activated agents to save time. The voice agent can suggest or recommend any item based on the past history of purchases or based on what Sally has picked up on the current list and perhaps she missed out an item ( e.g to make pancakes, she picked up flour, sugar, syrup but forgot to add eggs!)	Medium/Medium

Metrics:

Primary Metric: Total Sales - per user, on a weekly,daily, and monthly basis

Secondary metrics:

%of DAU,WAU, MAU who use the in-store search assistant to locate products

% of total checkouts using aisle scanners on a Weekly, Daily, Monthly basis

# of users who abandoned their Cart

Avg time spent per user within a store

Time taken to check out per user