Swan
United Arabian Emirates

Bringing a new grocery shopping experience for UAE market

Retail & E-commerce  
/  iOS · Android · Responsive web
Our Contribution
  • Product strategy
  • Mobile app design
  • Back office design
  • RTL designs
  • Brand strategy
  • Brand identity
  • Launch & promo
Timeline
  • 1,5 years
  • (Aug 2018 - Feb 2019)

Online grocery shopping can be frustrating and time consuming. Swan team wanted to change it and cooperated with The Gradient to create a world-class grocery shopping experience in the UAE market.

Informed by extensive market and user research, we've built the first quick prototype in just two weeks.

We also worked on creating the full brand experience for Swan: brand strategy, brand story, design guidelines, app design for user, picker and driver as well as retailer's portal, unique illustrations both for online and offline contexts.

Today, Swan is an ecosystem of digital products that makes the online grocery shopping quick, easy, and fun.

“Their team has a deep knowledge of technology and is willing to challenge us in constructive ways.”
Kashif Hamed, Product manager at Swan

Quick, simple and delightful experience

We designed the experience around the idea of speed and small delightful moments aimed to engage customers during their online grocery routine. Preview based category listing allows customers to navigate the app quickly and add products to the cart without opening the product details page. Large imagery helps users to make proper product decisions quicker while one step checkout automatically saves users preferences and allows them to check out just in one tap.

Scan & Go

We also designed a Scan & Go mobile application that allowed customers to scan their items as they shop and check-out via the app to skip the lines. We came up with a test-proven approach of thumb-first interaction that enables customers to easily navigate the app using only one finger while holding the items in another hand.

Picker and
Rider apps

From the delivery process perspective, Swan application has a slightly different model of work than other apps in the category. Unlike Postmates and Instacart, order assembly and order delivery are done by different people. In the case of Swan, order assembly is done by a Picker, usually a store employee, while order delivery is carried out by Drivers.

In close collaboration with the clients’ operational team, we designed standalone apps for Pickers and Drivers that provide better customer experience through reducing delivery time and increasing the accuracy of ordered products.

Store dashboard

We designed an experience for store managers that allows to see and track all of the sales data in real-time and get an extensive report of main metrics and KPI's.

Brand and character design

In parallel with the product designs, we were working on the branding and marketing activities. We’ve created the brand identity and cooperated with talented illustrator Anastasiia Andriichuk to create a Swan character and set of illustrations which reflect fun and playful experience.

Marketing support

Additionally, we worked on all marketing activities necessary to launch the product on the market. We prepared a landing page, launched advertising campaigns on social media, as well as created a series of branded materials for offline advertising.

In cooperation with AND ACTION video agency, we created a set of promo videos for the launch.

Ongoing improvements

After the successful launch of the MLP, we continued to work on improvements, optimization, and implementation of the shelved features that were not included in the first version.

Quick reorder

During our research on people’s grocery shopping habits, we found out that every shopping list consists of products that people buy regulary. To save the time of finding the essentials, we decided to introduce the “reorder” feature, that allows customers to quickly purchase products from previous orders. With this feature, our customers can rest assured that their household is running efficiently and that they never forget to buy the dog food.

Substitutions

Customers sometimes had to cancel the order because 3 out of 5 products were missing. To address that problem, we came up with an idea to always show the user substitute options for items that are often low in stock or essentials. Now, when a user adds a hot item to the cart, Swan’s recommendation engine would provide a selection of substitutes.

Outcomes

4.5⋆

Rating in App Store and Google Play

12k

Orders per month in 90 days after the launch

100+

Connected stores across Dubai and Abu Dhabi

Let's get in touch

Interested in retail & e-commerce experience?
Get in touch to find out what we can do together.
Drop us a line to hello@thegradient.com

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