Kroger / Spring 2023 Experience Studio

Overview

Kroger Technologies is a subsection of Kroger who work together to test and prove ideas that are in line with Kroger's overall goals. Once they have learned from these tests, they apply that knowledge to the larger business in order to expand and grow.

Our team was tasked with exploring the future of grocery shopping and immersive consumerism to design and deliver potential (low-fidelity) solutions to Kroger.

Roles

Team Co-Lead

I co-lead this project along with Emilio Rios-Rojas. We created our project plan, daily agenda, and oversaw its execution.

Emilio-Rios Rojas - Co-Lead
Thomas Carlock
Tejasvi Bhagwatkar
Jasmine Bui
Emilyn Worstell
Chenhe Zhao

Userbase

We identified college students as are our ideal users because they are new to grocery shopping and value affordability and convenience. These qualities align with Kroger's provided research and their user-group of, "Making Ends Meet", which accounts for 26% of its users. Kroger Kyle is an imagined persona who represents our users.

Project Milestones

We separated our project into three milestones to explore unique areas for innovation in the grocery shopping space. We wanted to look into social commerce, immersion, and futuristic technologies. This case study will cover milestones #1-2.

1. How do our users currently experience social commerce and what new opportunities for experiencing social commerce can we generate?

2. How might we immerse customers in an online setting, to bridge the gap to the in-person experience?

3. How can cutting edge technologies be incorporated into the grocery shopping experience?

Final Solutions Preview

Milestone 1: How do our users currently experience social commerce and what new opportunities for experiencing social commerce can we generate?

Research

Our team began our research with interviews and a comparative analysis to better understand how users interact with social commerce. We conducted interviews with 6 college students who had used social media, and shopped online before. Our comparative analysis was done on social media platforms and how they utilize their advertisements.

Insight
Young people value convenience, affordability, and trustworthiness. They are wary of social media ads, but receptive to influencer endorsements. They prefer in-person shopping experiences, but appreciate the convenience of online shopping, such as the keywords, recommendations, and quick delivery.

Insight
Advertisements show up in many different form factors, and they are optimized for each individual platform. Infinite scroll-type applications sneak ads in over time whereas a YouTube or Twitch is very upfront on them.
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‍In-feed ads: These ads show up in the main social feed, alongside other posts from friends and family.
Story ads: These ads appear in the Stories section of social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat.
Product placement ads: These ads are integrated into content, such as sponsored posts or videos.
Shoppable ads: These ads allow users to purchase products directly from the social media platform.

Ideation & Sketching

Following our research and insights, our team did several rounds of sketching to getting any initial ideas on paper.

Sketch #1 -
Enables the user to shop with certain dishes in mind; Show recipes based on food item.

Sketch #2 -
In-App Browser that incorporates TikTok scrolling methods. Autoplays gifs and videos of grocery items. View them in AR. Also attatches a Kroger ID.

Sketch #3 -
Users interact with Kroger posts on social media, to directly view and buy items.

Sketch #4 -
Kroger friends lists; can save, share, and discover recipes.

Sketch #5 -
Integrated social media notifications that show friend interactions with Kroger products and recipes.

Kroger Social

We chose to focus on the social aspect of shopping because ads are often not personalized or trustworthy, and social commerce offers a way to create fun and engaging online interactions while browsing for groceries and recipes.

Starting with browsing for groceries, a For You tab is added for a personalized view of item lists. This system recommends ideal items based on personal preferences, past orders, saved recipes, etc so that users do not have to scroll past unwanted items. Similar to social media services such as TikTok, or Instagram, the For You tab allows for machine learning opportunities for users' grocery shopping experience to get even better.

While browsing the Kroger social feed, users can be inspired by family, friends and other people’ meals. Beyond interacting with it, the system generates a list of shoppable ingredients, making cooking preparation easier than ever. By integrating shoppable recipes, Kroger stands out from other grocery shopping applications, and our Friends page can help bring the spotlight to recipes as well.

Inspired by the Instagram profile page, users can interact with their posts and journey in shopping and cooking. Users can save & collect recipes from friends and recommendations. This creates easy access to inspirational recipes and the ability to shop for specific ingredients.

Kroger Social Reflection

In retrospect, Kroger Social was an attempted solution in a difficult and futuristic problem space. Looking to the future of social commerce and Kroger's intersectionality within that space was not easy, and I think our team should've spent more time refining details, and questioning our supporting data. I am happy with what we produced as a team, but I look at this milestone as a learning experience.

Milestone 2: How might we immerse customers in an online setting, to bridge the gap to the in-person experience?

Interviews

A total of nine interviews were conducted to gain insight into how individuals shop in-store. As the shopping experience can vary significantly among users, the goal was to identify a collective set of challenges and opportunities that could be addressed in the digital space. Below is an affinity diagram of our interview findings.

Insight
The most important insights we found from our synthesis were identified patterns in behavior, such as: Most users shop with some idea in mind of what they want, there is a low desire to shop in-person for college students, and not knowing stock before they get to the store can be frustrating.
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Secondary & Inspiration

To address the grocery shopping pain points identified above, specifically focusing on the discrepancy when it comes to online shopping, and the sense of control when shopping in person, our team looked into realism within the digital shopping space.

In Philadelphia, Peapod created a virtual convenience store on big screens & placed them near transit stops to attract potential consumers. It is scannable via personal devices to quickly shop for necessities during busy times transitioning between transportations (Wilson, 2012).

Kroger Aisles

Out team created a low-fidelity design that aims to bridge the in-store shopping experience with online platforms. The prototype simulates in-store browsing through Krogers existing app in an effort to increase feelings of control when shopping online.

The re-imagined Aisle View shopping page is representative of an aisle, displaying items much like how they would be displayed in real life. This gives the user the opportunity to browse for items in a more familiar way while being completely virtual.

The user also has the ability to fully expand an item's information page to get even more information such as a product description and nutrition facts. The user can return to the Aisle View or the current Kroger view at any time.