August 29, 2018

Tesco: List maker (proof of concept)

Problem

How might we help customers plan their shop to maximise their budgets more effectively?

What we did

We reviewed the Customer Needs Library for research and evidence to find out what needs we had already identified regarding lists and list making. There was already a fairly detailed body of research which had been created during previous, failed attempts to get customers to create lists on Tesco apps and websites.

What we learnt was:

1. Previous efforts to add list-making functionality to digital products had failed because the costs of relearning a new process and the perceived value
2. Lists are undoubtedly important to customers, particularly those who plan their shops but they’re invariably paper-based
3. Lists often get built up incrementally over the course of a week - often on bits of paper stuck on fridges
4. Some instore customers spent a large amount of time diligently checking the costs of their lists against online stores to manage their budget
5. Customers don’t want to be embarrassed at the checkout by being unable to pay for the goods in their basket
6. Customers may hire Scan As You Shop as a way to avoid checkout embarrassment

What we did

Mission: Give the paper shopping list superpowers

We made a decision to explicitly avoid trying to replace the paper lists and instead leave them as the primary list-capturing method. We belived that using developments in computer vision and image to text services on AWS and Azure might offer us an opportunity to connect the paper list with Tesco’s product and grocery APIs to demonstrate a low-friction way to give customers a digital version of their shopping list.

Proving this was possible opened up the possibility of further value-adding features (or superpowers) such as:

• the shortest route through the store to collect everything on your list
• nutritional information about your list
• suggestions for recipes based on your basket
• deals to make your budget go further

product design apps prototypes tesco UI computer vision proof of concept caseStudy

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