ShopX - My UPI Payments

Despite the promising potential of digital payments, the ShopX app was faced with significant adoption hurdles due to its lack of in-app features and payment education. The challenges of limited visibility, inflexible payment settings, and the absence of personalised QR Codes left retail store owners in the lurch, while the app itself faced insufficient utilisation of peer-to-peer transactions. This situation was a pressing issue that threatened to stifle growth and innovation, creating a pressing need to find a solution.

Background

ShopX functioned as a Retail Marketplace and Logistical Solution that facilitated connections among brands, sellers, and retailers in the space of FMCG and Electronic goods.

The QR Code empowered our Retail Partners to receive payments directly into their bank accounts or ShopX App wallets.

Challenges Faced by Retailers and ShopX in Digital Payment Adoption

Lack of in-app features and payment education prevented widespread adoption of digital payments via the ShopX App, hindering growth and innovation.
Limited visibility of transaction history and inflexible payment settings hindered retail store owners' ability to manage their finances effectively.
Familiarisation of retail partners with the process and destination of digital payments was necessary to ensure smooth adoption of this electronic payment channel.

User Overview and Adoption Challenges

An insight into Shop'x users, outlining their backgrounds, business types, and the unique challenges they face with digital payments and financial management. Understanding these aspects helped me develop tailored solutions to address their varying levels of trust, comprehension, and frequency of use when engaging with digital financial systems.

Mani is a 40 years old woman has a gradu

Manimegalai S | 40 | Female

📍Chennai, Tamil Nadu

(2019)

Mani, had a graduate education and runs a mobile and electronics store in Chennai. She faced difficulties adapting to digital payments, requiring training and education to build trust in the system. Her transactions primarily happened offline, and although she attempted to use UPI for payments once a week, her preference lied in traditional banking due to comfort and trust issues.

Lalit Mehta | 50 | Male

📍Surat, Gujarat

(2019)

Ran a mobile and electronics store. Having been in business for 35 years, his experience was vast, but his exposure to digital methods, especially in sensitive areas like payments, had been limited. This lack of exposure made it difficult for him to fully embrace digital payments, as he still found the transition from traditional methods to digital platforms challenging. He preferred UPI for the few digital transactions he could complete, though he regularly visited banks for manual financial processes, showing a preference for physical banking interactions.

Shweta Rani | 38 | Female

📍Ranchi, Jharkhand

(2019)

Shweta operated a fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) store. With primary education, she was relatively more comfortable using digital payments, such as UPI and wallets, though she prioritised them second to other responsibilities. Her higher transaction frequency, especially during weekly rush periods, made it harder for her to keep track of payments and ensure they are credited promptly. She primarily relied on public banks, visiting them for specific needs and preferring UPI for regular transactions.

Key Insights on Digital Payments Accessibility Requirements

Users less familiar with digital payments, required ongoing education on how to effectively use UPI to accept payments. This included understanding its benefits, such as faster transactions and reduced cash handling.

Convenient QR Code Access

Users needed an easy access to retrieve and display store QR codes within the ShopX app, to be able to handle transactions swiftly without navigating multiple screens.

Flexible Payment Settings

Business owners wanted the ability to modify their payment preferences based on their business needs, such as adding more than one banks' details, switching between payment destinations, to adapt to changing requirements.

Viewable and Searchable Transaction History

Having a clear, searchable transaction history was essential for users to reconcile payments, ensuring they could verify which transactions were successful and follow up on any missing credits.

Increase UPI Adoption

Merchants want to see higher adoption rates of UPI among their customers. This required the platform to be user-friendly and merchants being familiarised with the advantages of digital payments to streamline their operations and increase overall payment efficiency.

Streamlining Prioritisation

Create a Trustworthy Experience
Building trust by ensuring secure, error-free, and user-friendly payment processes was crucial to easing their concerns and encouraging adoption..
Educate Retail Partners on the Offering
Providing clear and continuous education about how UPI payments worked.
Help Them Adapt to Digital Payment Collection
Simplify the transition from cash-based to digital payment systems.

Design Approach

Through user interviews, we gained insights into the comfort level of ShopX Retail App users with digital payments and their interactions with the system, including how often they needed to review transaction history and adjust payment settings.

We distilled our findings to align with their favoured actions.

The MVP
'MY UPI PAYMENTS' SECTION

Deployed Iterations

By focusing on the frequency of user activities, the design ensures that the most common actions, such as checking transactions, are straightforward, while less frequent tasks, like updating payment settings, are intuitive to perform. This follows Activity-Centered Design (ACD) principles, focusing on supporting user tasks and reducing friction in their primary activities.

Section Overview: 'My UPI Payments'

Transaction History Tab

Access Point & Navigation

The "My UPI Payments" section is accessible from the app's sidebar and is split into two tabs for easy access:
1. Transaction History
2. My QR Settings
The section opens by default on Transaction History, and users can switch to My QR Settings anytime.

Default View: Shows transactions from the current day, sorted from most recent to oldest.
Users can:
- View today’s transactions (default).
- View past 7 days' transactions using a pill button.
- Use a Date Picker to select custom date ranges for transaction history.
- See a summary strip showing the total amount collected and the number of payments during the selected period.
- Sort transactions from oldest to newest or vice versa.

My QR Settings Tab

QR Code Display
- Displays the user's QR code in a large frame for easy access.
- Includes a Download button to save the QR code as a PDF to local storage.
Payment Destination
- Shows the current payment destination under "You are receiving payments in."
- A Change Payment Settings button allows users to modify where payments are credited.
Nested Payment Settings
- Users can switch between ShopX Wallet or linked Bank Accounts.
- An option to add new bank account details is provided, allowing users to change or add payment destinations.

Impact

Launched: November 2019: Outcomes Over the Following Quarter
- Transaction Count Up by 62%
- Repeated User Base Enhanced by 94%

Objectives

Create a trustworthy experience
Educate Retail Partners on the offering.
Help them adapt to the habit of collecting payments digitally

Measures

Activation and Adoption

Training Development: Created materials to help Sales Agents onboard Retail Partners and provide clear usage instructions.
User Analysis: Monitored Active Users, Repeat Users, and user attrition monthly across different regions.
Retail Partner Support: Maintained regular feedback conversations with Retail Partners, offering guidance and support on app usage.
Issue Resolution: Quickly addressed technical issues and relayed feedback to the engineering team.
Promotional Activities: Leveraged Delivery Partners and Sales Agents for promotional efforts.
Marketing Initiatives: Launched and managed digital marketing campaigns.
QR Code Maintenance: Replaced damaged QR Code stickers as needed

The Growth Management Initiative led to a 92% increase in user base, an 86% rise in transaction count, and a 62% growth in Grand Transactional Value within just five months. These results highlight the success of our targeted strategies and the positive response from Retail Partners.