Unlocking Whole Foods Market Catering on Amazon

Austin

2021-2023

A 65% cart abandonment rate on the current experience drives the need to unlock Whole Foods Market's catering business on Amazon.

Unlocking Whole Foods Market Catering on Amazon

The Whole Foods Market Catering business aims to own celebrations with a high quality menu that inspires guests to host occasions large and small. The business brings in 90M (2022) annually and 76% of those orders are during the Thanksgiving holiday. The current experience is hosted on an unreliable third-party development framework, inhibiting us to build in crucial e-commerce features like authentication for effortless reordering and seamless checkout. Our challenge is to transition to Amazon's platform, leveraging their expertise in order management logistics. This shift will empower us to concentrate on delivering an inspiring and guided shopping experience tailored for event planners.

The Problem

Customer

Catering takes more planning and coordination than grocery shopping and happens further in advance
Event dates and times are not always flexible
Restaurant catering is limited as it’s only one cuisine and can’t always please everyone
Finding options with special dietary needs is cumbersome
Choosing the right place to cater from is high stakes

Team Member

Planning, tracking and execution is a very manual process using pen and paper
Not all stores follow a consistent process which leads to shrink and food waste
Culinary TM has to visit different departments across the store to manage daily inventory

Legacy Tech Stack

The current tech stack that supports the existing catering experience is an unstable 3rd party platform
Very difficult to track data and success metrics
No user authentication for saved payment methods, order history or reordering capabilities
$$$ high cost to maintain and enhance

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I met with key stakeholders from Product, Engineering and Business to present key findings from user testing so we could align on a differentiated storefront. I showcased the pros and cons of each approach and we collectively aligned on a differentiated storefront. This ensures:

No cart conflict when checking out separately
No confusion between fulfillment promises
Clear and logical ingress and egress points that enables customers to orient themselves
Alignment with customers primary mission to order catering
Browse, search and filtering UX is for the catering menu only

Through a mix of user testing and generative research, we uncovered the distinct needs of the catering customer. The insights compelled us to re-work the project plan and allow more time for up-front discovery work. Now the real work begins...

Flow 2: Meals planned to perfection

Audience: Families, Culinary Enthusiasts

This second concept sets out to provide our avid planners with a tool that makes them super shoppers. When we reduce the time from planning, we can focus on building satisfaction. Shopping for groceries becomes more delightful when focusing on the food you love. These screens focus on the mobile app experience in which we focused on reducing the friction our customers experience as they plan their meals for the week. Building your meal plan translates into building your cart at the same time. Build your own bundle too!

After some rapid and informal research, it became evident that customers in the meal planner group enjoy creating weekly meal plans, even specifying days when they don't require meals. These plans are usually crafted based on the ingredients in their fridge and pantry, inspiration from recipes or favorites, and family preferences.

Projects insights

The eCommerce project is an exciting venture that aims to revolutionize the online shopping experience. As a UI designer, my role is to create a visually stunning and user-friendly interface that captivates users and enhances their interaction with the platform. Through careful consideration of color schemes, typography, and layout, I will craft an intuitive design that seamlessly guides customers through the shopping process. By focusing on aesthetic appeal and usability, the eCommerce project will provide an enjoyable and efficient online shopping journey for users, ultimately leading to increased customer satisfaction and conversion rates.

Flow 3: All of your favorites, automated

Audience: Single professionals, dual-income households

Looking further into the future, can we leverage what we know about our customers to create an intelligent and personalized shopping experience that can do the shopping for you? We want to allow for full customization and control for those who want it, or no work at all. Either way, groceries show up every week. Think automated meal plans or an auto-generated cart.

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Flow 3: All of your favorites, automated

Audience: Single professionals, dual-income households

Basil Design System

Taking on the overhaul of the website necessitated the creation of a new digital design language system. This system is designed to embody and reflect the brand essence, conveying organic, intuitive and welcoming. In technical terms, it needs to be extensible, accessible, and reusable

“The Whole Foods Market website should be Disneyland for food lovers. It should inspire the senses, spark a sense of discovery, encourage people to explore — while conveying a sense of order and ease.”

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Moderated Concept Testing

Remote Moderated Prototype Evaluation with n=21 customers

Key questions:

What features were users gravitating towards?
What brings them the most hesitation?
How did the site make them feel compared to shopping in-store?
Would they be more likely to use this site or stay on Amazon?

Overwhelming positive feedback proved that customers were interested in the following themes when it comes to shopping for groceries online.
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1. Increased Efficiency
2. Inspirational Content and Recommended Items
3. Personalization
4. Brand Recognition

Post Launch

In-store Pickup Location

During store intercepts, customers were not clear where they needed to pick up their order. Store layouts are unique from store to store which makes it difficult to implement a solution across all stores. We worked with Marketing to design clear signage designating where to go after placing the order as well as displaying a map on the confirmation screen.

(OUTCOME and OPPORTUNITIES)

(1-Outcome)

150 Stores, 306MM annually

Soft launch rollout to 150 stores in 2023 and all stores by end of 2024 proves this was the right decision for customers.

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Positive Sentiment

Positive sentiment to drive adoption — shoppers like having the option of shopping both groceries and catering on Amazon. It’s a familiar model to them and helps alleviate the learning curve for how it works.

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Owned Channel Experience

The unique challenges we faced to launch on Amazon helped carve out commitment towards building a fully branded experience on Whole Foods Market’s channel for those who want it while leveraging Amazon tech services and seamless checkout & post-order experience.

(2-Opportunities)

Storefront A/B Testing

Given the limitations of the Amazon storefront, how might we iterate and optimize on the storefront to guide users into assortment that meets their needs.

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Catering Planner

For those that need a little extra hand holding, how might we offer a tool that allows them to input their event details and receive expert recommendations and add-ons.

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B2B/Customer Concierge

How might we expand to serve B2B customers and offer concierge service to those who want advice, servers and setup/cleanup help.

(3-Project Team)‍

Dream Team

Product Design Lead: Hanisha Patel

UX Design Support: Molly Woods

UX Manager: Natalie Dare

Product Manager: Roshan Jhala

Research: Maggie McMahon and Arthur Wang

Development: WFM and Amazon Engineering

Brand Marketing Support: WFM Design Team

*All images are owned by Whole Foods Market.