PasarMIKRO: LangsungAja

Overview:

PasarMIKRO is a social enterprise that is determined to empower #MikroHeroes Agri through platforms and digitalization, to create a strong and efficient people's agricultural supply chain network.

Project Background:

One of the company goals in 2023 is to increase the number of transactions in the app. For product design, I was in charge of experimental ideas and given freedom to explore.

Users in General:

Image 2 & 3: Our interaction with traders and farmers

Problem Background:

We did research by going to 3 users in Cirebon and Tasikmalaya and also asked our Business Development team. We found that:

• Before joining our platform, users already had a usual transaction with their partners (other traders or farmers). Currently in PasarMIKRO, if a user wants to make a transaction with his/her partner, they both need to be in the app. However, some of the partners do not want to install the app. Hence, they transact manually and the buyer pays in cash to the seller.

• Farmers likely hesitate to use the app because they think they are too old to operate it and are afraid to make a mistake. Proven by their statement that they only have communication apps like WhatsApp. They mainly use it to communicate with the traders and then continue the transaction manually again.

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Initial Design Challenge:

How can we empower those traders and farmers, who tend to not want to use tech or download another app, to move away from cash and transact digitally?

Last Transaction Flow:

We still need both parties to use our app. The seller has to act first by giving offers to the buyer.

Then the buyer needs to open the app, accept the offer, and pay.

Even though in reality, the buyer is the one who wants to buy, not receiving the offer.

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Proposed Solution:

Enabling transact with other people who are not using PasarMIKRO via WhatsApp.

We want our users to be able to transact with their usual partners. Since the partners are not using PasarMIKRO app, we want to try the idea of opening a WhatsApp channel for them. The users will create the transaction via the app, and the counterparties (act as a buyer/seller) will receive a WhatsApp message to confirm the transaction.

As for the name for this feature, we named it LangsungAja. This indicates the "fastest" way to transact. When the people agree on the deal, they can immediately transact within our platform.

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The Thinking Process Behind "LangsungAja"

This all starts with a cup of coffee at the cafe. As I stand in front of the cashier and order my coffee, what I only need to do is to say "One latte, please". The cashier then says the price and I pay. This is what we know as the Point-of-Sales system. We only need one party to write the transaction and the other only needs to pay.

I was thinking while sipping my coffee, can we adopt this into ours? I won't let my idea disappear just like that, so I created a quick, mini flowchart to see how can this be used.

Communicating ideas to stakeholders

And because we are still a small team, it is easy to reach my Product Leader and related stakeholders. I just wanted to hear feedback on this idea, so I explained to them verbally using the POS (Point-of-Sales) system analogy. After everyone had the same idea of this, I started creating lo-fi wireframes to show them the functionality. Started with sketches in my notebook to give more context and iterate on ideas faster.

Finally, I used Whimsical to translate the sketches into a hi-fi wireframe to be more visible for the stakeholders.

*Transaksi Langsung = Direct Transaction. The first name I thought of before "LangsungAja" because it was simple and to the point 😁✌️

After the stakeholders have agreed to continue with this concept, I can now proceed to the details and UI Design.

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LangsungAja - Get to The Details:

There are 2 basic cases to cover this new feature. Listed below.

Case 1:

As a user, I want to buy from a seller who doesn't install the app

Design:

Explanation: Open LangsungAja menu to start.

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Explanation: User select the seller phone number from their contact. For the first transaction, they need to enter the seller's information such as name and bank account. This to make sure the money from the transaction will be send correctly to the seller. No need to re-enter information for the next transaction.

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Explanation: User enter the commodity they want to buy from the seller. And also the details such as amount, unit, and price per unit.

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Explanation: Before users can pay, they need to wait for the seller's confirmation.

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Explanation:

The seller receives a WhatsApp message to see the details and confirm. If confirmed, the user can continue to pay.

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Explanation:

The user continues payment after the seller confirm the WhatsApp message.

Note: The money will not be transferred to the seller before the transaction is completed.

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Explanation: User can see the ongoing transaction and easily wait for the seller to send the commodities. Lastly, confirm with the button to complete the transaction.

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Case 2:

As a user, I want to sell to a buyer who doesn't install the app

Design:

Explanation: Open LangsungAja menu to start.

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Explanation: User select the buyer's phone number from their contact. For the first transaction, they only need to enter the buyer's name. No need to re-enter information on next transaction.

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Explanation: User enter the commodity they want to sell to the buyer. And also the details such as amount, unit and price per unit.

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Explanation: User creates the transaction and waits for buyer to confirm and pay.

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Explanation:

The buyer will receive a WhatsApp message to confirm the transaction. Then they will receive the payment link. After payment and when the transaction is ongoing, the buyer will also need to confirm if the commodities have arrived for the transaction to be completed.

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Testing with Users

We need initial feedback from users. So we decided to have a visit once again and asked them to use the new feature we have created. At this time, we were using a prototype with Figma and made it as real as possible.

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Implement, Outcome and Impact:

After a set of iterations, we implemented this idea and looked at the data for one month. Is there any transaction growth with this feature?

After one month of releasing the feature, the results are: 📈 The feature boosts the increase of number of transactions by 35% 🥳 User satisfaction. We conducted a post-release interview and got positive responses from users saying that now they can transact with their partners within PasarMIKRO ecosystem.

"As an elder, it might be difficult. But then we can operate it smoothly."

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Iteration:

3 months after LangsungAja was released, and considering the data we got that most of the users use this feature, so we integrated it for our next project. We wanted LangsungAja to be our main way to transact.

The next phase is to simplify the transaction. The goal is to make the transaction even simpler than before.

As what I do in this project, I am trying to redesign the Home Screen to be more context-oriented. Giving users a set of actions available immediately from the Home Screen. And also integrating LangsungAja into 2 basic menus called "Beli Komoditas" and "Jual Komoditas".

New Home Sitemap

This is a summary of all the actions from the Home Screen and what it looks like after tapping on it.

The transaction flow is divided into 2 basic use cases:

As a user, I want to buy from someone who already verified and pay in the app

As a user, I want to receive an order from a verified buyer

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Learning Points

As I was working on this project, there were so many exciting things I learned. One of them is:

It's not always about the app. It's all about the journey.

I've always thought, that the best product is when they have all the features. All of it must be included in the app. The processes will always be done there. Then I realized what I might missed is maybe the journey and feel between users and our product. Not only when they use the app, but instead when they are interacting with us as an ecosystem.

It is important to set touchpoints for our users' interaction. Then we can decide how to create the best journey for them. Sometimes, some processes can be done by only making use of the existing solutions 🙌.