Shop Smart, Not Hard: Your Personal AI Shopping Companion!
Why did I come up with this idea?
Ofcourse, it is a personal pain point :( but I found out it's not just me, there is a whole reddit community that feels this way!
"What way" - you ask?
Well, how frustrating is it to keep switching tabs, keep up with research and keep relying on a fashionista for advice! - and so much effort to buy a single product online !
Online shopping - convenience turned into frustration.
I conducted interviews with friends and family, revealing similar challenges in their online shopping experiences.
I realised there is a huge market need for a solution to streamline and personalize that is yet to be explored
AI GPT took the world by storm when it was first introduced. This got me thinking if only chatgpt could actually accompany me while shopping and answer all my questions as I shop, it would be like shopping with my very own fashionista anytime I want !
Ideation strategy
Decoding Customer Experience: Begin by deeply understanding the customer's experience to uncover the core problem that needs solving.
Identifying Design Challenges: Analyze the customer experience insights to define the specific design challenges.
Consumer Understanding: Gain a thorough understanding of the consumers, their needs, preferences, and pain points.
Creating Personas: Develop detailed personas that represent the target audience, helping to empathize with and validate the needs of different user groups.
Brainstorming Solutions: Conduct brainstorming sessions to generate a wide range of ideas, focusing on innovative solutions that address the identified design challenges for each persona.
The game isn't fun if we don't know who our opponents are!
There is always competitors in the field who already have a market share or is ready to capture the attention (psst! we are trying to kick them out of the game)
The strategy is know the enemy's strength and weakness to plan our moves (product features)
Competitor Analysis - Strategy and Purpose
Identify Competitors: List out direct, indirect, and potential competitors in the market.
Analyze Strengths and Weaknesses: Evaluate each competitor’s products or services to understand their advantages and shortcomings.
Market Positioning: Determine how each competitor is positioned in the market and their unique selling proposition (USP).
Product Comparison: Compare features, pricing, customer service, and other key aspects of your product against competitors.
Identify Gaps: Look for market gaps or areas where competitors are underperforming, which could represent opportunities for your product.
Continuous Monitoring: Regularly update the analysis to reflect changes in the market and competitive landscape.
Navigating the Future: Overcoming Barriers in the Market Trend Maze
Its time to look into the "now" before stepping into the "future". What do customer's actually think about this idea ?
I have used chatbots to help me in various other scenarios but if one fine day I am suddenly told that I now have a personalized AI friend who can help me out and personalize my shopping experience, will I just simply jump in joy and welcome my new "Bot Buddy" ?
Will you?
Strategy behind Market trends
Usage Patterns: Analyzing current trends helps in understanding how customers are interacting with similar technologies, which features they prefer, and what aspects they find cumbersome or lacking.
Adoption Barriers: Market trends can highlight common challenges or hesitations that customers face, such as concerns over privacy, ease of use, or the effectiveness of the technology.
Innovative Solutions: By keeping a pulse on the market, companies can innovate and introduce features that address these barriers directly, enhancing user experience and encouraging wider adoption.
The Creation: Developing the AI Shopping Assistant
Now that we know the current market trends and problems, its time to get our hands dirty and conceptualize our "Bot Buddy"!
The main questions that needs to be addressed are
For whom are we building this product?
What should the bot do at the least to capture the attention of our users?
How do we know if the product is a success?
How are we going to build it?
Strategy behind Concept development
As a product manager, developing the concept for the AI Shopping Assistant involves a strategic approach to ensure it meets the market and user needs effectively. Here’s how you can structure this development:
Identify the Ideal Target Segment
Focus on e-commerce businesses and online shoppers who prioritize personalized and efficient shopping experiences.
Segment further based on shopping habits, technology adoption rates, and openness to AI-driven solutions.
Value Proposition
Offer a seamless, personalized shopping journey through AI-driven recommendations and support.
Enhance customer engagement and satisfaction, leading to increased loyalty and sales for e-commerce platforms.
Satisfying Customer Needs
Address the need for a quick, personalized, and interactive shopping experience that reduces decision fatigue and enhances decision-making confidence.
Job to be Done by the AI Shopping Assistant
Assist users in discovering products that fit their preferences and needs quickly and accurately.
Provide immediate, relevant, and helpful support to navigate the online shopping process.
Defining the MVP
What are the "must have" features that pushes the user to overcome barriers of adoption?
Success Criteria
Achieve a customer satisfaction score of 85% or higher.
Increase sales conversions by at least 15% through the assistant’s interactions.
Grow the adoption rate of the AI Shopping Assistant by at least 30% among the target user base.
Charting the Future: Unveiling the AI Shopping Assistant to Stakeholders
Now that we have our concept and defined our MVP, its time to meet up with our star team and the stakeholders to determine how we are going to build our star product!
It's go time!
Crafting the Customer Journey: Building the Blueprint of AI Shopping Success
Now we wear our creator hat and start building our "Bot Buddy" piece by piece.
Each piece signifies an important feature that makes our friend stand out and help our users the way they want to be helped!
Synergizing Sprints: The Collaborative Journey of Agile Planning
Now that we have all our puzzle pieces, lets bring in our collaboration team (developers, designers, QAs) to build, integrate and evaluate through agile planning!
This discussion with the team not only give a clear view of the tasks that need to be performed, a timeline to keep our team stay on track and build our "Bot Buddy".
Each owner will add the necessary tasks needed to build the user story, who will be the lead technical contributer (feature owner), minimum time required to complete the tasks, which sprint the task is planned for.
Expected format for collaborators to fill user story
User story:
Designer tasks:
Task -1 :
Individual contributer : @xyz
Time required to complete task 1: X days
Sprint : (the name of the sprint this task is planned to be done)
Steps to be compeleted to complete the task
Sign-off criteria
Task -2
Task -3
Developer tasks:
Task -1 :
Individual contributer : @xyz
Time required to complete task 1: X days
Sprint : (the name of the sprint this task is planned to be done)
Steps to be compeleted to complete the task
Sign-off criteria
Task -2
Task -3
QA tasks:
Task -1 :
Individual contributer : @xyz
Time required to complete task 1: X days
Sprint : (the name of the sprint this task is planned to be done)
Steps to be compeleted to complete the task
Sign-off criteria
Task -2
Task -3
Each owner has to sign-off the feature to get it integrated into the main product for soft launch!
The Triumph: Launching the MVP
Now that we have our MVP, its time to evaluate our experiment with a small group of Beta customers!
Soft launch will help us understand the gaps that are existing the current MVP and bridge it before we launch the product in the market.
Strategy for Soft Launch
Onboard two types of beta customers - users from various income background and exposure to technology; e-commerce sites which are looking to improve their customer engagement scores.
A group of 200 people and 3 e-commerce websites will be carefully selected and monitored for 6 months.
Beta customers will directly raise issues whenever they face it and sprintwise feedback will be collected through feedback forms.
Bugs raised by beta customers will be tagged high priority fixes. These bugs will be fixed within a sprint and released as an update to the beta customers.
Success criteria for soft launch is to have CSAT scores steady and above 3.5 out of 5 for three consecutive months.
Sample Feedback Questionnaire
Overall Satisfaction: On a scale of 1-10, how satisfied are you with your experience using the AI Shopping Assistant?
Ease of Use: How easy was it to interact with the AI Shopping Assistant? (Very Easy, Easy, Neutral, Difficult, Very Difficult)
Understanding and Relevance: How well did the AI Shopping Assistant understand your queries and provide relevant responses or recommendations?
Speed and Efficiency: Were you satisfied with the response time and efficiency of the AI Shopping Assistant? (Yes, No, Sometimes)
Problem-Solving Capability: How effectively did the AI Shopping Assistant resolve your queries or assist you in your shopping process? (Extremely Effective, Somewhat Effective, Neutral, Somewhat Ineffective, Extremely Ineffective)
Personalization: How personalized did your interactions with the AI Shopping Assistant feel? (Highly Personalized, Moderately Personalized, Not Personalized)
Recommendations and Future Use: Would you recommend the AI Shopping Assistant to others, and will you continue using it based on your current experience? (Definitely Will, Probably Will, Not Sure, Probably Won't, Definitely Won't)
Strategy behind limiting the questionaire to less than 10 question will help capture the feedback without frustrating the customer.
Return of Investment - Revenue Strategy
First 30 days of installation will be a free trial followed by monthly premium subscription with analytics dashboard access, most requested product recommendations and user engagement score.
Why choose this revenue strategy ?
Risk-Free Trial: 30-day free trial encourages adoption by reducing perceived risk.
Value Demonstration: Users experience benefits firsthand, proving the assistant's worth.
Steady Revenue: Transition to a paid model post-trial ensures continuous income.
Analytics Access: Premium features like analytics dashboards increase perceived value.
Boosts Loyalty: Ongoing value from detailed insights enhances customer retention.
Market Insight: Early adoption and feedback during the trial inform product refinement.