Peapod Digital Labs - In-Store Shop Alongs
Study Goals
Understand store associates’ workflow and process as they fulfill orders. The product team had never documented how orders were fulfilled in the store.
Understand why customers are waiting long periods of time for the orders at pickup.
Research Method
In-store observations / shop alongs
Work Partners
Note takers:
3 members from the Market Research team
1 member of the design team
Stakeholders:
4 Project Managers
My Role
Identified stores to visit based on order volume, and physical store layout
Scheduled visits with Store Managers and District Coordinators
Observed associates’ workflow and asked probing questions along the way
Participants
Visited 2 grocery brands
Stop & Shop
The Giant Company
Visited 2 stores per brand
1 high, 1 low volume store
Spent 2 days at each store
8 hours each day, shadowing shoppers and a “manager” (~15 associates)
Also interviewed customers at their car during pickup (10 shoppers)
Key Research Questions
Associates
How do associates fulfill a pickup order from beginning to end?
What do associates feel is working well about their fulfillment process, and what do they think could be improved?
Are there physical or process barriers in getting orders fulfilled?
How could we deliver orders to customers more quickly?
How many people are scheduled on various days / shifts?
How are refunds or returns processed?
How are associates picking items for orders?
How do associates identify a suitable substitute if an item is out of stock?
Key Research Questions
Customers
How has their experience been with this pickup service?
About how long were they waiting today before their order was brought out?
How could this pickup service be improved?
Key Findings
1. Create Efficient Staffing Schedules
Staffing more associates at busy times of day is crucial to maintaining pickup times and reducing perceived wait time.
Fulfilling pickup orders is a team effort, but at times other non-pickup associates are slowing down the process.
2. Enhance Communication
Current tech makes communicating with other employees to coordinate picking and delivering tasks difficult.
3. Create Picking Efficiencies
Staging dry items in a cart before the customer’s pickup time saves a few minutes when the customer arrives.
If the pickup area has doors leading to the parking lot, exiting those doors is more efficient than using the main doors.
Setting up bags before shopping and adding a label only when needed saved time and didn’t waste bags.
4. Optimize Substitution Selection
The current substitution process, based on associates’ best guess at customer preference, is thoughtful but takes ample time.
Some customers see items to substitute online and expect to receive those specific items.
Even though associates are diligent in selecting the best replacement item, this process often costs the store more money.
5. Optimize Picking Technology
Most associates, even the most experienced, didn’t know how to read the location codes on their wrist-mounted picking devices.
Associates were slowed down because at times it was difficult to locate items with the data presented.
6. Digitize Physical Procedures
The current process of managing prep sheets with specialty departments can lead to fulfillment errors.
Associates keep track of customer orders with physical documents and spreadsheets which is tedious to manage.
Created a flow chart of the associate workflow to fulfill orders.
The product team had never documented the process to fulfill orders in-store.
Impact
Asserted myself as the lead researcher of this scrum team to help the team continue gathering feedback from associates.
A substitution recommendation model is being built that would surface a recommended item if an item a customer ordered is out of stock.
The location codes are being redesigned to be more understandable by associates.
The wrist-mounted devices will be receiving images for the items they need to pick for faster item identification.
The redesigned order management system will let associates know if prep sheets and invoices have already been printed, and will allow associates to add and refund items directly in the system.
