Refurbished, reimagined.
Flipkart is India’s leading e-commerce player, providing millions of consumers with a wide range of product categories to buy from. Over the years, it had acquired several electronics repair companies and large quantities of second-hand electronic goods with their robust buyback program. A business opportunity soon materialised — to amass used electronics and repair them, create a technology stack to support them, and set up the supply chain ecosystem and e-commerce capabilities to sell them.
However, refurbished electronics in India were typically only seen on C2C platforms where consumers bought and sold products directly. This entailed unpleasant experiences and concerns over safety, quality, warranty and secure payments.
To create 2Gud, a structured marketplace for used goods that guaranteed authenticity and safety, the team needed to build on top of Flipkart’s existing success and nurture the right value proposition for consumers.
Engagement Stage
Nurture
Learn 01
Using Flipkart’s Indian e-commerce expertise as the foundation for a strong value proposition for refurbishedImprove 02
Internalising insights to build a re-commerce platform that retained the trusted Flipkart experiencePromote 03
Laying the foundation for refurbished category creation through in-app promotion and consumer education
Learn 01
Using Flipkart’s Indian e-commerce expertise as a foundation for a strong value proposition for refurbished
After dominating the Indian e-commerce market, Flipkart had cracked the code on catering to consumers’ needs, setting industry standards and creating a rich code and design stack. With these learnings as the baseline, the team only needed to investigate the right value proposition for refurbished as another layer to e-commerce.
That said, buying refurbished is almost always a conscious choice and therefore a different ball game compared to regular e-commerce selling. While lower prices and value for money are important, several other refurbished-specific factors come into play. For starters, consumers often experience buyer’s remorse due to the perceived quality and reputation of second-hand products.
It was therefore important for the team to first evaluate the emotional process associated with buying refurbished goods, and then, figure what the right product-market-fit for 2Gud would look like.
The team kickstarted various research initiatives and ran multiple co-creation exercises with potential consumers to gather substantial data. Each participant was presented with cards and components and encouraged to build their own version of an ideal app.
By collaboratively building with the consumers, the team drew deeper insights into unique behaviour patterns to make targeted improvements. Consumers were involved at every step of the process thereafter and studies were conducted regularly to keep the focus of the platform consumer-first.
Improve 02
Building a re-commerce platform that retained the trusted Flipkart experience
After gathering an understanding of consumer behaviour, Flipkart knew the successful touchpoints and feedback it needed to internalise to attain true product-market fit. With Flipkart’s strong foundation acting as a springboard, the team was in a great position to build 2Gud and reap benefits.
By creating experimental prototypes and A/B testing with the target audience, the team fine-tuned 2Gud’s capabilities to suit the needs of refurbished buyers.
2Gud tapped into existing systems such as log-in, search, checkout and payments to create strong synergy and retain the trusted Flipkart experience. It granted consumers log-in access with their Flipkart credentials to let them use their saved cards and addresses, eliciting a favourable response.
A significantly different Product Detail page was crafted for 2Gud. All the information that consumers cared for—including product condition, colour, and memory—were brought to the first fold. Additionally, features such as ‘Buy-Back Promise’ and ‘Extended Warranty’ were emphasised with a prominent widget to display policy details during the first search and the check-out page.
By observing consumer behaviour first-hand, we uncovered insights about what we were doing right versus what we needed to do more. Obvious helped us quickly test the validity of several hypotheses and adapt the product accordingly. This made our consumers feel like the product was moulded to their preferences.
Promote 03
Laying the foundation for refurbished category creation through in-app promotion and consumer education
When Flipkart was building 2Gud, no status quos existed in the market for operating a B2C refurbished platform at scale. After building the new features, it was important for the team to re-establish trust and share the benefits of refurbished goods.
The products were subjected to rigorous screening processes, and grades were devised for various categories of refurbished products (such as “unboxed”, “refurbished - good”, etc). These were promoted through interactive and tabular representations, videos and supporting material to nudge sceptical consumers towards making a purchase.
By addressing relevant concerns, 2Gud succeeded in building a dedicated platform with well-defined categories in a previously unorganised space.
By directly targeting the core experience and co-creating the most promising solutions with our users, Obvious did an excellent job of understanding our users and building a rich experience around refurbished goods. Their ability to help our team identify barriers while driving value was incredible.