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Stock Culinary Goods
Designing strategy for a growing small business impacted by COVID as part of DESIGNxRI Resiliency Challenge
Problem
Stock Culinary Goods, established in 2012, is a small business where people who love to cook and entertain can gather to find the materials to outfit their kitchens, decorate their tables, or simply chat with other like-minded food enthusiasts. It was built to be a social experience, with very few resources put into e-commerce.
With COVID-19, how do we pivot towards reimagining the experience of shopping at Stock in an online world?
Project Team
Melinda Rainsberger
Alexis Moniello
Bi Oke
Ashesh Gohil
Alissa Marr
My Role
User Research
Experience Design
Retail Design
Strategy Design
Timeline
Fall 2020
6 weeks
Screenshot of brainstorminng session
Getting Started
The team spoke with the owner of Stock, as well as many customers to discover the key areas to address through this challenge. With their input, we were able to identify the opportunities and needs of the business, like utilizing their Instagram followers to reach a broader audience as well as improve the experience of customers preferring to shop in-store.
Understanding the user
After analyzing the shopping experiences, we mapped how customers would feel in their experience of visiting the store, through Instagram, or in-person.
We noticed that most of the customers could be divided into three categories -
Instagram-savvy foodies
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25-35-year-olds that love pop-up shops
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Find places through Instagram or word-of-mouth
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Supports local businesses by sharing on social media
Culinary Grad Students
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Stock is hidden from students
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Love the knives section
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Enjoy collaborating on recipe contests
Middle-aged home chefs
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Find specific and unusual items in Stock
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Prefers to support local businesses
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Uncomfortable shopping in-store but fine with curbside pickups
Strategising solutions
Stock was successfully engaging their clientele with Providence's vibrant food network. It was not designed to be online and relied solely on being discovered organically. Based on these findings, we provided short and long-term frameworks to help them adapt.
In-store space
The retail space layout is not designed to guide shoppers effectively during the pandemic
Community-focused
Stock's central strength is the community it serves & retains
Local food culture & offerings
Stock contributes strongly to the food-chain network in Providence
Proposed Framework
Immediate Solutions
Solutions that can be individually implemented in 1-2 months with little financial investment
Long-term Solutions
Solutions that can be implemented in over 3 months with a significant financial investment
Concepts & Prototypes
We wanted to provide Stock with as many feasible solutions as possible to allow them the choice to decide which ones to implement. We focused on the four key opportunities-
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Entry Points: Provide entry points that would lead to a sale or customer engagement.
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Collaboration Kits: Collaborate with local chefs to create product kits to increase engagement with the local community
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Social Media: Promote the kits on Instagram business account to incentivize online product sales
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Store Improvements: Improve store layout and create wayfinding methods to improve the in-store experience
Screenshots of presented solutions
Next Steps
Based on the solutions provided above, we suggested a timeline for implementation. This would allow Stock to choose which solutions to implement or discard.
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