* All data has been kept confidential but is available on request.

Eco Packaging

"Packageless" service is an option for the customer to bring their item into a participating Evri drop off location, without the need for packaging. The customer simply purchases the option while booking their parcel online and the shopkeeper will take care of the rest. This product is driven by business ambition to become a more eco-friendly business, therefore the packaging is 100% biodegradable and made using reusable materials. I knew this project can make real difference, not just for the user but for the society.

Initiative and Discovery

Convenient parcel packaging service that doesn't cost the earth

Packageless service has been trialed for one major client, Amazon.co.uk. The trial has initially show huge success with majority of Amazon returns customers, choosing Packagaless.

The business has been very keen to implement this successful product immediately, but I have identified differences in user behaviour that I knew must be explored in order to validate this product. In order to better visualise user concerns about this product, I created a concept design at the very early stage.

"Creating a concept has helped me to think deeply about users' needs and communicate them visually in collaboration sessions with other designers on the team. I have identified the following research questions for this project:

• What are users' habits when purchasing parcel packaging?
• What are the key concerns for a packageless service in the C2C market?
• What is the predicted demand for this product?
• What is the optimal price for this product?"

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Data Analysis

I began with existing data analysis to start building up hypothesis. I looked into the sizes of parcel being sent, item descriptions of parcel content and participating drop off locations.

Key insight:

• tem descriptions vary, and users' perception of the items they send will not allow us to sort them into suitable and unsuitable categories for this service.
• Size, as well as the shape of the item, are very restrictive for this type of packaging. The user journey must include these considerations, and therefore, good knowledge of the limitations is required.
• Not all items are suitable. Packageless is a large, unpadded envelope that will not protect fragile items.

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UsabilityHub Survey

I felt confident that my research questions are highly applicable to this product; therefore, a quantitative survey was my research method of choice. Using UsabilityHub, I generated conditional questions that allow me to dive deeper into the reasoning behind user answers.

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Van Westendorp Meter

This framework is used to create an optimal price of a product from the user's perspective. The goal of using this framework is to support the business in its financial planning when determining the value of this product and whether it's the right way forward. The framework consists of four survey questions, each asking the user to select a pre-defined price.

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Findings Analysis and Outputs

Survey results weren't just presented to stakeholders; instead, I went a step further to extract key insights by analyzing the survey data. I achieved this by exporting the raw data and working in Excel to cross-match information using filters and formulas. I find this method of presentation to be the most useful when communicating with stakeholders. The findings presentation has been reduced from the original 30+ slides to 11 short and concise slides that answer the research questions.

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What are user habits when purchasing parcel packaging?

Low-volume shippers are more likely to send to friends and family. As volume grows, the focus shifts to hobbyist and business users. The segment with the highest interest in this service is with lower volume shippers. This segment sends parcels occasionally and buys packaging on a need-to basis; therefore, this service suits them the most.

High-volume shippers are most aware of eco-friendly packaging due to the impact it has on their brand. However, this segment buys packaging mostly in bulk, at a low cost.

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What are key concerns for packageless service with C2C?

The vast majority of participants across all segments were not interested in this product and would not use it. Key concerns were captured in user comments and categorised into three themes:

• Participants expressed concern about the suitability of the packaging for their item, both in ruggedness and size restrictions.
• The experience in the ParcelShop (drop-off location) would get longer, with customers having to wait for someone to package their item.
• Lack of privacy due to bringing an unpackaged item to the ParcelShop. Customers were worried about sending confidential items.

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What is the predicted demand for this product?

The market demand is very low. Only a fifth of the participants were interested in this service. Out of interested ones, half would not be willing to pay. In order to clearly portray the business value of this product, I have combined all available data points and estimated the market predisposed to adopt to be in single digits. This has been much lower than pressumed prior to starting this research project.

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What is the optimal price for this product?

In order to make Van Westendorp results credible, I needed a large response sample, the outcome of over 2,000 responses has been combined into a line graph. The graph has shown three price ranges for packageless service; too cheap, optimal and too expensive.

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Conclusion

"We recommend to postpone this service for C2C customers"

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Key Findings:

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• While the use of eco-friendly packaging is gaining traction, especially among higher volume shippers, only 23% of users were interested in the packageless service, and only 12.5% would be willing to pay for this service.
• Low volume shippers were most interested, and most willing to pay for the service. Interest in the service starts dropping off as volume increases.
• As volume increases, shippers are more likely to buy their packaging in bulk, making the product less viable for these segments.
• Low volume shippers may show a higher level of interest, but only 1 in 4 of this group are currently buying single-use packaging, and a large proportion of these users will reuse existing packaging rather than buy single-use packaging.

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Recommendations:

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• Given the low level of interest and existing behaviors around purchasing packaging, we would recommend that this product is not adopted for C2C immediately.
• Our recommendation would be to monitor the launch of Packageless with all clients, refine the product offering with more flexible sizes, expand availability across more ParcelShops, and then use the results to reassess suitability for C2C at a future date.

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Full presentation along with Van Westendorp calculations are available on request.

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