2021 - PayPay Application

Digital Stamp Card,
A new approach to reward the user

 

Overview

 

PayPay is the largest Mobile Payment application in Japan caters to more than 45millions users, and over 3millions participating merchants. I joined PayPay in early 2021, which was an exciting opportunity to have a chance to work closely with talented team members at Online to Offline business kicking off a new business strategy that aims to strengthen the relationship between merchants and users. 

PayPay StampCard is the first digital stamp card that is truly automatic. A stamp will automatically be granted when users make a Payment using PayPay. 

My Role.

 

Team

The team consists of 2 designers Product Manager, the Online to Offline business team, and the developers, The challenge we faced together as a team was to make sure the product was simple for merchants to start yet still fun and interesting to use.

User Research

At the beginning of the project, I worked with the marketing team to launch the questionnaire to PayPay users to check the business needs for the product, As well as did the benchmark research to see the other similar product that is available in the market.

Design

it was an amazing opportunity to be able to kick off from scratch by deciding which feature should we focus on as a priority working with multiple teams to decide on the visual.

The Problem

 

In 2021 we conducted multiple interview sessions with Paypay merchants to further understand their needs and pain points in business operations. We found merchants are struggling with maintaining the repeating users, and they're constantly looking for a way to get to know their customers better. 

Findings

Merchants want to cherish customers who sympathize with the service of the store and keep repeating. Therefore, merchants care most about the regular customers who have already visited and liked the store and want more new customers who would become regular customers to come.

Merchants are also making a lot of efforts to make new customers repeat however, they’re too busy with their regular jobs, by having to do extra work reduced the quality of their service.

Key Take away

Merchants feel that the current PayPay service cannot implement measures that distinguish between new and existing, and cannot increase the number of regular customers that they want to cherish.

  • How can merchants make it easier to find customers who will become regular?

  • How can we help new customers to repeat?

  • How can we stand out in the market and be the service that loves by both merchants and users?

Voices from Merchants

  • Supermarket Owner

    I used to distribute paper coupons for returning customers but due to the Covid-19 situation, I have stopped distributing them.

  • Supermarket Owner

    A lot of user are eldery and they’re worried about getting covid, It will be helpful if the coupon can be completely contactless.

  • Convenient store owner

    I want to cherish repeat customers than trying to gain a new ones

  • Local Restaurant owner

    Even though they are regular customers, I tried to give them privacy and not get way too friendly.

  • Local Restaurant Owner

    At the purchasing stage, I was thinking "I'll sell it to that person," and I'm confident that if I sell it, I'll be absolutely thankful.

  • Retail owner

    The competition is fierce in this area, I want to know more about my regular user so I can give them better service.

  • Retail Owner

    I don't want to advertise on well-known sites because I want to avoid customer demographic mismatches.

Voices from Customer

  • Honestly to be asked for members’ cards every time is annoying.

  • I want to know if there is any discount or promotion I can get, but to actually use is its kinda embarrassing.

  • To have to open 2 app for payment and member card is troublesome

  • I wouldn’t use the discount coupon unless the discount is really worth my effort

Design Goal.

 

Easy for merchants to get onboard

Our target merchants are small local merchants who might not be tech-savvy, therefore the process of getting started should be as easy as one click and go.

 

Fun experience to the users

The experience should also be simple yet fun for all users. The design should be encouraging to maintain the users yet be rewarding when user completed the journey.

How it works.

 
 

Consumers main flow

PayPay StampCard is different from other digital stamp card services, which require users to scan the QR code to claim the stamp however, for the PayPay Stamp Card once users made a payment using PayPay, a stamp will automatically be accumulated. Users also can quickly see the process from the Stamp Card's Widget on Post Payment Screen. 

The design of the widget changes based on the user's progress, this was designed to give users a sense of progression and motivate them to return to the store for the rewards.

 

Merchant can fully customize their stamp card

PayPay Stamp Card allows the merchant to fully customize their stamp card based on their business needs. The customization consists of cover image customization, stamp card design customization, stamp design customization and the amount of stamps slot amount. For merchants who are not tech-savvy, they can choose the design from multiple templates that were provided.

The customizable stamp card allows creativity and encourages brand recognition.

 

Store Discovery

Users can discover new participating stores from the Stamp Card home screen, user have multiple option for store discovery - for example, if they already have a specific store they’re looking for they can do it by search. Or if they are still not sure what they’re looking for they can browse through the category filter or have a look at the popular brands as well.

In the My StampCard screen user can check the progress of their stamp card, the message that shows here changed depending on the users.

Claiming the rewards

In PayPay Stamp Card there is multiple types of rewards depending on the merchants, merchants can choose from giving physical rewards (ex. free coffee) discount coupon (barcode scanning rewards) or PayPay Cashback rewards. Each type of reward can be claimed easily by just showing the rewards ticket screen to the merchant.

 

Problem during development

Animation

During the pilot test merchant has brought up the security concern about some users might be taking the screenshot and claiming the rewards repeatedly. I came up with multiple solutions to solve the problem-

  1. By having subtle animation in the background as well as adding a counting timer to make sure it is an active application and not screenshots.

  2. The card will spin towards the merchant side when users choose to claim the rewards, the merchant then can confirm the validity of that rewards voucher.

  3. Also added sounds at the end of claiming process.

The Outcome

 

Over 10,000 Active Stamp Card store

Within 2 months of the official release, the PayPay stamp card has more than 10,000 participating merchants

 

Over 900,000 users with a stamp.

and more than 150,000 unique users have finished at least one stamp card and claimed the rewards.

 

To date I have

  1. Organize 2 large-scale internal user test sessions.

  2. Working with PM to plan minor pilot test sessions & questionnaires

  3. Conducting monthly brainstorming workshop with the team to gather new ideas

  4. Creating rapid prototypes for internal usability tests and acquiring stakeholder approval.

Next Action

We’ve been conducting internal tests monthly to collect feedback from both merchants and our users. The team also have regular workshops to find out what will be our next opportunity and how could we improve the product to be a lovable service by both merchants and users.

Currently, the service recognition still has not reached a satisfactory level. I want to improve the service introduction to let the users know the benefits of using stamp cards. As well as listening to merchant’s business needs for even better improvements.

Summary

 

Online to Offline (O2O) business teams are very supportive and passionate about creating a service that will be loved by the users.

It was an honour to be able to be a sole responsibility for the PayPay Stamp Card’s design. I feel that the project was a perfect match for me where I can truly be creative at the same time be experimental with the designs

I truly believe in collaboration is really a key to successful products. By listening to team feedback, at the same time be patience and considerate when explaining the design concept is really important to smooth product developments.