How It Began
Product Iteration
Market testing with users informed changes to aesthetics & functionality
Following a series of prototypes and successful trials providing rice and detergents, we looked at modern retail and saw a further opportunity. Even with zero waste stores, where consumers are consciously buying without packaging the shopping experience was limited by needing to weigh purchases and stock take actual weight in dispensers.
Armed with insights from two live trials, we redeveloped the solution into a technology platform with a broad set of capabilities. The platform can be used across nuts, grains, powders and liquids and meets consumer experience needs, retail, distributor and brand needs.
CASE STUDY 1 :
“I can buy food from One Rand”
CASE STUDY 1 : “I can buy food from One Rand”
Context
The South African informal retail market represents As much as 35% of total retail sales, and is growing.
Challenges
There is a challenge around the transparency of sales that occur in these stores. There is also a huge challenge for brands to access these markets that are incredibly relationship-driven.
Consumers struggle with affordability of food items, especially at month end as they are sold in large packs.
Solutions
Gcwalisa, meaning to Fill Up, was an early branded prototype of the smart product dispenser. This dispenser allowed customers to buy the volume of everyday products they can afford, when they need it, at their local spaza shop.
We developed an innovative solution that solves a fundamental customer need, while increasing visibility at the point of purchase through a data-enabled route to market.
Over 3 short weeks, customers shifted purchases to the dispensers.
CASE STUDY 2:
“I don’t have to do stocktakes”
CASE STUDY 2: “I don’t have to do stocktakes”
Context
Nude Foods launched in 2017 and was South Africa’s first plastic free grocery store. They encourage their customers to bring their own containers from home. This allows them to fill their containers and take as much or as little of each product as they choose.
Challenges
The challenge is scalability. Customers need to weigh their containers before filling them, and again at the till. Nude Foods staff also have to regularly take stock by weighing the product levels in store.
Solutions
We converted their existing manual dispenser models into smart connected dispensers. The smart dispenser not only showed consumers how much they were buying, but also provided real time stock and usage levels for Nude Foods.
We improved the end-to-end shopper experience while remaining waste-free, enabling speedier checkouts and real time data to replace stock takes.