Information Architecture, Design Strategy, UI Design, Product Photography, Project Management

Shree Iyengar Foods (SIF) retails authentic South Indian food products to various hotels and consumers across a widely North Indian market in Gurgaon and Delhi, India. At this point, they were about a year old, and sold products solely through supermarkets. Due to the COVID-19 lockdown, they saw a fall in sales with everyone being stuck at home and fearing to eat outside.
Considering their products were produced with a typical home made recipe, they wanted to move to the next level by establishing a website of their own, where customers can order these products from the comfort of their homes. The website also shares the story behind the brand and the founder.

How might we create a digital presence for a small local business?
How might we establish an online store that customers will trust?
How might we showcase and sell the wide variety of products during the pandemic?

First, it was essential to find out the market in which SIF operates. Considering they sell their prouducts to hotels as well as consumers directly, we can safely say they are a B2B and B2C business. The design process involved a series of steps including discovery, definition, ideation, design and user testing.

One of the challenges I faced was that the regular customers of SIF were not getting acclamatized to placing thier orders online all of a sudden. To address this, I came up with a couple of ideas.

Due to the COVID-19 lockdown, I was able to witness how the pandemic affected small local businesses, first-hand. Small businesses are vital to a community’s growth and development. I learned that it is important to not only design for the user, but to also align with the goals of the organization. I noticed the customer base of Shree Iyengar Foods incrase by 2x once the website went live. It made me understand the importance of customer convenience and I was glad to bring about that change to a local business.