elGrocer by Smiles Etisalat - a journey from MVP to a multimillion acquisition.
PERIOD:
2020-2023
INDUSTRY:
Grocery delivery, food-tech, startup
ROLE:
· Lead Product Designer, reported to CEO.
· Led the design team of 2 product designers, 2 agencies, 1 intern, and 1 brand designer
When I joined in 2020 →
Raw MVP and I’m the single designer and product manager.
When I left in 2023 →
1m of orders placed in 2023 from 600+ partner stores across UAE
Successfully acquired by Etisalat 🔗 UAE, one of the largest companies in the region
The ecosystem of digital products that makes online grocery shopping quick, easy, and fun with 100K+ downloads
Product's digital ecosystem
downloadable app links 🔗
Grocery shopping customer apps & website
ELGROCER SHOPPING APP 
ELGROCER SHOPPING APP
Order processing back-office apps
SMILES MARKET WEBYear-by-year progress
Key milestones since I joined the startup in 2020 till I left in 2023
2020
In 2020, I joined as the primary lead designer while the product was in its initial MVP stage.
To facilitate quick enhancements and witness positive growth in metrics, I concentrated on implementing rapid changes that would provide maximum value.
To accomplish this, I undertook the following actions:
1. Conducted heuristic analysis.
2. Collected data from key stakeholders and subject matter experts across various departments.
3. Engaged with customers to pinpoint their main pain points.
Results
Customer engagement:
12% → 21.6% (+80%) on the homepage, for customers, who make their order at least twice per month
Customer satisfaction:
(CSAT): 3.9 → 4.3
Average order value (AOV):
+40%, AED 200 → 280
New customers:
+160%
This is what it looked like in the beginning.
Here are several examples of enhancements made after thorough research and user interviews, where I explored aspects such as navigation, checkout, search functionality, product listings, shopping categories, and more. While there is still much work to be done, these quick fixes yielded initial positive results and a measurable impact on metrics.
2021
It was a transitional year, where I started leaving the old MVP behind building something new, expanding the design team, and integrating data data-driven approach.
I did some experiments with business services scaling to new services like click & collect.
The key year challenge was to find a smart golden balance for MVP transition to a new better level, without destruction.
Results
Orders growth:
+100% growth in daily orders, 500 → 1000 orders per day.
Data-driven approach enhancement:
CleverTap, Mixpanel tools integration, usability studies, market research
Team expansion:
+2 product designers, +1 intern, +1 brand designer.
Product rebranding:
new logo, fresh colors, fonts, consistent brand language and tone of voice, physical world marketing expansion
2022
Following some considerable effort, I completed a major app upgrade with a focus on registration flows, major navigation improvements, homepage, shopping, and checkout experience.
We also launched our dark-store, to speed up delivery and scale the startup services.
Key-year product challenges were related to out-of-stock items, product availability, on-time delivery, and high cancellation rates. Those were complex cross-department challenges to solve.
Large UAE market players, like Carrefour, and Etisalat started to express their interest in acquiring the company due to successful scaling.
Eventually, it was acquired by the largest telecom company Etisalat UAE. I worked on the integration of delivery services into the Smiles app.
That acquisition allowed us to expand our customer base to more than 500,000+ customers.
Results
Acquisition by Etisalat UAE: integration to Smiles super-app ecosystem with 500,000+ customers, covering grocery delivery services.
Orders growth:
+200% growth in daily orders, 1000 → 3000 orders per day.
Registration time reduction:
4.1 minutes → 17 seconds
Retention rate for checkout:
+39% growth, 13% → 18%
2023
The year was about scaling the product to a much broader ecosystem with different front and back-office digital services.
Among the key challenges were continuation and collaboration with the Smiles (Etisalat) product and design team, improving key product metrics and user flows, related to search experience, checkout, post-checkout experience, shopping, and out-of-stock experience.
Results
Orders growth:
1m orders reached in Jan 2023, 3-4k average daily orders
Customer base growth: 30k customers launch app daily
Digital ecosystem expansion:
Grocery Web store for Smiles Market, backed up by own physical stores
Team expansion:
Hired 2 subcontract agencies for helping with UX product audit and Web direction, briefed and led the execution.
Retention rate:
+39% growth, 13% → 18%
Order cancelation rate reduction:
-20% reduction, 13% → 10%
The outcome
Joining the company as an early-stage startup, after big corporate and agency experience gave me a chance to try myself out to the best. That was a great successful stage of my career, that resulted in startup acquisition, metrics growth, design team expansion, and a large digital ecosystem of various services.