INTERESTING COLLECTIONS
From YouTube to a seamless shopping experience
Interesting Collections is a small, home-grown ethnic wear brand in South India, run by a passionate business owner who showcases her sarees through short YouTube videos. Customers would watch these videos, comment or DM on Instagram, and finally complete purchases over WhatsApp.
The Problem
“People like the videos, but they don’t message me. I feel like they’re just watching and leaving.” That’s what the seller told me during one of our initial conversations.
Despite having a decent number of views, conversion rates were low. Customers found it inconvenient to hop between platforms — from YouTube to Instagram to WhatsApp — just to ask for a price or availability. For the seller, keeping up with repetitive queries and tracking scattered orders was becoming overwhelming. We needed to fix this.
The Goal
How might we make product discovery and ordering seamless for customers while retaining the seller’s existing WhatsApp-based workflow?
EMPATHIZE
Interview the Seller
Understanding the Seller's Workflow
I sat down with the business owner and mapped out her end-to-end process — from recording a video to dispatching an order. The major friction points:
1
Answering the same questions repeatedly (price, size, material)
2
Losing track of comments and DMs
3
Time-consuming, manual confirmations
4
No structured way for customers to browse products
YouTube Audience Insights
1
Primary Viewers: Female, ages 25–34 (shorts), 45–64 (long videos)
2
Low Subscribers: Made it clear we couldn’t rely on a huge YouTube presence
3
Best Time to Post: 3 PM
Competitive Research & its Insights
By analyzing online boutiques with similar marketing strategies, I identified key patterns and differences. This competitive research led to actionable insights and strategic opportunities for brand growth.
User Journey Map
To capture what the customer truly experiences, I mapped out the journey of a typical user browsing and attempting to buy a saree through the existing YouTube flow.
IDEATE
Define the Persona
After synthesizing insights from interviews, comments, and behavioral patterns on YouTube, I defined two core personas
Minimum Viable Product
To bridge the gap between what customers expect and what sellers need, the following MVP features were prioritized based on competitive analysis and market observations.
DESIGN
I decided to use Swiggy Minis for implementation — a lightweight, mobile-native storefront embedded in the app.
Key Features
1
Zero disruption to the seller’s current workflow after initial setup
2
Easy stock updates via mobile
3
No app download for the user
4
Visual consistency with ethnic color palettes and patterns
Designing the website on Swiggy Minis
IMPLEMENTATION & IMPACT ANALYSIS
User Testing
I conducted task-based tests with 6 users from the seller’s existing customer base.
Results
60%
reduction in time-to-order
93%
of users completed the order in their first click
60%
increase in subscribers within 6 weeks after launch
Impact
1
Seller relief: No longer answering the same questions repeatedly.
2
Customer delight: “I found the one I liked and ordered in less than a minute!”
3
Increased reach: People started sharing direct links instead of full videos.
LEARNINGS
Technology doesn’t have to be flashy to be effective. A simple product catalog with deep WhatsApp links solved more than any full-scale app might have at this stage.
Empathy drives adoption. We respected the seller’s comfort zone and brought tech into her world, instead of asking her to learn something new.
Design is about constraints. Low budget. Mobile-only. Unstructured inventory. These “limitations” made the solution more focused and human.
This project reminded me that meaningful UX isn’t always about big platforms or cutting-edge trends. Sometimes, it’s supporting a woman’s growing business — and giving her customers a simpler, kinder way to say, “I’ll take this one.”