REVOLUTIONIZE
THE WINE SHOPPING EXPERIENCE
Sam’s Wine Innovation: Case Study
Utilized design thinking processes, industry pain points, and private label wine market research to enhance and innovate the wine section of Sam’s Club. I further utilized my insights and analysis to strengthen the shopping experience of the wine section through ideations that help gamify and personalize the wine shopping experience.
Project Duration: Eight Weeks (January 2022-March 2022)
CASE STUDY SUMMARY
Quick Project Overview
TEAM ROLES
Team Contract
- Project Manager
- Project Researcher
- Project Evaluator
SITUATION
Sam’s Club Wine Section Innovation:
Sam’s Club, a popular warehouse membership club, has a mission to provide its members with the highest quality bulk products at exceptional values while sustaining an exclusive shopping experience. While Sam’s Club offers is a major player in the private label wine market industry, its main competitor Costco exceeds them in market share due to their innovative differentiating factors that improve the shopping experience compared to Sam’s Club. My team and I were tasked with creating/ideating “The Next Big Idea” that will revolutionize Sam’s Club wine shopping experience. Of the forty-five ideas (most linked here) I came up with, eleven ideas were chosen by my group to review internally and six were picked to present to the Director of Innovation at Sam’s Club, Jonathan Saffian.
TASKS
Personal
Gained insights of the wine market and its trends through market research
Surveyed 4 people online to gauge the wine shopping experience
Identified 9 key shopper pain points that broadly dealt with:
Confusion on terms in wine culture and the inaccessibility of wine shopping for consumers
Lack of education and confidence
No personalization
No gamification features
No dedicated features for younger shoppers
Performed 2 in-person observations of wine sections for various stores (Sam’s Club, Tom Thumb) to note customer behavior and shopping experience using the design-thinking inspired looking glasses exercise (link)
ACTION
Team
Led product definition exercises to define the main pain point for customers
Facilitated and Co-facilitated 8 team ideation sessions that included (link to mural):
3 brainstorming sessions (1hr each) on the wine shopping experience
2 journey maps to define key pain points
2 feasibility charts to determine the validity of ideas
1 affinity map exercise with 9 categories of ideas
RESULTS
Worked With Director In:
Ideating 46 ideas with 11 ideas voted highly by the team and 6 of those getting presented to Jonathan Saffian
Expanding on his insights through Ideating AR scanning of solutions that moves beyond barcodes
Discovering new pivots in ideas related to pain points in education/gamification
1. UTILIZING AR SCANNING PERSONALIZES AND STRONGLY ENGAGES WINE SAMPLING.
"How might we revolutionize the wine shopping experience to be a quick, easy, educational, and enjoyable process?"
-Jonathan Saffian, Senior Product Manager, Sam’s Club
PAIN POINT
Sam’s Club customer's lack of wine knowledge causes them to take less risks for choosing new wine which negatively impacts wine sales.
INSIGHTS
Scandit Shelfview: a data capturing and analytics tool that enables smarter and more effective retail operations using mobile devices or autonomous floor cleaners to increase order picking efficiency to help revolutionize the retail space. Source
“More knowledge of wine [by customers] is beneficial for the industry” -Fahara Zamorano, Sommelier and Wine, Spirits & Cigar Specialist, Vices
SOLUTION
Gamifying wine shopping via Sam’s Club/Scandit partnership:
Further utilize Augmented Reality scanning tools like Sam’s Club’s partner Scandit from one’s device to further improve the wine shopping experience by allowing customers to map out specific wines in a shopping list, scan for more basic information like wine flavors and sides that go with it and gamify the experience through personalized promotions via sales data.
RESULTS: JONATHAN SAFFIAN/TEAM
“I'm super onboard into tying AR into the scanning process to get more product information” https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ShEcYMnfv9Fsm75DpEdbPgrWB4awI6P3/view?usp=sharing (validation and insight from Mr. Saffian/ links to video on Google Drive)
Moving beyond the barcode: Mr. Saffian provided a new pivot point in “moving beyond the barcode” as an opportunity to look for ways to make identifying wine easy, efficient, and quick for both members and AR tools without the use of barcodes like easily understandable visual icons (link) which utilizes fruit symbols that relate to wine flavors that can be scanned for further information.
Expanded Opportunity for AR Scanning: Team suggested different areas of opportunity to take my idea further including:
Integrate it with Amazon Palm Scan to further quicken the process while also standardizing the wine ID checking process
Integrate it with Amazon shopping cart to utilize its advanced sensors to scan products put in cart while also scanning for loss prevention
NEXT STEPS/STORYBOARD
Ideate and create a storyboard outlining the experience of Sam’s Scan and Shop moving beyond the barcode and highlight that as a key differentiator to educate and revolutionize the wine shopping experience
STORYBOARD
Who, What, Wow:
Shoppers using Scandit’s expanded AR capabilities access a gamified experience of learning about wine in the shopping process increasing wine shopper productivity by 30%. (source)
2. CLIENTELING TOOLS PERSONALIZE THE WINE SHOPPING EXPERIENCE.
“What can we add to the membership to make us want to be members?”
– Jonathan Saffian, Senior Product Manager, Sam’s Club
PAIN POINT
No feature to personalize the wine shopping experience for Sam’s Club members causes them to be more confused and take fewer risks for choosing new wine which negatively impacts wine sales.
INSIGHTS
Endear HQ clientele: Endear HQ is a startup that offers tools to personalize the shopping experience via email, text, and WhatsApp where associates can send bulk messages that look personalized and have customers ask questions where associates can use customer data to provide personalized support (source).
SOLUTION
Improving Sam’s Clienteling (a technique to establish long term relationships with customers via data on preferences, sales, and behavior) with a more personalized wine focus
RESULTS: JONATHAN SAFFIAN/TEAM
Well received tool allows Sam’s Club to personalize wine shopping and make it more interactive.
NEXT STEPS/STORYBOARD
Ideate and create a storyboard outlining the experience of using Sam’s Clienteling tool to personalize wine shopping and highlight that as a key differentiator in educating members about wine that revolutionizes the wine shopping experience
STORYBOARD
Who, What, Wow:
Customers can make an educated shopping decision by using an expanded high-touch clienteling tool that generates a potential 22x ROI (source) by providing a more personal touch.
3. WINE AUCTIONS GAMIFIES AND ENHANCES WINE SHOPPING ENGAGEMENT.
“Is there a hook that would make gen Z spend $40 a year on Sam’s Club”
– Jonathan Saffian, Senior Product Manager, Sam’s Club
PAIN POINT
Small number of young members in Sam’s Club with no feature differentiator to convince them to shop there.
INSIGHTS
Underground Cellar: Underground Cellar is a startup that posts offers of different wines with similar price points where members have the chance to pay for the lowest priced bottle on offer and automatically be upgraded to higher-priced bottles (Source).
SOLUTION
Gamifying wine shopping while incentivizing group shopping via wine auctions:
Build up a wine auction/offer function that incentivizes wine education through gamification by giving people opportunities to get high-priced wine by buying and trying different kinds.
RESULTS: TEAM
The team offered a suggestion of trading wines via app to further add community and engagement in the shopping experience as an opportunity to expand Sam’s Club’s customer base.
NEXT STEPS/STORYBOARD
Continue refining idea while creating a storyboard outlining the experience of using wine auctions to gamify wine shopping and highlight that as a key differentiator in educating members about wine in a fun way and can revolutionize the wine shopping experience.
STORYBOARD
Who, What, Wow:
Shoppers interested but uneducated in wine are convinced to become Sam Club members through a gamified experience of wine auctions that increases the seller base of new buyers with 43% being under 40 (source) who are tech-savvy collectors interested in buying collectible wine.
4. YELP-INSPIRED CERTIFICATION THAT INCENTIVIZES WINE EDUCATION.
“Wine shouldn’t be intimidating or so exclusive that only some people are learning about or have access to”
– Fahara Zamorano Sommelier and Wine, Spirits & Cigar Specialist, Vices
PAIN POINT
There is no dedicated tool under Sam’s Club that educates members about wine (taste, flavors, etc.) that would help raise customer confidence to diversify their wine choices.
INSIGHTS
Yelp is a popular business reviewer site in which 45% of business customers are likely to check its reviews before visiting and 92% of users make a purchase after visiting the site (source)
SOLUTION
Incentivizing wine education through Yelp-inspired certifications:
A tool that incentivizes members to buy more wine and educate inexperienced wine-drinking members by being part of a “reviewer tier system”.
RESULTS: TEAM
Gamifies through education: Team valued how Sam’s Club members can make educating inexperienced wine drinkers a gamified experience that also incentivizes more wine sales.
NEXT STEPS/STORYBOARD
Continue refining the idea while creating a storyboard outlining the experience of using Yelp-inspired certification to gamify wine shopping through education and highlight that as a key differentiator in raising wine sales while educating members about wine which can revolutionize the wine shopping experience.
STORYBOARD
Who, What, Wow (one):
Experienced wine buyers, attracted by the gamification factor to educate through reviews, help drive up to a 9% increase in revenue (source) for every new star earned on a wine product.
Who, What, Wow (two):
Unexperienced wine buyers, of which 45% check Yelp reviews before making a purchase, (source) can now get educated and make more informed buying decisions through those Yelp-inspired reviews.
The first storyboard outlines experienced wine buyers attracted by the gamification factor to educate through reviews
The second outlines inexperienced wine drinkers who get educated and make more informed decisions through those reviews.
The first storyboard outlines experienced wine buyers attracted by the gamification factor to educate through reviews
5. IMPROVING WINE KNOWLEDGE VIA SCANNABLE AND PHYSICAL ICONS.
“Think about what someone going to Sam’s Club for the first time can see and instantly understand”
-Jonathan Saffian, Senior Product Manager, Sam’s Club
PAIN POINT
Less Knowledge of wine for Sam’s Club members plus No dedicated tool that educates members of wine through gamification causes them to take fewer risks for choosing new wine which negatively impacts wine sales.
INSIGHTS
Physical QR codes: QR codes are flexible in size, offer high fault tolerance, have fast readability, and offer exceptional versatility (source).
SOLUTION
Improving wine education through easily understandable icons that can be scanned:
These physical icons feature a picture of a flavor the wine is related to like cinnamon and features basic information on the icon like sweetness level (1-10), acidity (1-10), etc.
RESULTS: JONATHAN SAFFIAN/TEAM
Mr. Saffian sees opportunity in this being a differentiator in educating inexperienced drinkers while the team liked how these physical icons can be gamified which can help make the wine shopping process more engaging.
NEXT STEPS/STORYBOARD
Continue refining the idea while creating a storyboard outlining the experience of using physical icons to help bring confidence into wine shopping and highlight that as a key differentiator in educating members about wine that can revolutionize the wine shopping experience.
PROTOTYPE
Prototype outlining the information featured in the scannable icon with colors used to better communicate to members on the sourness, acidity, and dry/sweetness of the wine to help them make more educated decisions on the wine they are buying.
6. WINE TRADING CARDS BRINGING GAMIFICATION AND EDUCATION TO WINE SHOPPING.
“What features or services can we add to convince younger shoppers to shop here”
– Jonathan Saffian, Senior Product Manager, Sam’s Club
PAIN POINT
Small number of young millennial/Gen Z members in Sam’s Club with no feature differentiator to convince them to shop there.
INSIGHTS
Chehalem Mountains Winegrowers trading cards: Like baseball cards, the backs of these cards are packed with statistics and trivia on wine (source).
SOLUTION
Gamifying and educating through wine trading cards: Inspired by sports trading cards, these cards outline basic information on the ingredients, taste, and the winery that created it.
RESULTS: TEAM
Team saw the idea as an effective way to expand Sam’s Club’s customer base among younger wine consumers by gamifying the wine shopping process to incentivize buying more wine.
NEXT STEPS/STORYBOARD
Continue refining the idea while creating a prototype outlining the basics of the wine trading cards that help gamify wine shopping through education and highlight that as a key differentiator in educating members about wine that can revolutionize the wine shopping experience.
PROTOTYPE
Prototype outlining the basics of the trading card with the type of information it offers.
7. “DOODLE FOR GOOGLE” INSPIRED COMPETITIONS ON WINE LABELS BRINGS GAMIFICATION TO WINE SHOPPING.
“What features or services can we add to convince younger shoppers to shop here”
– Jonathan Saffian, Senior Product Manager, Sam’s Club
PAIN POINT
Small number of young millennial/Gen Z members in Sam’s Club with no feature differentiator to convince them to shop there.
INSIGHTS
Google Doodle: Changes made to the Google logo to celebrate holidays, anniversaries, and the lives of famous artists, pioneers, and scientists (source).
SOLUTION
Gamifying the wine shopping experience through “Doodle for Google” competitions for wine:
Have wine doodle competitions with the community where Sam’s members can design different Members Mark wine labels.
RESULTS: TEAM
Team saw the idea as a key differentiator in helping to expand Members Mark’s brand beyond Costco’s Kirkland Signature which does not have these youth-oriented solutions under their memberships.
NEXT STEPS/STORYBOARD
Continue refining idea while creating a prototype outlining the basics of the wine doodles that help gamify wine shopping and highlight that as a key differentiator in bringing in new younger members that can raise wine sales.
STORYBOARD
Who, What, Wow:
Younger wine drinkers enticed to buy Sam’s Club membership through a Doodle-for-Google-inspired wine label doodle competition helps drive increased wine visibility by 77% (source) through people wanting to get their hands on the trendy and limited designs.
CASE STUDY BACKGROUND LINKS
Links to stakeholders and background documents
CASE STUDY EXECUTIVE SUMMARY GOOGLE DOCS
VIDEO: VALIDATION AND INSIGHT ON SCANDIT IDEA FROM JONATHAN SAFFIAN
FAHARA ZAMORANO - SOMMELIER AND WINE, SPIRITS & CIGAR SPECIALIST, VICES
FAHARA ZAMORANO INSIGHTS AND BACKING OF PAIN POINTS NOTES
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Dblnv9Z9p239edIO_eTh4BcZCCrjwNd9CqHo4CXuezY/edit?usp=sharing (links to Drive)
MURAL BOARD BEHIND THE SCENES OF OUR IDEAS AND HOW WE ARRANGED AND VOTED ON THEM
https://app.mural.co/t/billward1278/m/billward1278/1636045088968/c3f1464b20b9eb3c8be63ea8076296ad7ff1ad13?sender=wdward9076 (links to Mural)
RESEARCH BACKGROUND OF SCANDIT IDEA
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zSk90xUcEq_iFPBs_vsqFnjz4r4gSeorFH4eMQfmBbY/edit?usp=sharing (links to Drive)
PRIVATE LABEL WINE INSIGHTS DOCUMENT WHICH INCLUDES THE BACKGROUND INITIAL RESEARCH TO WINE AUCTIONS AND CLIENTELING TOOLS
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xhHG8zpgfe9ZcEHWv_saoS1Bg50-FT1jvxwbA-R2Qb0/edit?usp=sharing (links to Drive)
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS SCRIPT LINK (DESIGNED THE FIRST TWO QUESTIONS)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JPGy__pBANCVNcB2nTpNyEnVhz9C1pG-L6_ygQHxZaQ/edit?usp=sharing (links to Drive)