sabarish
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Oyela Community

Objectives and Key Results in terms of questions
What we want, How do we want it, Why do we want
  • A community for people - buyers/sellers to interact with each other - which has its own advantages/disadvantages
  • We built it upon studying the competition, extensive research on the behavior of existing users (and future users) - will it really be needed
  • It can strengthen the brand, the people, the brands of people, (image and social presence), it can help a few people using the product/app or even many, sometimes all.
    • Prove to be beneficial
The main question:
Should the direct connection be enabled between any person on the product?
A few advantages and disadvantages - use cases?
Enhances sales layers between the buyer and seller(when the person on the buyer’s end portrays interest in the offer)
When the person on the buyer’s end is interested but there is no response from the seller’s end it will leave a bad impression
I’m interested in learning more about the product, but not necessarily interested in the product itself, but it will enhance the chance of a sale
I’m not interested in the product but I just try sending a random message, to which the seller will respond, but there is no outcome
If there is no connection between both sides, and I have an interest in learning more about the product, I’m not able to communicate so I just lost a buy
There is communication and I just randomly send messages, to which the seller might respond thinking of making a sale
 
Same thing with community or any other product
(These are not all of the works: Just a selected few that are significant to build a community enabling product)
And this is not only a view from an experience point of view, but also from a development, branding, business, and growth pov.
“Community” is not exactly what I’m presenting, but community perception that enables the brand and even the sales in the product.
It always becomes/turns into something else upon continuous ideation and building. Even envisioning the product looks will not be the best way to predict the outcome of a product/brand. It is not about how we want them to behave, but building something around how the consumers behave.
Eg: We might think that people will happily engage with each other, It will also be the same in the beginning, but it gradually changes, and maintaining this change is the toughest part.
We need to make a cohort of people get accustomed to the situation of the community - assuming there is an Oyela community.
 
There are two main types of ideas being presented here
  1. The starting/seed stage of the Oyela Community aspect
  1. The later stage of the Oyela community.
I suppose the first version is going to be sort of like an experiment and less of like a fully-fledged company.
 
Things to focus.
  1. The ambiguity of the community/
  1. It's about the reason/motive behind the product (community) rather than the community itself (even if it is simple)
  1. The first stage will be simple and not too complex
I agree too, the first stage cannot be too complex even from a UX point of view
  1. The app/product shouldn't turn into any community app on its own, The product should maintain its own nature of being a buy-sell app. Shouldn't turn into a community/messaging app
  1. Remain on the same lane of social commerce, not social media
 
For the later stage of the product, ideas could change, but initially, the idea is to enable creators(in our case - buyers and sellers to create their own community to engage - not spam)
While what we mean by engaging, is not eliminating the process of spamming or other chaos (they exist everywhere), it has got to be intuitive for the end-user to understand the ease of community and the community should act as a helping hand to the people or sometimes even as an advantage tool to spread their knowledge/experience/ideas.
How can we do this?
  • By enabling the whole aspect into a space where it is not distracting, i.e not a whole tab for it, but a small cta
  • By creating a community focussed on particular groups, (almost like beta testing)
  • Also additionally by adding extra sets of groups for miscellaneous purposes - ie. ratings/feedback.
  • To avoid the product taking a shift from what it is currently, it is good to have the consumers know what/how/why they have to deal with the community.
  • The community shouldn't be the go-to place for chaos, but it should be a place of help and respect.
Behind the community - motives/features
  1. Personalization
  1. Of immediate help
  1. A go-to place for queries
  1. Attributes like Like/share/comments?
  1. Subdivision of groups - for more centric behavior (consumers using it based on the topic of relevancy)
 
Features suggested
  1. Personalization - From what they have seen and from what the users have not
    1. I don't want to see the same message, again if I have already seen it
  1. The blockage of spam-related comments, negative/hate/bad comments
 
Business/Brand building aspects that are suggested
  1. Coupons/Rewards/Offers that could be given out for the consumers, who have a good reputation in the community
  1. (Not community but) - Having combo packs of fashion - it could include a pair or a set.
 
Things not to do
  • Limit the usage of the person at the consumer end, they will leave bad comments sometimes
  • Not responding to the queries, complaints that are put out by the consumers themselves
    • Complaints and queries, that go unanswered is the key here, (an edge of competition)
    • Use case: How many products’ customer service reply to the reviews, right on play store
      • Note: It is all “pls mail this again to this number and mail”
  • Having some sort of competition extrinsically, showing them via like leaderboards or some stuff.
  • Notify the users about every update here and there
 
Also
  • Find friends from contacts list to follow on oyela - being able to connect to different accounts.
  • but the points for personalization - asking for size/(tops & bottoms) can be efficient.
  • Identifying their preferences and feeding them listings based on the choices. The priorities can always be changed.
    • Shirt, pants, shoes, t-shirts, sweaters, etc. - with options "like the ones under"
    • Solution for no delivery to your location
    • Favorite brands upfront - lv, puma, h&m
After onboarding
  • When a person clicks on a listing - show related listings via the name or the color or price or tag
  • Show interest/encourage them to add listings
 
Community blocks (1)
Advantages
Disadvantages
Edge cases
Deeper seller-buyer relationships
Sellers might spam all their listings
Get feedback
Can deepen sales layers when interacting
Push unnecessary messages
Learn more about the usage of apps be it marketing
Get tips and tricks on the topics of the platform
Product placement - it will not be genuine.
Someone might learn how to use the app to the full extent
Find people with similar goals and learning more about passion and working together - could lead to genuine relationships - further lead sales (seeping through sales layers)
One could feel there is competition so they might start spamming or misusing benefits.
Finding/ Not finding answers to niche queries
Could act as good business partnerships for bigger sellers
Money scams (falls underpayment)
The seller might want to take the payment off the app itself
Active members engaging on one topic
Spread out users, not focused on one
Could help people find and talk about similar interests, e-commerce, or business
Unorganized, chaotic - most possibly anonymous user names might be used,
Money value increases in terms of sales
Money scams could be involved
Appreciative content
Hate and abusive content
New questions might be asked
Same questions are asked again and again
Quality type posts, that everyone's comfortable with - less in number but not scarce.
The high number of posts - loses context - shifts paradigm
From a business perspective
Can keep interaction within the platform
the platform can turn into a social interaction media
more genuine interactions build interest and can lead to better sales methods
too much spam and unfiltered can leave a bad impression on the app
Better engagement can lead to having better advertising places
Within the community
  • Make it easy for people to explore within the community - Find section /FAQ section/ Topics under the same field of interest/
    • For previously answered and repeated questions
  • Leaderboards and rewards that can be used as coupons?
  • Make topics into subcategories for easier navigation and discovery - a wide variety of topics
  • The feature shows to mention about latest stories and offers.
  • Understand the user's favorite topic and suggest to them relative
  • A visual clue how to use the community - pop-ups?
 
Feature-wise:
  • Like/upvote, share, comments
  • Pinning by the moderator
  • Deleting/Reporting - by the users (goes to Oyela)
  • Top posts filtering (based on the number of likes/comments (interactions)) - all time
  • Latest posts filtering (time)
  • Trending posts filtering (Based on what the users have seen most ()) - every now and then (frequenct)
  • Most useful posts filtering - (picked and produced by moderators)
  • Last activity/last viewed - version history for the community
  • Rendering new feeds based on previous activity (I should not see what I already saw.)
 
There is a lot more into this while thinking about the success of the Oyela community aspect, for example, there could be an option of different like options (emojis), but this is from a starting line pov.
Value proposition Focussed on demographics who want answers on queries and details.
 
Think of a mall, and a market
There are multiple case scenarios of why one goes to the mall,
  • I go just for fun with no intention of buying anything,
    • Sometimes, window shop
    • Sometimes I try out the product, dressing trials, or try out using a new iPhone
  • I go to the mall for fun, but I end up buying something when I see something, initially had no intention of buying anything whatsoever
    • When I like it
    • When I try it out
    • When I get recommended via ads or marketing or by people around me.
  • I purpose to go to the mall when I have to buy something. There is an intention.
 
Think of the two, the mall and the market
The mall is kind of exclusive, one could on average go to a mall every month, or every two weeks,
But think about the market, On average people could go to it, every day or every week.
The frequency of visiting a mall is quite less, but the experience is greater whenever you visit one.
The same applies here in mobile as well, Flipkart could be considered the market, and Oyela could be considered as the mall.
No demeaning to any products available. The point here is, Oyela is/should become more exclusive - in a way that it treats consumers.
Make a mall!
Coming to the perceptions of community, is there a chance that people are going to interact with people in a mall? Chances are, the answer is no!
But online, people do interact with strangers, be it hate or just value talk. The question is, can we make a mall more of an interactive place rather than a fancy commerce place?
Yes.
In a mall, consider there is an open stage, for anyone to do something, be it dance or sing, will people do it? No!
But when there are some hampers and gifts? Definitely yes.
Getting the subject of giving back is more of an opportunity than that of a choice.
 
Another case scenario is, we do not go start a conversation with strangers anywhere outside, (most cases) - there are people who can simply start a conversation
We do start one when there is a query or a complaint.
The same thing happens in almost every money-based apps community. It is all just complaints and queries. Here is the advantage, having better case scenarios of being able to answer or give back a solution for a person who has posted a query or resolving a complaint quickly is far more beneficial to a brand.
For random conversations and value talks, they are mostly done by influential people, in the real world too. No one is going to start a convo while they are focussed on making their motives come true.
 
This is not just about starting a convo, but also staying and engaging in a community.
You cannot see me engaging in a community unless I’ve made a sale.
If I didn't make a sale or money on Oyela, why would I focus on going to the community myself?
Here’s the catch, to make the Oyela community more cohesive is by having and endorsing influencers, and by influencers I mean people who have been successful of Oyela. They can give out their stories, values, tips, and tricks through the community.
In this way, when a person is stuck with no sales on their listings, they can be shown a small banner redirecting towards the community, so that person can learn more about experiences and stories.
One cannot expect them to go straightly to the community while they are in not a bright position.
 
Therefore, there can be two ways to approach this community idea,
  1. Making the user sit to predefined communities and groups (created by Oyela) - one-stop for answers, values, and questions
  1. Making the users, create their own community - This is a large-scale operation and this is what I mostly worked on during the past days. (High risk as of now)
But for the beginning type, the feasibility along with the growth is viable.
 
 
For the first, the designs are not much different in particular, but the meanings, motives, and hierarchy is different.
Suggestions:
There is one Oyela community
Which has subgroups, that are classified as “Random”, “Main”, “Queries”, “User questions”, “FAQs”, “Values”, “Stories”, “Sellers”, “Suggestions”, “Advices/Interests”
 
And these subgroups (selected) have attributes of creating, liking, sharing, and commenting.
The above is done by the methods of “Asking/Creating”, “Upvoting”, “Sharing” and “Answering”
Apart from that, the concepts of technical grouping like trending, pinning, history are subjected to development and are beneficial in a way.
Also, showing the users in the community other types of aspects, like enabling people to share resources, stories from Oyela, Putting together a series of FAQs (which cannot be answered all the time), and Oyela shared resources to help people - via marketing infographics and videos.
The actual design is just the last part, I've just added theories for reference, there can be a multitude of designs, but I wish to process on further understanding of the brand's current designs. I’ve designed a few previously with almost the same concept, since design changes every day it is always up for changes.
Thanks
 
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