Defining Power User in a Shipping App

Power users are one of the most important users in any product: they generate revenue. To define and understand them would help the company plan on retaining them and acquiring similar new users. This research used in-depth interviews and focus group discussions to develop market-fit initiatives that could improve product revenue.

---

Research Background & Objectives

In Q1 2023, internal data showed that some users' transaction patterns had higher basket size values and were more frequent than average. We flagged these users as the Top Spenders.

Based on several former studies, we know that our power users are primarily small businesses. Some of them have online stores that sell a variety of clothes and cosmetics. However, we are not confident about proposing new initiatives since we need more information about them.

Looking at the opportunities that lies between the Top Spenders, it occurs several questions to understand the users better with the objectives listed below:

• To find out what kind of features/ initiatives could increase the revenue.

• To acquire new users with behaviours similar to the Power User (Top Spender).

Timeline & Methodologies

Working collaboratively with the product and the whole research team, this project was divided into two stages and finished within seven working weeks. Both had their purpose, as written below:

PHASE	PURPOSE	METHODOLOGY	TIME FRAME	PARTICIPANTS
1	To define the power users and their shipping behavior.	in depth interview (online)	3 weeks	30 users
2	To find out the Power User's preferences and needs	focus group discussion & card sorting (on site)	4 weeks	4 groups (each consist of 5-6 participants)

In phase 2, I was assigned as a project captain since it will be our team' first time to conduct the FGD session. Despite the common worry that we would get biased insights, we used Focus Group Discussions due to the time limitation. Getting rich answers within a tight deadline was more effective and efficient.

Research Process & Output

PHASE 1

We found that our Power Users were more than Small Business Owners. They were also Personal Shoppers (Jastipers) and Employees who frequently retained and used our services. 

These three personas were wrapped with several key points such as:

• frequent shipped commodities

• shipping habits

• business platform (if any)

• the gain & pain points using our products

• competitor check

Power Users Personas

PHASE 2

Learning from the insights in phase one, the product team continued to generate several initiatives to increase user retention & acquisition. However, they need more data to prioritize the execution. The FGD sessions were divided into four days, and the groups consisted of main and non-users.

FGD Session Documentation

Results showed different priorities and behaviour patterns between the main and the non-users. These findings were summarized into a report which includes several topics, such as:

• user needs and problems

• user preferences on product's initiatives & features

• user journey

• competitor analysis

• actionable items attracting similar groups

• actionable items to improve user retention

several pages samples of the report

Challenges & Learning

User personas are important to work on since they might change over time, especially if the company direction changes or they want to add other values to the products. However, working within a tight timeline was something else. We all also know that finding research participants has its own struggles. Therefore, we collaborated with other divisions (Product Operation Team & Marketing Team) to reach out to the participants and reached the interview target.

Another challenge was synthesizing and compiling them into a report deck. Even though creating a report was our day-to-day job, working on this large amount of qualitative data was quite overwhelming. I also didn't want to burden and confuse my stakeholders while reading this report, so I summarized them into tables so the stakeholders could easily compare the group participants.

Overall, it was such an exciting project to work on since this was the research team's first time conducting a Focus Group Discussion on the company.