Flipkart updates app design to simplify navigation for small-town users

As part of the design overhaul, shopping categories and features such as Cart and Notifications have been moved to the bottom of the screen so users can access them quickly while scrolling through the app.

Bharath Ram, Product Head, Growth & Retention at Flipkart, said the psychology behind putting important elements at the bottom bar is that it is very close to the thumb and that easily allows people to go where they want.

The dedicated space for grocery shopping is at the top of the homepage to ensure more customers are aware of it and visit it more often. Ram said “putting grocery at the top makes it top of the mind of customers. Now they are aware and will go and check it. It is a very important category for Flipkart and we are very focused on it.”

Grocery is the fastest-growing category within e-commerce, especially after the pandemic. Many grocery apps have seen a lot of traction in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. To be sure, a survey involving 30,000 shoppers by Local Circles, published in February, shows that 51% of participants who bought groceries online were from tier 2, tier 3, and tier 4 cities.

To help customers from these cities find deals easily, Flipkart is repurposing the space vacated by category with consumer-centric programmes for tier 2 tier 3 consumers in the new layout.

Ram points out that while the first 100 million customers came from metros and big cities, the next 500 million customers will come from tier 3 cities and beyond. It makes it even more imperative for e-commerce platforms to offer a seamless navigation experience so that these customers can easily discover things.

According to Ram, Flipkart offers 150 million products across over 80 categories.