New Payment Method for Readers Without Digital Payment Options to Subscribe in Pratilipi
Context
Pratilipi is India's largest reading & writing platform for original stories (content) in regional languages. Users read long-form, multi-part stories, self-published by indie authors on the platform.
Pratilipi's Android platform has 25 million+ MAU with an average session time of 90 minutes per user.
Pratilipi's earn majority revenue by offering it's users Premium Subscription, granting unlocked access, ad free experience to all stories for a fee (monthly, bi-yearly, yearly). We use Razorpay based checkout for payment proceedings.
Users who converted to premium subscription, we call them premium users.
We were continuously researching what's blocking our users from converting to premium users. And for our premium users, what's motivating them to make the shift. During these, research & conversations, we came into a fascinating insight. We came across a problem statement that need to be solved.
Goal
The subscription checkout experience for users who lack digital payment avenues virtually doesn’t exist, and it's currently done in an inefficient and disjointed manner.
How might we make a new subscription checkout experience for these users which is online, easy & connected?
Impact
16%
MRR Increased in the First Month
9%
MRR contribution on month-on-month basis
My Contribution
I worked as a Solo Designer with 4 Engineers & 1 PM from Sept-Oct 2022. I contributed in Product thinking, User research, Data Analysis & Design.
Problem Identification & Analysis
Data Driven Problem Context
We were continuously researching what's blocking our users from converting to premium users. And for our premium users, what's motivating them to make the shift. During these, research & conversations, we came into a fascinating insight.
20% of our first-time premium converted users don't have any digital payment capabilities
If our users lack digital payment capabilities such as UPI or debit cards, then how do they manage to pay for a premium subscription on Pratilipi?
Understanding our users
The predominant demographic of our user base is women in their 30s, who live in mid-sized cities to smaller villages (tier II to VI), mostly housewives.
This is how they manage to pay for a premium subscription on Pratilipi -
PROCESS - 1
Users ask their family members or friends to pay on their behalf while paying them in cash.
PROCESS - 2
Users visit their nearby kirana stores and ask the shopkeeper to pay on their behalf while paying them with cash.
Journey Mapping
They engage in information exchange either through WhatsApp or face-to-face interactions to discuss the payment method, with the most common practice being the sharing of UPI IDs. Additionally, some users also opt to share their card details for payment processing.
User Problems
Involves lots of steps to get the job done
Users undertakes multiple steps including physically being present, to obtain a premium subscription, compare to other users who enjoy two-step checkout process.
The entire process is inefficient & disjointed
Users face frustration as they navigate through a multiple steps, including time wastage. Anxiety mounts when payment failures occur.
Losing trust & credibility in Pratilipi
The disjointed experience leaves users feeling distrustful of the product, diminishing its credibility and reliability, leading to a loss of brand value and decreased likelihood of future usage.
Concerns of Privacy
Sharing personal payment details on someone else's phone has become a new problem, raising worries about privacy and the risk of fraud.
Business Problems
Potential Users are missing out Premium Benefits
We are losing out Potential Revenue
The Problem Statement
The subscription checkout experience for users who lack digital payment avenues virtually doesn’t exist, and it's currently done in an inefficient and disjointed manner.
How might we make a new subscription checkout experience for these users which is online, easy & connected?
Scoping, Explpration &
Final Solution
Scoping
We brainstormed different solutions to address different challenges in their journey, considering scope, viability, and feasibility. We conclude that we are not solving for digital finance, but solving for contents.
After thorough evaluation, we arrived at the solution:
Simplifying the process of sharing accounts for payment. The foundation of this solution involved creating a system where a user's ID is embedded in a shareable link, allowing friends or family members or any other person to make payments on their behalf.
The New Experience
The user journey involves 4 key steps.
First, Users enter into their new subscription journey.
Second, link generation process where the user generates a unique link containing their account ID, which is then shared with a friend or family member or any person.
Next, the recipient clicks on the shared link and completes the payment process on behalf of the user.
Lastly, Once the payment is successfully processed, the user is notified of their upgraded premium plan status. When launching the app, they start to enjoy premium experience
Video
The UI design is based on legacy UI of Pratilipi
The UI design is based on legacy UI of Pratilipi
The UI design is based on legacy UI of Pratilipi
The UI design is based on legacy UI of Pratilipi
Launch, Test & Iterate
We rolled out the feature to 15% of our target user cohort and witnessed rapid adoption, meeting all success criteria. This success gives us the confidence to proceed with a full-scale launch to our entire user base.
As feedback streamed in, we used it to inform and refine the next iteration of our design.
Feedback 1
In one entry point, Users were having trouble understanding its purpose at first glance. We were not able to properly educate them about this feature's benefits and how it could help them at first impression.
Additionally, there were product limitations that arose from its positioning, which hindered the scope of testing in other experimentations.
The UI design is based on legacy UI of Pratilipi
Feedback 2
Users were getting confused about which plan they were sharing. Once again, we iterated on the design.
The UI design is based on legacy UI of Pratilipi
Feedback 3
We iterated on another aspect of the design.
During link creation, a few things could happen: links can be successfully created, link creation might take a longer duration, or link creation might fail.
We wanted to communicate in a better way to our users about the status of their action. We incorporated motion design to communicate that.
Here's the design of happy flow - when the link creation was successful.
Video
The UI design is based on legacy UI of Pratilipi
Impact
Expanding the feature to our entire user base, as emerged as a significant revenue driver. It contributed 16% of MRR increased in the first month alone and maintained a consistent 9% contribution in MRR month-on-month.
16%
MRR Increased in the First Month
9%
MRR contribution on month-on-month basis
We introduced this feature in October 2022. Google introduced a similar feature in 'Google Play Checkout' in 14th may, 2024 I/O conference.
Link
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