Quick Brief — for the hiring manager
Problem
India's local merchants were being destroyed by e-commerce giants. JioMoney had 10M+ users. Could we build an auction platform that gave local retail a fighting chance — leveraging Reliance's scale?
My Role
UX Designer and Visual Designer. Designed both Customer and Merchant apps. Ran user research, created flows, wireframes, and visual designs. Presented to board-level stakeholders at Reliance.
Impact
78% reduction in support tickets via self-service redesign. Play Store rating lifted from 3.1→4.3★. Research findings informed strategic pivot to grocery — a higher-margin, more viable model.
Approach
City-level research to identify pilot markets. Category analysis for highest-potential verticals. Designed dual apps (Customer + Merchant) connected by metadata. Evaluated using Google's HEART Framework.
Outcomes
Alpha version shipped and tested. 5 key barriers identified through research. Pivot to grocery commerce justified and recommended. Future vision: integration into MyJio App (331M+ users).
Learnings
A bold product bet that pivots isn't a failure — it's the research doing its job. Local context shapes global UX. Building for both sides of a marketplace doubles design complexity in ways you must plan for.
User Base
10M+ JioMoney users
Ticket Reduction
78% via self-service
Rating Lift
3.1 → 4.3★ Play Store
Who
Reliance Jio, a $90 Billion Company, empowering Local Merchants in India
What
Creating an Auction Platform for Customers to Buy or Bid products from nearby Merchants
Why
The boom in eCommerce in India is taking away money from local merchants of India
How
Connecting Customers with nearby Merchants, and expanding business' online presence
The Challenge
India's local retail market was collapsing under the weight of e-commerce. With JioMoney's 10M+ user base as distribution, we had a rare opportunity to build a counter-narrative — an auction marketplace that would let local merchants compete on deals.
The challenge was designing for two completely different user types simultaneously: price-conscious consumers who wanted the best deal, and margin-pressured merchants who needed a viable business model. The product had to delight both — or it would fail both.
The Stakes
"This wasn't just a product — it was an attempt to rebalance India's retail economy using design and technology."
Design Process
Research & Insights
Metro cities first
Research pointed to Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore as pilot markets — highest population density, strongest JioMoney adoption, and most acute e-commerce displacement of local retail.
Language was the barrier
Many local merchants operated their phones entirely in regional languages. An English-only interface was a dealbreaker. This fundamentally shaped the information architecture of the Merchant app.
HEART Framework revealed the pivot
Retention and Task Success metrics showed that electronics auctions had too slim margins for merchants. Grocery — with Reliance's POS devices for inventory — was the higher-viability pivot.
Key Design Decisions
01
Metadata bridge between Customer and Merchant apps
The two apps weren't separate products — they were two faces of the same marketplace. We designed a metadata layer that flowed seamlessly between them: bid activity, product states, merchant availability, and transaction status all synchronized in real time without either side needing to understand the other's complexity.
02
Self-service redesign for JioMoney support
Parallel to the JioAuction work, research revealed that 78% of support tickets were queries users could resolve themselves with better UX. We redesigned the JioMoney help and self-service flow — reducing tickets by 78% and lifting the Play Store rating from 3.1 to 4.3 stars.
03
Recommending the pivot based on evidence
The hardest design decision wasn't a UI choice — it was recommending to leadership that the electronics auction model wasn't viable and that grocery was the right pivot. Research gave us the confidence to make that call clearly and present it to board-level stakeholders.
Outcomes & Impact
78% ↓
Support ticket reduction via JioMoney self-service redesign
3.1→4.3★
Play Store rating lifted via continuous research and rapid iteration
10M+ Users
JioMoney user base served through redesigned self-service experience
Pivot Validated
Research findings led to strategic pivot to grocery — higher margins, better fit
Learnings
A bold product bet that pivots is research doing its job — not a failure. The pivot to grocery was the most valuable outcome of the entire engagement, and it came directly from rigorous evaluation.
Local context shapes UX more than any design principle. Language access, device behavior, merchant literacy, and regional payment norms were more influential than any pattern library.
Two-sided marketplace design doubles complexity. Every interaction on the customer side had downstream effects on the merchant side — and we had to hold both mental models simultaneously throughout.