Onboarding project | local ferment co

Lets see what Local Ferment Co. is doing right and wrong during onboarding

What is Local Ferment Co? It is a non-alcoholic microbrewery that is doing all things probiotics with major SKUs as Kombucha, shrub soda and gingerale. They are based out of bangalore with Akash Devaraju, a tech enthusiast and Noopur Porwal, a chef as its founders. Their website is their central digital presence and they are also available on hyperlocal as Instamart and Swiggy.

Discover Local Ferment on Tracxn

JTBD

1. Primary - An healthy alternative to alcohol Indian Market is filled with ‘sugarladen’ soft drinks be it diet coke or Paperboat juices. If one has to go for an healthy non-alcoholic drink, the best you can get is ‘Limesoda’. Hence, there is ample space for healthy drinks like Kombucha and LFC is rightly using that void. Their core value prop, ‘ the cleanest beverage’ clearly aligns with that.
2. Secondary - A tasty wholesome Gourmet Sandwiches Local ferment started in 2020 with sourdough bread and sandwiches as their first offerings. Though this got backseat and they are now majorly a beverage brand but they still offer a range of healthy and filling sandwiches to grab with their drinks.

ICP

Who are consuming LFC? It is a new age brand primarily catering to people who high appetite for trying new things and adopting them. Also people who are influenced by Word of Mouth of friends and influential marketing of socials.

Here are some of LFC users, I got to interact with -

Yashodhan Nakhare 🏓
He is a 24 yr sports marketing guy living in Bangalore, quite active on Twitter and loves all things trendy. He plays pickleball on weekends and GoRally Indiranagar is his spot. He came across Local ferment through twitter. Local ferment recently collaborated with Sorted for creative ads on their new launch 'Imli pop' and the job was rightly done, it caught the eye of Yash, the poster looked funky enough but he didnt order it then.

When LFC founder held Twitter Space named ‘Dink and Drink’ for launch of its new drink, Yash was part of it. Yash told that 20 lucky people were chosen who get to play and drink for free at Go Rally Indiranagar and he was one of them. They were also given discount coupons for online orders.

Yash has fondness for Kombucha, drinking a similar flavor after pickleball gave adrenaline boost to order it from the website. Though Yash liked the kombucha, he had mixed reviews for the website experience. In his words -

1. I had to scroll at the landing page till the last to find the shop button
2. They had lot of noise on website which hindered him from placing the order
3. The payment was smooth, since they integrated Razorpay in their flow.
4. The delivery experience was 2/5. They delivered the bottle through porter. Without any prior intimation of the order status, getting an unknown delivery by porter was not a good experience for him. Besides, they did not invest much in packaging and delivered the bottle in a paper bag.

Given his experience, Yash never ordered it from their website again. But, pickleball sesh at indiranagar continues and so does his offline interaction with local ferment. He also recommended the drink to his playpals.

Mehul Ved 👨‍💻

Mehul works in tech and has a friend who is an investor in LFC. Mehul told that LFC hosts tech mixers at their venue in Banerghatta and he attended one, two years back, through his friend. He got to taste LFC’s kombucha then. He tasted Kombucha multiple times but does not have liking for it. But he likes their sourdough bread.

Shivani 👩

She is 25 yr old tech enthusiast who lives in Bangalore. Her first interaction with LFC was through their giveaway tweet. Since then, she is hooked to their flavours. She is orders regularly from Swiggy especially when she hosts people over.

Why are above people consuming LFC?

1. Social Goal - Kombucha is that 'US returned cousin' with whom everybody wants to hangout. Kombucha, a traditional Chinese fermented drink, is currently the talk of the town and often in conversation by the people living in metropolitan especially Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi. Even in my user research, many people called out that they drank kombucha because there friends asked them to, or many people were posting a picture with it on social media. Since it is an acquired taste, it will only grow on you if you complement it with good experience, habituation and nutrition.

Local ferment Co. is a big player in creating that experience and social effect. Here’s how -

Pickleball effect 🎾 - The big move in that effect is tying up with Pickleball courts as their brewing partner. Similar to Kombucha, Pickleball is rapidly capturing the interests of urban India. LFC organises ‘dink and drink’ where they invite people through social for free pickleball match and offer them their sodas.

Twitter effect 📱 - LFC has a very active Twitter and Instagram page. They keep hosting twitter spaces and insta live for discount coupons on their drink. My ICP reach was through twitter as these were the people who shared actively about LFC on their twitter.

Mixers and retreats ⚡ - Local Ferment frequently hosts tech mixers and yoga sessions. They give their brewing space for these tech mixers and offer them drinks and bites. A tour through their brewing process also creates that feeling to try out that drink.

FOMO 🍕- LFC has tied with some popular pizzerias like Pizza 4Ps, 23rd Street Pizza as their beverage partner. These, new happening places in Bangalore, are always on waitlist and create the state of urgency. By partnering with these cafes, LFC is also becoming a driver of FOMO.

All places trending 📚 - They have kept their fridges in popular places of Bangalore. Infact, my first interaction with LFC was at Champaca Book Store. Besides, Hackathons and MUNs is where they find their ideal customers.

2. Personal Goal - People are always in search of healthy non-alcoholic drink, and will adopt the acquired taste only if it is elevating their nutrition. LFC claims to use thoughtfully selected & locally sourced fruits, spices and herbs.

“There’s no reason those who don’t drink alcohol or want to take a break from it should be limited to drinking lime-soda. And the benefits of fermentation are well known as well, so there is increasing demand for healthy, fermented, unprocessed and not sugar-laden drinks,” says Noopur Porwal, the co founder of Local Ferment Co.

Onboarding Teardown
Local ferment website is their central digital presence. It is aesthetic but not functional.

Lets look at some of their main pages on the website -

a. Landing Photo

1. Non functional button - Shop button is not working. Buggy Shop button, a prime CTA, shows that website is not properly tested.
2. No value prop - Since they are targeting only kombucha in their fermentation line, it is no where mentioned in the description. Regenerative ingredients again is very vague and not indicative of the actual ingredients used.
3. Vague Photo - The photo is irrelevant to the subject i.e. fermentation. Images are the best ways to grab user attention and convey the value prop. The image used will confuse the user.
   

b. Landing Page

1. Visibility - Text is not clear and unreadable.
2. Prime CTA - Shop button is not popping up. For a new user, it will take time to locate it. It might even go unnoticeable for some.
3. Visibility - The hero product is not visible in the photo clearly. The photo has no context with the sodas.
4. Toast Message - Imli pop is their new launched SKU. It is being marketed rigorously on social media. The same energy is not seen on their website. The toast is not highlighted well, and might go unnoticed.
5. Value prop - This is the prime section where they mentioned value prop but there are room for replacement -
   a. Ethos could be replaced with ' Why Local ferment '
   b. The placement of this section is wrong.
   c. Message could be more direct and clear.
6. Whatsapp widget - Indian’s primary source of communication is Whatsapp, direct integration to it will easily solve for multiple lost users. Rather than addiing a complicated bot, they integrated with Whatsapp.
   

c. The second page after clicking ‘Shop’

1. Unsettling Placement - The grid or the placement of SKUs looks very odd. The empty box on the right does not make sense and cuts the user cognitive by bad design
2. Unclear photo - Kombucha being their hero product, they could have chosen a much better photo for its introduction than a vague top view.
3. Lacks Context - Rather than just adding a definition, they could have added a carousel with three slides showing -
4. 1. Image showing Kombucha followed with text on what is kombucha
   2. Image showing the preparation of Kombucha followed with the text on preparation
   3. Image showing the health benefits followed with a text on the same.
6. 1. Visibility - All the SKUs looks similar only a tiny text to differentiate them. Once you hover on particular SKU, there are different photos which have no context for the variant.
   2. Unclear Pricing - The pricing below each is 450 which is quite high for 1 bottle shown in the picture. Only once you click on a SKU, you realise that this is the price for a pack of 4 not one drink. But this was no where mentioned on this page. A better user priming would have been a price / quantity of the drink.
      

d. The third page after clicking Mango & chilli above.

2. 1. No context image - The image shown above has no context with their mango & chilli variant.
   2. Image placement - The above screenshot is taken on tablet. For laptop, instead of carousel, the images are stacked in a vertical grid and their recommended drinks are the end of the scroll. This increases unnecessary scroll time and image load time delay for the users who are not interested in seeing other images and might be willing to try their other drinks.
3. Text Section is crisp with all the necessary information mentioned. It also has emojis which makes the text more interactive for the user. If they can add headings for each section of the text, it would be more readable. For eg: a user interested in reading benefits has to peruse the entire text. A heading 'Benefits' on the other hand would have saved reading time.
4. Confusing CTA
5. 1. Buy it now and quick buy convey the same message.
   2. For an user, who is just interested in ordering a drink. Two pay options will just confuse the user and lead them to terminate.
   3. Buy it now redirects to inbuilt checkout with address add and then razorpay integration for payment and quick buy is Simpl integration, with no address add if user has already paid using Simpl in past. Though having two pay options might benefit product in data collection and cost optimization, it is very cumbersome for users.
6. There is no referral policy currently
7. They are only offering Pack of 4 right now, hence having a drop down for size with just one option is not useful
   

e. Subscriptions page redirected from the fourth section in the landing page

Offering - Customized collections of drinks to be ordered weekly as a subscription to LFS

1. Detail less - Only a text about ‘boochBox’ but there is no info on how and where to subscribe it. Seems like a page in progress, Coming soon pop can align well with the users.
2. ShrubSoda on the right is very confusing and not making any sense. The image on the left contains only kombucha and shrub soda on the right is confusing.
3. Hard to relocate - Since for probiotic drinks a subscription based model is very important for user retention. It is one of the core user flows, hence including it in the navbar is very important.
   

f. Footer

1. No user priming - No conviction shown to the user to show what they are subscribing into. As their is 0 priming, none of the users will be subscribing into it
2. Ideal footer should have primary flows but it rather has Log in and register only
   

Overall experience with the brand -

1. Positives
2. 1. The flavours are tasty and healthy
   2. Label and packaging itself are an AHA moment - The idea behind Imli Pop, one of their Shrub Sodas, was to bring back the nostalgia of ‘Hajmola and Fatafat’. Every thing from drink color to taste reminds of that nostalgia. The label is the first impression in conveying that message and it does the job right. The typography, the colors, the graphic all were cherry on cake, and the cake being the drink itself.
      
      
      
   3. The ad creative for Imli Pop was another aha moment - ‘Infantilization’ i.e. business strategies that encourage adults to experiences that is associated with their childhood, is the modern driver in new age brands. LFC rightly tapped into it by creating an ad campaign for ‘kidults’. They leverage nostalgia to resonate with customers who want to "never grow up”(all of us).
   4. 
3. Negatives
4. 1. The value prop is not clearly mentioned on the website
   2. Images are the best ways to grab user attention and convey the message instantly. That core opportunity should be utilised.
5. Recommendations
6. 1. Highlight the primary CTA, ‘Shop’ in this case. It should pop out and user should not spend too much time perusing it through the paragraphs.
   2. The placement of carousels can be on the bottom of the page. Adding it at the top would add necessary delay for the user trying to shop a drink. S/he can always come back and explore the website once the primary goal i.e. ordering a drink, is achieved.
   3. Include testaments and user reviews on the website
   4. Educate customers about probiotics, fermentation and Kombucha
   5. Since there are so many boutique probiotic beverage companies in the market right now, LFC can call out how they are different from the rest

The ideal activation metric is 2 packs* per user in 3 weeks**.

*One Pack includes 4 - 250ml bottles

**Pack of 4 is the only option available currently