Expiry
Role
Designer
Tools
Figma, Figjam
I designed a tool for small businesses to track expiration dates of retail goods to prevent waste, find opportunities for sale items and improve efficiency of the date-checking process.
A recent trip to my favorite café got me thinking about how small businesses track expiration dates across a large number of SKUs.
Research
I started by interviewing the owner of a local café/market that has a large selection of retail goods to understand their process of accounting for expiration dates.
Key Insights
I learned the café has no centralized system or digital tool to help track expiration dates. Every date is checked manually.
It takes about 30 minutes to check all of the expiration dates, which is done once a week for over 250 items.
The last time they found an expired product was 1 week prior to interview, which was due to staff error.
Products near their expiration date can be sold at a discount, rather than tossing at the time of expiration.
The users
During our interview I found out that every front-of-house staff member is involved in the date checking process, not just the owners.
Owners
Baristas/prep team
competitive analysis
USER FLOW
Many platforms exist to help businesses track inventory, but not so many focus on expiration date tracking for smaller businesses. Most existing tools are built for larger operations with more complex inventory tracking focused on things like forecasting and stock management.
These tools are usually over complicated for small teams that want to focus on expiration date visibility and quick actions rather than full inventory management.
Next I created an example flow of an employee using the app to find expired goods and to prompt them to discard the item or discount it.
WIREFRAMES
After defining an example flow, I went on to create wireframes to mockup what the app would look like.