KoMBinaT

Inspiration

Real life experience, Due to virus transmission human interaction has become more difficult. We feel natural urges to distance from each other. It's especially tricky for "first line" human contact workers e.g. cashiers at shops/pharmacies. There is a tendency for card payments so no cash is being swapped to omit transmission, however it's mandatory for the cashier to print a receipt and hand it to the buyer. So the no transmission action is invalid.

Moreover there is an ecological aspect - it’s estimated that globally 300 billion paper receipts are produced annually, consuming 25 million trees, 18 billion litres of water and 22 million barrels of oil

What it does

Touchless transactions. We aim to get rid of paper receipts and help both customers and cashiers keep social distance. Moreover it would be helpful for long-term cost-saving for companies. By minimizing the use of paper we would reduce forest clearing and save other natural resources.

Our solution should also provide both business and individual users with a platform to manage their detailed transactions. For business users it would be helpful with both optimizing operational costs, as well as easier customer service, for instance when clients would like to have a refund, would be much easier than "searching for lost receipt". On the other hand individual users can keep all receipts in one place to easily find the one on demand. Moreover with the data we could provide them with hints how to save money in the difficult times. However when times will be better we could use it to personalize offers and provide them with personalized content, special deals etc.

Problem

Strong demand for touchless interactions on both client and vendor sides.

Solution

Kombinat - Customer and Cashier safety. Full touchless transactions.

Customer - basic features

1. Touchless transactions (safety during pandemic and further on)
   1.1 scan QR code
   1.2 take a photo of receipt
   1.3 provide data from payment terminal, only accept/deny action required from user
   
2. Purchase history:
   2.1 Easy access to proof of purchase. E,g, for warranty/refund purposes
   2.2 Easy sharing receipts when group shopping
   2.3 Detailed expenses analytics
   

Point of Sales - basic features

1. Touchless transaction (safety during pandemic and further on)
   1.1 photo - allow the customer to document the receipt. No touching
   1.2 scan QR code from the customer to send purchase details to the app. No touching.
   
2. Detailed sales analytics
   2.1 daily/weekly/monthly/quarterly/annual reports
   
3. Purchases history
   3.1 easy access to proofs of sales
   3.2 storage for legal purposes
   
4. Cost optimization
   4.1 lesser restock of receipt print paper
   4.2 lesser time for maintenance (e.g. print paper refill, it tends to stuck a lot)
   

How I built it

1. Research and Analysis
2. First iteration of ideation
3. Stakeholders map
4. Value Proposition Canvas
5. Second iteration of ideation
6. Process mapping
7. First concepts
8. Mockups
9. Iterating...iterating
10. UI Design...iterating

Challenges I ran into

1. Integration with point of sales
2. Legal constraints in various countries, it’s mandatory to print paper receipts
   

EU wise legal change to allow digitized receipts would be helpful

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

1. We have a great product design team :)
2. We started from scratch during the hackathon!

What I learned

1. If you have a great team you can do anything, even create a rapid proof of concept within 2 days that you are proud of.
2. Remote hacking was something completely new for us - totally cool and comfy.

What's next for KoMBinaT

1.Gathering development Team #ASAP
2.Development #ASAP
3.MVP implementation - first/second quarter of running project
4.Future development - starting from 2nd half year of running project
4.1 Recommendations engine
4.1.1 Notifications - good or bad path should be defined by user
4.1.1.1 when during potential financial crisis or bad individual financial situation: provide customer with hints on what products he could save up
4.1.1.2 when after potential financial crisis or when individual financial situation is good: provide customer with more purchases options or promotions
4.1.2 Potential pre-shopping cart filling - based on shopping history we could prepare shopping cart for customer for easy click-buy-collect
4.1.3 Invoice storage for business customers
potential support for small business accounting
4.2 Credit Card payment integration
4.3 Readiness for card payment method changes e.g. virtual PIN number

Potential CSR impact

1. Less usage of printed paper = more trees/natural resources saved
   
2. Data analysis could provide users with safe contact notifications = e.g. we noticed you are buying 300% more alcohol/ painkillers than average, here is a safe contact in case you would like to talk about it