Opened in 1982, Iguatemi Fortaleza is one of the largest shopping malls in Ceará and a reference in innovation in the region. With over 450 stores, the mall was heavily impacted by the pandemic and sought to digitalize in order to stay afloat in this new global scenario.
UX Designer focused on research and strategic product definition.
2020–2021 – Try Design Consultancy
Developed a marketplace fully integrated with the mall’s physical experience.
On launch day, more than 60 retailers participated.
Gathered deep insights into Iguatemi’s audience and their consumption behavior during the pandemic.
Services such as retail stores, bars, and restaurants account for 70% of Brazil’s GDP.
The non-durable goods sector, such as food and hygiene items, helped mitigate the negative economic impact of the pandemic.
Since the start of the pandemic, there has been a 48.3% increase in overall product consumption.
The migration of Brazilian consumption to online environments was expected to take decades—but it happened within weeks.
The main profile identified: women, aged 25 to 44, from social classes C to A, living with a partner.
Higher-income groups demand better service quality and stronger brand presence, while lower-income groups demand discounts, purchase reviews, and easier payment options.
59% shop online frequently.
Products that do not need to be seen or touched are the most purchased online (food, electronics, accessories).
Products such as clothing, shoes, and perfumes are more popular for physical purchases (due to the need to try them on).
Saving time and avoiding parking fees were the main reasons cited for shopping in an online mall.
Our team analyzed both direct competitors (other shopping malls) and indirect competitors (general e-commerce platforms) to understand what was working at that moment.
In general, we identified major opportunities to encourage Iguatemi customers to shop online while picking up their orders at the mall. Some examples included:
Partial or full parking discounts for order pickup.
Discounts on future purchases at specific stores.
Exclusive discounts via QR codes inside stores.
Clothing purchases with a personal shopper.
Facilitating product pickup for those who didn’t want to enter the mall (via lockers, drive-thru, concierge).
And much more...
But for users who want to receive their product at home, that’s fine too, Iguatemi has the opportunity to become a distribution center, speeding up deliveries to up to 2 hours after purchase confirmation, where the biggest pains for those who need to receive a product in the Northeast are delivery time and shipping cost (where both are excessively high).
Understand customer patterns and behaviors in order to always make good recommendations and work with greater assertiveness (focus on CRM, just as Amazon and other major marketplaces do).
Understand what competitors are doing at the moment, identifying business opportunities and always curating the best from retailers, ensuring quality products and service.
Unlike Iguatemi São Paulo, Iguatemi Fortaleza welcomes all social classes and audiences, being an option for everyone in Ceará. Knowing this, it is necessary to work with an inclusive, modern visual identity while maintaining Iguatemi’s essence.
Bring the physical experience to the digital without creating competition between them, but rather encouraging people to go to the mall by enhancing the current experience.
Deliver content to users, creating an identity that adds value beyond sales.
Provide a fast, affordable, and efficient delivery service for the region.
We usually run an ideation and prioritization workshop with all stakeholders. This helps generate new ideas for the future, ensures everyone is on the same page, and increases collaboration across the team.
In the final stage of the project, we prototyped all website screens, their variations, and components in wireframes. After client validation and UI refinement, we conducted usability and functionality tests with the mall’s customers.
With this new project, Iguatemi is now able to deliver an outstanding online shopping experience, introducing to the market the concept of “phygital”, where retailers gain another channel to showcase their products and generate revenue, while regional customers are introduced to a new way of experiencing the mall, both digitally and physically.
Pioneering has always been a hallmark of the brand, which continues to innovate in the region by delivering a new technological ecosystem aligned with global trends.