Redesigning how India discovers local stores
PhonePe Stores connects millions of users to nearby merchants. The existing discovery experience had high drop-off and poor store visibility. We redesigned it from the ground up.
The Problem
PhonePe Stores had significant bounce rates at the discovery stage. Users who landed on the browse experience struggled to find relevant stores — the browsing interface lacked clear categorisation, search was buried, and store listings failed to communicate enough context for users to feel confident clicking through.
Outcomes
Research & Discovery
We conducted user interviews and analysed session recordings to understand where drop-off occurred. Three recurring themes emerged: users couldn't quickly assess store relevance, category navigation required too many taps, and the visual hierarchy of listings didn't surface the information users needed first (rating, distance, open status).
“I can see there are stores but I don't know which ones are open right now or how far they are from me.”
New listing card design — key context visible without interaction
Information-dense listing cards
The redesigned cards surface rating, open/closed status, distance, and primary category at a glance. Users can assess relevance without tapping into a store detail page — reducing friction and increasing confident click-throughs.
Category rail — always accessible, no drawer interaction required
Persistent category navigation
A sticky horizontal category rail replaced the collapsed filter menu. Categories are visible on first scroll, reducing the number of taps to reach a filtered view from 3 to 1.
Reflection
The strongest design decision was treating the listing card as the primary decision surface — not the detail page. Once we reframed the problem as "help users decide before they tap," the solution became obvious. The category rail emerged from a similar insight: navigation should match the user's mental model, not the technical structure of our data.