Introducing Spinny Flex as a new vertical within Spinny
Case Study: Designing a Fractional Car Ownership Feature for Spinny
In this case study, I outline my approach to designing a new feature for Spinny, a car reselling platform in India. The feature, called “Spinny Flex,” introduces a new vertical within Spinny, catering to users interested in owning a fractional share of a car. This project was a part of the 10K designers cohort and it took me two weeks to complete.
Project brief: “Design an app/feature for a fractional car ownership platform in India”
Background and problem selection
What is fractional car ownership?
Fractional car ownership involves a group of individuals sharing ownership of one or more cars. Each participant holds a partial stake in the vehicle, sharing both the benefits and responsibilities that come with ownership.
What motivates individuals to opt for fractional ownership rather than traditional ownership models?
Cost Sharing
It significantly reduces the financial burden compared to owning a car outright, especially when factoring in expenses like insurance, maintenance, parking, and depreciation.
Access to Variety of High-Value Assets
Fractional ownership provides access to a fleet of vehicles rather than being tied to one car. This allows individuals to choose from different makes and models based on their needs and preferences, without the commitment of owning a single car long-term.
Lifestyle Considerations
In densely populated urban areas where parking space is limited and public transportation is readily available, owning a car outright may not be practical. Fractional ownership provides an alternative transportation solution for urban dwellers who only need occasional access to a vehicle.
What is Spinny?
Spinny is an online car dealership that simplifies buying and selling used cars in India. It operates on a full-stack model, meaning it handles the entire process from acquiring the car to selling it to the users. This allows them to ensure quality and transparency throughout the transaction.
What is Spinny Flex?
Spinny Flex is a new feature within the Spinny app designed to facilitate fractional car ownership. It essentially allows you to share a car with others, acting as a platform to connect you with trustworthy co-owners, manage finances transparently, and schedule car usage smoothly amongst yourselves. It even offers tools to track maintenance needs, ensuring a hassle-free shared ownership experience.
Why Spinny should add fractional ownership?
Spinny is gearing up to amplify its focus on Spinny Max, its premier luxury used car segment. At present, Spinny Max showcases a handpicked selection of prestigious vehicles from renowned brands like Mercedes, BMW, Audi, and others.
Adding fractional car ownership to Spinny’s business model presents numerous opportunities for revenue growth, market expansion, customer engagement, and competitive differentiation, ultimately benefiting the company’s bottom line and long-term success.
Target Audience
Users living in urban areas who may not need a car for daily commuting but require occasional access.
Users who aspire to drive luxury or high-end vehicles but may find full ownership financially prohibitive.
Primary Research
Understanding the Users
User research through surveys and in-depth conversations in person helped me gain invaluable insights into the target audience’s aspirations and needs for fractional car ownership.
Flow of Co-Owning a Car with Potential Problems
Initiation
A group of interested individuals forms a consortium to purchase a car.
Difficulty in finding like-minded individuals with similar usage needs and financial capabilities.
Research and Decision
The group researches and decides on the car they wish to buy.
They agree on the terms of ownership and usage.
Disagreements on the choice of car, features, and specifications.
Purchase
The car is purchased with contributions from all co-owners.
Legal agreements are signed.
One or more co-owners may have financial issues, delaying the purchase. Misunderstandings or omissions in the legal agreement can cause future conflicts.
Registration and Insurance
The car is registered, and insurance is secured.
Registration and insurance can be complicated with multiple owners. Ensuring all co-owners are adequately covered by insurance can be tricky.
Operation
Co-owners schedule usage according to the agreed system.
They drive and use the car within their allotted time.
Scheduling conflicts and disagreements on usage times. One co-owner may monopolize the car or not adhere to the schedule.
Maintenance and Costs
Regular maintenance is performed, and costs are shared.
Any additional costs are communicated and split among co-owners.
Disputes over the timing and necessity of repairs and maintenance. Disagreements on how costs are split, especially if one owner uses the car more than others.
Communication
Ongoing communication ensures smooth operation.
Any issues or conflicts are resolved as per the agreement.
Poor communication can lead to misunderstandings and resentment. Conflicts can escalate if not addressed promptly.
Exit Strategy
If a co-owner wishes to leave, they sell their share according to the terms set out in the agreement.
New co-owners may be brought in to replace those who leave.
Difficulty in finding a buyer for a share of the car. Disagreements on the value of the share being sold. Potential disruption to the usage and financial arrangements.
Comprehensive problem to be solved
Finding Trustworthy Individuals: Users struggle to connect with like-minded individuals based on their car preferences, leading to dissatisfaction and a lack of meaningful connections.
Scheduling Conflicts: Co-owners frequently clash over booking the car, leading to disputes and inconvenience.
Expense Tracking Issues: Difficulty in tracking and dividing expenses accurately among co-owners, causing financial discrepancies and disagreements.
Maintenance Neglect: Regular maintenance tasks are often overlooked or poorly coordinated, resulting in increased wear and tear on the vehicle and higher repair costs.
Communication Breakdowns: Lack of effective communication channels leads to misunderstandings, conflicts, and unresolved issues among co-owners.
Ownership Transitions: Managing changes in ownership shares, including selling or transferring shares, can be complicated and prone to disputes.
Document Management Challenges: Keeping track of important documents such as insurance policies and legal agreements is cumbersome and may lead to compliance issues.
Usage Analysis Difficulty: Co-owners lack insights into how the vehicle is being used, making it challenging to optimize usage and expenses.
Technical Support Needs: Users may encounter technical issues or require assistance with using the app effectively, impacting their experience with fractional car ownership.
Competitor Analysis
Only a few players and platforms offer fractional car ownership in India, despite the concept being relatively new. Still, several players provide rental services.
Prorata
The Prorata platform allows users to co-own cars with their co-residents/colleagues. Co-owners in a 10 km radius buy 1–3 tickets from the 12 tickets to partially own the car and reserve the dates to use the car via the Prorata app.
Zoomcar
Zoomcar is a car rental and self-drive car-sharing company in India. It primarily offers a wide range of vehicles for rent on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis. It provides a convenient and flexible alternative to traditional car rental services, allowing users to book vehicles through its website or mobile app and pick them up from designated locations.
Revv
Revv is also a self-drive car rental service in India, offering hourly, daily, and monthly rentals. It operates in multiple cities across India and is known for its hassle-free booking process, transparent pricing, and well-maintained fleet of vehicles.
Myles
Myles is also a self-drive car rental service, one of India’s leading ride-hailing companies similar to Zoomcar and Revv.
User flow
To maximize impact within the two-week window, I narrowed the project scope to address essential user flows.
By putting the end goal of the user at the forefront and avoiding scheduling conflicts, a user-friendly flow has been created.
Visual design
Problem 1: Finding Trustworthy Individuals
Solution: Users can browse available cars based on their preferences such as make, model, year, etc. Trustworthiness is ensured through a user verification process, which includes ID verification and background checks. Users can indicate their interest in their preferred car to be matched with potential co-owners.
User attention is drawn to the card. This can be achieved by offering a lower price than the actual car price, which is the estimated amount of the car if they jointly own it.
As the user clicks through the card, they land on the Spinny Flex home screen where they can:
- On Spinny Flex’s home screen, the user can find all the information he or she needs about co-owning a car. On this page, users will find answers to all of their questions.
- Get to know the actual value by selecting the share that they desire to own using a drop-down and making sure we have the name and phone number correct by minimizing the clicks of the user.
Users can select which ownership share they would like to own depending on the car they choose. Without showing the actual amount, our pop-up allows users to add someone with whom they already know and co-own the car together. Providing an easy way to refer someone.
- The user is informed that we also provide loans and can check the interest rates if they are interested.
- Users need to get a taste of what the product is really like by taking a test drive. You can make sure most users will choose one of the two scheduling options by showing them two different options.
- By letting users know the booking amount is refundable, and by showing them a test drive and loan option, which converts more users.
Problem 2: Scheduling Conflicts
Solution: An interactive calendar where co-owners can book usage times. Co-owners can pre-book their usage slots for a month in advance, utilizing the days remaining in their account, as agreed upon by all the co-owners. The app detects and resolves booking conflicts, suggesting alternative slots. Co-owners receive timely alerts for upcoming bookings, changes, and cancellations via push notifications. Notifications include relevant details such as booking date and time, car availability, and any updates to existing reservations.
- Using the account tab, users can view details about their cars under the “Your cars” section. The most important thing here is to prioritize rescheduling their usage.
- Upon reaching the next screen, users are presented with two options for rescheduling or canceling their usage. The addresses are also prioritized.
- This screen displays a variety of information about the car, including the fuel level, and an overview. Users can view the car’s maintenance history, costs, usage, and more. The screen can also be accessed remotely, allowing users to check on their vehicle’s status at any time.
- In the calendar view, users can reschedule after seeing already scheduled dates, reassuring them their changes will be effective.
- A user can select the days in which they will use the car 30 days ahead of time. The rescheduling can be done within this period.
- An alert pops up if the user chooses dates to clash with others. They can then request those dates or explore the remaining availability.
Creating Touchpoints
Because this is part of Spinny, I had to design a couple of touchpoints for users to land on the home screen of Spinny Flex where they can find out more about the feature and estimate the cost of the vehicle.
- Tab bar from Spinny’s home screen.
- The Spinny Flex card is on the Spinny home screen.
- The filter section is where the user can select the car category for FLex.
Learnings and Takeaways
In my last project, I had the freedom to create the design language entirely. Here, the challenge was adapting to Spinny’s established system. It pushed me to delve deeper, truly understanding their design choices. This ensured my work was seamlessly integrated with their existing brand aesthetic.
There’s no such thing as a single, final design when designing an app. What you see is the culmination of an iterative process. Designers make and refine decisions through multiple versions, ensuring the app effectively meets user needs.
The End
Designing this new vertical for the spinny has been a wonderful journey, from brainstorming ideas to settling down on what can be done by the deadline.
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