Sun Basket Mobile Marketplace

Taking a subscription meal kit service, and bolting on an additional set of 150 additional products in 6 weeks.

Design System

Design system

Analytics

User testing

Dec 19, 2021, SunBasket was acquired by Prüvit for $1.3B

+$125K/Week in additional Gross Revenue ($6.5M annually)

>10% of orders contained at least one Marketplace item.

6 weeks from Design concept to beta testing

There are far too many projects to detail from the 3+ years I led the Design of SunBasket's mobile applications. The Marketplace project offers a 6 week peek into a period of significant change for the company.
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A lot of changes happened to Sun Basket in the subsequent two years after I joined and designed the first mobile apps for iOS and Android. We determined that users wanted to be able to use Sun Basket to solve more than just dinner, and that we could aim to be a solution for more meals throughout the week.

After much research and discussion, we determined to add a set of 150 additional products that the user could add on to their order. And so we began testing into changing the subscription model altogether, allowing a minimum box value instead of a minimum number of recipes, and even testing allowing users to order a box a la carte, without a subscription.

This project coincided with a facelift of our typeface and colors, that extended throughout our entire visual branding, from our weekly published recipe books throughout all our etc. I looked at our visual branding and determined a specific shift in personality, the launch of which coincided with this Marketplace launch.
We determined that users wanted to be able to use Sun Basket to solve more than just dinner, and that there were opportunities to offer product solutions for more moments throughout a customer’s week.
We determined an initial set of 150 carefully curated additional products that the user could add on to their order.
We decided to test into a fundamental change to our subscription model: allowing a minimum box value instead of a minimum number of recipes, and even testing allowing users to order a box a la carte, without a subscription.
A fundamental change in the Mobile App UX was to be tested, allowing the user to explore different aisles of our virtual supermarket.

Sunbasket Before & After

Apart from a shift in type and colors, the launch of a whole additional marketplace.

Rolf was brought in to create the Mobile Apps, and then quickly brought leadership and direction to design throughout everything Sun Basket; the entire User Experience, Packaging, Marketing, the Recipe Books. … I learned a tremendous amount about design and thoughtfulness from Rolf. I feel so lucky to have worked with him for three years and cannot recommend him strongly enough!

tyler macniven

HamsaPay - Co-founder & APAC CEO
Apple, Amex & Visa

Recipe edit flow

The addition of all those new products necessitated a cart (the button in the top right corner). The cart then fulfills the need to offer the user an easy way to get a higher comparative view of everything ordered, retaining the immersive large image view of the recipes that encourages ordering.

We still kept the schedule page, because we determined that adding the ability to skip from the menu page would increase skip too much. (You may notice that Colors and typefaces have also evolved at this point, a part of a larger branding revision that we undertook during this time).In order to get a clear test of retaining a 2 recipe minimum requirement against just having a minimum $ requirement (and allow no dinners if needed), we also removed the edit mode which required a careful reworking of the experience, and careful user testing.

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Marketplace proves to be a success

In the end, the addition of Market items, in the context of the changes to this UI added $2.50 in average order value each week ($1.90 from 3rd Party Items, and $0.60 from Sun Basket Kitchen eg Salads/Dips/Sauces). Our weekly orders would fluctuate, but based on a mean of 50,000 orders per week, this is a $6.5M annual run rate,or $125K/Week in additional Gross Revenue.
On average, 10% of orders each week contained at least one 3rd party Marketplace item, while 4-5% contain a Sun Basket kitchen add on.43% of active users have ordered an add-on, 27% have ordered 2 or more times.
Of those who have trialed an add-on, 55% repurchased (ordered again).

Next Project

Exploratory research for a brand new international financial start-up