Building a 0→1 Wallet Ecosystem

Retention dies between order one and order two. We closed that gap with a reward loop built on earned credit, urgency mechanics, and the psychology of not wanting to walk away from something already won.

Retention Engineering

Incentive Design

System Design

IMPACT

Buyers kept coming back

44%

vs 36% pre-wallet

+22% vs before

Still ordering 10 weeks later

27%

vs 21% non-wallet users

+29% vs non-wallet

Fewer one-time buyers

−5.3pp

One-and-done share 55.6% → 50.3%

down from 55.6%

MY ROLE

Lead Product Designer

End-to-end ownership across research, architecture, and interaction design, shipped directly with engineering

TIMELINE

Aug → Sep 2025

MVP Launch + Retention Strategy

Live in Production

COMPANY

Website

Play Store

Kirana Club

Kirana Club is India's largest digital community and social networking platform for local grocery store owners (kiranas), connecting over 40 lakh retailers with FMCG brands.

B2B2C

Early Stage

4M+ Users

10M+ App Downloads

Building a 0→1 Wallet Ecosystem

Retention dies between order one and order two. We closed that gap with a reward loop built on earned credit, urgency mechanics, and the psychology of not wanting to walk away from something already won.

Retention Engineering

Incentive Design

System Design

IMPACT

Buyers kept coming back

44%

vs 36% pre-wallet

+22% vs before

Still ordering 10 weeks later

27%

vs 21% non-wallet users

+29% vs non-wallet

Fewer one-time buyers

−5.3pp

One-and-done share 55.6% → 50.3%

down from 55.6%

MY ROLE

Lead Product Designer

End-to-end ownership across research, architecture, and interaction design, shipped directly with engineering

TIMELINE

Aug → Sep 2025

MVP Launch + Retention Strategy

Live in Production

Building a 0→1 Wallet Ecosystem

Retention dies between order one and order two. We closed that gap with a reward loop built on earned credit, urgency mechanics, and the psychology of not wanting to walk away from something already won.

Retention Engineering

Incentive Design

System Design

IMPACT

Buyers kept coming back

44%

vs 36% pre-wallet

+22% vs before

Still ordering 10 weeks later

27%

vs 21% non-wallet users

+29% vs non-wallet

Fewer one-time buyers

−5.3pp

One-and-done share 55.6% → 50.3%

down from 55.6%

MY ROLE

Lead Product Designer

End-to-end ownership across research, architecture, and interaction design, shipped directly with engineering

TIMELINE

Aug → Sep 2025

MVP Launch + Retention Strategy

Live in Production

the problem

New users placed their first order and disappeared. A discount would have made it worse.

Acquisition was working. Retention was a cliff, before the wallet, 63% of first-time buyers placed a second order, but only 36% made it to a fourth. More than half of all buyers placed exactly one order and never came back.

The instinct: run a discount campaign. But a discount trains users to wait for the next one. It doesn't build a habit, it rents one. We needed something that changed why users opened the app, not just the price when they did.

The reframe: Don't reduce the cost of one order. Make not ordering feel like leaving money on the table.

Mixpanel

https://www.mixpanel.com

the habit loop

Seven steps that each make the next one feel inevitable and three design decisions that made the loop hard to break.

A one-shot promotional credit would show an immediate retention boost that decays by week 6–8. What the data actually shows is the opposite: wallet users retain slightly worse than non-wallet users in weeks 1–2, then cross over at week 4–6 and stay elevated through week 10.

You can't fake that crossover shape with a discount. It only happens when users are returning because the mechanic keeps pulling them, not because they received a free thing once.

product decisions