Meet Korobox ─ cross-platform app for office snack service
How we put our revolutionary idea in motion to help you delight your workforce with a digital-enabled honesty snacks box
Industry
Foodtech
Location
Ukraine
Clients since
September, 2019
Status
Ongoing
It all started with Rodion Salnik, the co-founder of Brocoders, who suggested the idea of creating an app for a snack box service. Initially, we wanted to cover our snacks box with a digital management platform that was meant for personal internal usage only. Later, we came to an agreement to develop a feature-rich solution that any company can download and utilize in order to improve the experience of buying snacks in the office.
The situation
As the name implies, the honesty snack box is a basket or a box full of snacks that allow employees not to waste their time, and have a snack before launch or during a coffee break right at the workplace.
Such an employee-centric approach demonstrates that you care deeply about your team members, and our company is not an exception here. But we decided to take a few steps further and enhance our snack boxes with an innovative solution that could make the workplace even comfier and more attractive, as well as make employees more loyal and satisfied.
Research
To promote this concept and move on to the development stage, we started with in-depth research and created a poll to analyze the most thrilling issues related to a snack box service.
Here are some insights we managed to find out:
A lot of employees seem to forget to take cash when they go to a coffee corner so they seek the possibility to replenish the app balance and withdraw the money from it.
Employees want a cashless payment method to be integrated so they can use their credit cards.
Employees want to know how much money they spend on buying snacks.
Employees want to know how many calories they consume.
Employees want to see whether there are any snacks available without leaving their working place.
Office managers need to view the overall sales statistics, as well as to track how many snacks have been eaten and how many left.
“The decision to digitalize the snack service in our office came by itself - it was the very case when you have to create a simple yet elegant solution at the same time. The one that would be pleasing and interesting to use when buying yummies.”
Rodion Salnik, CEO & Co-Founder at Brocoders
Key challenges
To bring this innovative idea to life and exceed the end-users’ expectations, we came up with the following tasks:
1
Prepare the wireframes to provide a visual understanding of pages early in the project.
2
Build an eye-pleasing design and an intuitive interface to ensure remarkable user experience.
3
Implement both cash and cashless payment methods to let the users choose the one that fits them best.
4
Create an admin panel for office managers so they can seamlessly monitor data and effectively manage snacks.
To meet the challenges above, we assembled a well-balanced team of the in-house seasoned experts that were ready to achieve the highest levels of productivity within a limited timeframe:
Backend
developers
Frontend
developers
QA
engineer
UI/UX
designer
Project
manager
Wireframes and early feedback
We started with creating the wireframes that let us gather invaluable feedback from colleagues, stakeholders, potential partners and investors. We decided to opt for the wireframes since these are a great way to avoid additional expenses, minimize revisions, define a project’s structure and check the project’s viability in the first place.
80+ Screens for iOS and Android
Once the wireframes stage was completed, we managed to determine the primary market sectors based on the requests of a few potential investors:
Payment System Integration
Since we were mainly focused on the international market, our prior goal was to integrate a cashless settlement feature that would allow for a smooth and hassle-free app operation across the globe. To accomplish this task, we had to choose a payment processing platform empowered by a rock-solid security system.
That said, we ended up with Stipe — a highly competitive payments platform that provides small businesses, startups and entrepreneurs with easy-to-setup recurring payments. However, it took a long time to integrate Stripe due to its non-standard structure.
On top of that, we faced some extra challenges at this phase:
Since Korobox is basically a marketplace for buying and managing snacks, there were a lot of transactions to consider. We had to adjust and simplify a multi-layer payment system to allow for tracking the source, the date and the amount of transferred money.
The amount of the fee charged by Stripe was almost the same as the price for a single snack. To keep transaction costs as low as possible, we had to bundle the payments locally by implementing a micropayments feature, according to which all the settlements are gathered within a week, and then sent to a box owner.
To cover our expenses and the fee set by a Stipe platform, we had to charge a box owner with a 20% fee.
Admin panel for office managers
At the first go-of, we provided office managers with a desktop-based tool for downloading and uploading the sheets that contained data on the quantity, the cost and the name of the products.
Once the admin panel was completed, office managers came up with the following standout features:
Enhanced management of snacks and users based on up-to-date info.
Fill-up notifications for all users once new snacks are added into a box.
Sales statistics monitoring and analyzing.
A useful control tool for the “honesty box” content and quick addition of popular positions for the productive work of the entire team.
Delivered solution
Our number one goal was to increase the collaborative atmosphere spirit by providing a snack culture inside companies, reducing work interruptions and bringing up a sense of group responsibility and trust. We wanted to unload employees’ memories by keeping them on track with their spendings.
Driven by extensive expertise in developing innovative custom-designed solutions, we successfully extracted the immense power of the state-of-the-art technologies to overcome the challenges mentioned above. We managed to enrich our cross-platform app with some fascinating benefits that allow buyers to:
Scanning the QR code
View the box contents right at the workplace by scanning the QR code of the box in your office.
Search snacks
Search a snack by scanning a barcode or pick your favorite yummy from the box list.
Buy snacks
Use cash or withdraw the money from your account balance to buy snacks.
View statistics
Acquire full control over your spendings catch the moment when you either need to stop wasting your money or once you have to replenish the balance.
Statistics
View a graph of calories consumed if you want to lose weight.
The results
The Korobox solution proved to be a cutting-edge application that users love and enjoy using. At the moment, active development is suspended, yet there are a few scheduled improvements that would make the product even more advanced.
Among other crucial benefits, it is worth mentioning that office managers boosted and streamlined their workflow twice as fast, to say the least. Besides, company owners managed to win their employees’ trust and loyalty since they can now keep track of calories consumed and money spent via a smartphone or a tablet.
That said, whenever you decide to opt for such a product, we are always happy to meet new friends and adjust our solutions to your specific needs and requirements. Please feel free to contact us at any time.
We are thrilled about the opportunity to provide software development services for your business
Andrii Konoplenko
CEO
I’m CEO and Digital Business Expert at Brocoders company. Pick a date that works for you to see available times to meet with me and discus your project needs
