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Entering new markets with sustainable refillable solutions
Project Overview
Role
Company
UX/UI Designer, Graphic Designer
Procter & Gamble
Timeline
May 2021 - Aug 2021
Team
2 Industrial Designers
During the summer of 2021, I was a Digital Design Co-op on the Sustainable Beauty Innovation team. As a Digital Designer, I increased sustainability messaging for Olay, delivered a rewards experience for Setlist Beauty app enhancing user engagement, and partnered with 2 other design co-ops to create a solution that introduces a new business market for P&G. Together, we designed a sustainable refillable experience merging physical and digital experiences that would be scalable across multiple P&G product categories.
The problem
P&G's reliance on single-use packaging across product categories contributes to plastic waste, while scaling refillable stations faces barriers including low consumer adoption, complex logistics, hygiene concerns, and high infrastructure costs - limiting progress toward sustainability goals.
The solution
A scalable in-store refillable station that blends physical and digital experiences, enabling consumers to refill multiple P&G products while reducing single-use packaging waste.
Impact
The process
Americans throw away about 22 to 50 billion bottles and jars every year.
This kicked off the project where we wondered, how can we address this? We landed on refillable.
We then asked ourselves. What are existing experiences doing? Our competitive analysis lead us towards Nivea, a German based skincare brand, and water jug refills.
Overall, the market for refillable stations was untouched with limited competitors in large brick and mortar corporations.
Consumer: Paying for a container every time, Throwing out containers each time, Having to make a choice between variations of the same product
Retail Stores: Bad consumer perception of sustainability, Takes up a lot of aisle space, Difficult maintenance
P&G: Bad consumer perception of sustainability, Cost and energy on each product, Difficult Maintenance, and Regulations around sustainability
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By understanding the physical and digital elements of a refillable system, we each explored designs and user journeys for the different sections.
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The final iteration was an end-to-end in store refillable experience with a machine screen interface and mobile app that connects the digital and physical experience.
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