Agrishop Finder: Empowering farmers through market transparency.
Plantix is an app that helps farmers diagnose and treat crop problems, improve productivity and provides farming knowledge.
To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have omitted confidential information in this case study, including specific numbers.
One of our core values at Plantix is to “enable better decisions.” We achieve this by providing farmers with free access to relevant, reliable, and unbiased information. However, we quickly realized that information alone is not enough when addressing crop diseases.
To bridge this gap, we decided to complement our disease diagnosis feature with a service that connects farmers needing specific products with nearby retailers who can meet those needs. (Currently live in India)
My role involved researching direct and indirect competitors, conducting visual explorations, creating illustrations, designing information architecture, developing user flows, layout design, copywriting, facilitating feedback rounds, prototyping, validation, producing final mockups, and managing the development handoff.
One of the key challenges was to communicate to farmers how this service would benefit them. As with any first to market solution, a clear value proposition was key to our success.
Plantix users are individuals who dedicate their lives to agriculture. For them, farming is not just a job—it's a lifestyle. Unlike typical 9-to-5 jobs that offer free time before and after work, farmers spend most of their lives tending to their crops.
During our research phase, we discovered that 50% of the products farmers purchase are unnecessary, leading to a loss of up to 30% of their income.
One of the biggest pain points during treatment discovery* was the time it took for farmers to find the right product at a fair price, due to the lack of market transparency in India's agricultural sector. On average, once we provided treatment options to our users, it took them between 24 to 72 hours to find the products. This meant farmers had to choose between spending entire days traveling and negotiating with different retailers or tending to their crops to prevent further damage.
*Treatment discovery refers to the time a farmer spends searching for the product we recommend to treat their crop disease.
We challenged the status quo and empowered farmers by providing them with choices. With the help of users from our second venture, Plantix Partner, we created an online retailer network comprising over 10,000 stores. This network enables farmers to understand the type of product they need and where and how to obtain it. Farmers can now select the most suitable solution for their needs.