Designed a gold savings platform that’s now doing 80+ cr annual revenue.

Six screens of the Golden Steps enrolment flow: the scheme pitch, sign in by mobile number, choosing a savings amount, identity and nominee details, the plan review, and the first instalment paid.
Role
Product Designer
Timeline
1.5 Years
Tools
Figma
Google Analytics
Claude Code
Team
PM: Shanaz, Bibhu
Developer: Vicky, Ankita (5+ Others)

Context

Reliance Jewels, one of India’s largest jewellery brands, owns a gold savings scheme product: Golden Steps. It allows our customers to save at a comfortable pace towards the most trusted form of investment and luxury: Gold Jewellery.

The scheme had a strong value proposition, but the experience was built around the physical store.

Problem

It’s 100% offline.

For a customer to enrol in the gold savings scheme, they have to visit our physical store, fill forms, submit documents and make payments. A process that takes 30+ mins to complete (not counting the time it takes to come to our store).

  • Takes time
  • Need physical documents
  • Store-dependent

The core problem: Golden Steps was a digital opportunity trapped inside an offline process.

Opportunity

People don’t buy jewellery everyday.

Golden Steps creates a reason for customers to return every month, while starting at a lower ticket value of ₹1,000. This gave it the potential to become a strong customer acquisition and retention channel for Reliance Jewels.

Our opportunity was to:

Make onboarding easier and faster

Make instalment payments simple

Build towards redemption

Impact

₹80+ Cr revenue generated through Golden Steps.

The project helped move Golden Steps from a store-dependent process towards a digital experience where customers could discover, enrol, pay and track their scheme with less reliance on the store.

Revenue generated through Golden Steps

₹80+ Cr

Conversion rate

9.7%

Instalment defaulter

< 2%

Monthly active user

4 Lac+

Research

Understanding the offline workflow

We visited Reliance Jewels stores to understand how Golden Steps worked in the real world.

The team standing at a Reliance Jewels store counter, watching a sales assistant work through an enrolment.The in-store process mapped across four roles: the customer walks in, the store manager pitches the scheme, the customer fills the form and hands over KYC documents, the sales agent passes them to the cashier, and the cashier creates the scheme, enters the customer details, collects the first instalment and sets up the mandate.
The Golden Steps user journey map: phases from scheme influence through enrolment, payment awareness, instalments, tracking, payment success and redemption, with the emotion line dropping from happy at the pitch to frustrated across payments and rising again only at redemption.

The store was the interface through which customers managed the scheme.

Store staff explained the scheme, helped with payments, solved issues and gave customers confidence that their money was being tracked correctly.

Understanding customer behaviour

We then conducted internal and external customer research to understand why people enrol in gold savings schemes, how they manage payments and where they face friction.

We looked at both existing users and potential users.

The research synthesis table: each interviewee with their scheme amount, their recurring pain points and other insights, colour coded by user type.
Two of the team running an interview outside, taking notes on paper.A customer using the scheme on a phone next to the printed scheme paperwork.

What we learnt: GSS has earned users’ trust as a savings relationship, but the product makes that relationship difficult to manage independently.

1. Control my savings

  • Pay without visiting the store
  • Use flexible payment options
  • Understand my balance and progress
  • Know my next payment

2. Know where my money stands

  • Get instant payment confirmation
  • See payment history
  • Understand scheme status
  • Know my benefits

3. Help me stay on track

  • Get timely reminders
  • Know what to do next
  • Feel confident that my savings are being managed correctly

How might we: give users greater control and confidence over their GSS journey, without taking away the trust and support they get from the store?

Design Principles

Self-serve first

Enable users to manage their scheme independently.

Clarity & confidence

Make money movement visible and easy to trust.

Proactive & helpful

Remind, guide and help users stay on track.

Flexible & inclusive

Support different payment behaviours and comfort levels.

Competitive Research

We benchmarked Golden Steps against Tanishq, Bluestone, Joyalukkas, CaratLane and other gold savings experiences.

The competitive benchmark board: each UX element down the left, the open questions from the Reliance Jewels team, and how Reliance Jewels, Tanishq, Joyalukkas, CaratLane and others handle it across the sign-up form, the enrol form and the review step.

Key Takeaway: The opportunity wasn’t to simply redesign the Golden Steps pages. It was to connect discovery, enrolment, payment and tracking into one coherent digital experience.

Ideation

I combined our research findings to derive the information architecture that solves our design principles.

The Golden Steps information architecture: six top-level areas, Enrol, Home, Payments, Track, Support and Account, each broken into the screens beneath it.

In the research we got to know that the process is very backend-enforced for onboarding. So our goal here was to overcome the objections by using design thinking to simplify steps and minimise the friction.

First Launch

  • The first Golden Steps landing screen: a model in gold jewellery, the line about saving a minimum of ₹1000 every month, a brochure download and an Enroll now button.

    The store manager’s pitch, cut down to one screen. One promise, one entry price, one button.

  • The sign-in screen asking for a mobile number, with a note that it should be the Aadhaar registered number.

    The Aadhaar registered number is asked for first. The identity check three steps later fails without it.

  • Step one of enrolment: scheme name, scheme duration and instalment amount as form fields, under a four-step progress bar.

    The backend rules did not move, so the design work was the shape around them. Four named steps, so nobody meets one long form.

  • The same step with the in-store box ticked, revealing a store assistant ID field that has resolved to a named assistant.

    A customer enrolling at the counter ticks a box and the assistant’s ID travels with them. The store keeps its credit.

  • Step two: verify identity through DigiLocker, with a note that the customer will be redirected and a checkbox for people without an account.

    Identity has to come from a government ID. DigiLocker is named, and so is the fact that the app is about to hand you over.

  • The consent sheet for e-KYC, explaining what Reliance Jewels stores, what it is used for and how long the consent lasts.

    Legal needed a consent gate. It says what is stored and for how long, instead of pointing at a policy page.

  • The review step: scheme details, store details, nominee details and the e-KYC status marked complete.

    Everything typed so far, read back before any money moves.

  • The payment success screen with the scheme name, scheme ID, account and customer IDs, the instalment paid and the next due date.

    The receipt the cashier used to hand over. Scheme ID, instalment paid, the date due next.

  • The gold saving schemes list, with an overdue instalment warning above two ongoing schemes and their paid counts.

    The scheme has a life after enrolment. An overdue instalment leads the page, because that was the call the store used to make.

  • The account menu with Gold Saving Schemes expanded to Golden Steps, Swarna Vriddhi and Open new Scheme.

    Golden Steps sits beside the other schemes a customer may already hold, not in a corner of its own.

  • A single scheme: currently invested, benefit earned, maturity date, monthly investment, start date and a Pay Now button.

    What is in, what it has earned, what is due next. The three numbers store staff were reading out over the counter.

  • The passbook tab: every instalment with its due date, amount, payment mode, the date it was paid and a receipt to download.

    Every instalment with its mode and its receipt. Confidence follows the paper trail.

  • The pay sheet: instalments listed with overdue and due labels, two selected, and a running total to pay.

    Instalments are selectable rather than fixed, so someone behind on two can clear both in one payment.

Testing

The first launch solved the offline problem. But it exposed new ones.

After the first version went live, we combined usability testing and Google Analytics to understand where the experience could improve.

Four issues stood out:

1. The experience felt more like an investment product

But customers were not only saving money. They were saving to buy jewellery.

2. The proposition was confusing

Users struggled to understand the scheme, its benefits and what they would get at maturity.

3. Redirects and OTPs affected trust

It increased the time needed and created doubts around where the user was being sent and whether the process was safe.

4. The UI felt flat

The design system was functional but lacked the emotion expected from a jewellery experience.

Final Iteration

From saving money to owning gold.

Based on the research and testing, I reworked the UI to make the experience more engaging and intuitive, while bringing the focus back to owning gold jewellery.

  • The reworked landing screen, led by a photograph of the jewellery, with the line the jewellery you keep picturing.

    Testing said the first version read as an investment product. So the jewellery leads and the scheme sits under it.

  • The reworked sign-in screen, asking for a mobile number over a jewellery photograph.

    The same two fields as before, in a warmer frame. The photograph carries the promise while the form does its job.

  • The savings step: a gold ring, the amount saved towards it, and the eleven and twenty-four month plans with the monthly payment and what Reliance Jewels adds.

    The plan stopped being a duration field and an amount field. It is a piece of jewellery with a price, and each term shows what the brand adds.

  • The identity step, naming DigiLocker before the customer is redirected out of the app.

    DigiLocker is named before the redirect, and the screen says what happens to the documents. A handoff announced, not sprung.

  • The DigiLocker sign-in screen the customer lands on after the redirect.

    The screen the customer lands on. None of it is ours, which is exactly why the step before it has to do the preparing.

  • The details step, with the identity fields already filled in from DigiLocker and the nominee fields left to complete.

    Verified fields arrive filled in. A customer only types what DigiLocker cannot hand over.

  • The plan review screen, listing the scheme amount, what is paid today, the monthly amount, the number of instalments and the redemption date.

    The whole commitment on one screen. What is paid today, what is paid monthly, and when it can be redeemed.

  • The payment redirect screen, telling the customer they are being taken to JioOne Pay and not to close the app.

    The payment handoff gets the same treatment as the identity one. Named, explained and told not to close the app.

  • The confirmation screen after the first instalment, showing the next instalment date, the autopay status and the scheme ID.

    The next instalment date, the autopay status and the scheme ID together. The store assistant’s reassurance, turned into a screen.

  • The scheme dashboard, showing the amount saved, instalments completed, what Reliance Jewels adds, the next payment and the redemption date.

    Progress and payment in one place, so nobody has to walk into a store to ask where their money stands.

Learning

  • Design is more than digitising a process

    Putting an offline form online would not solve the deeper problems. We had to rethink the complete customer journey.

  • Business constraints shape design

    The backend had several fixed rules. Instead of treating them as blockers, we focused on reducing the friction they created for customers.

  • Trust is part of the experience

    For a savings product, payment confirmation, visibility and support are not small UX details. They are key parts of the product.

  • Launch is not the end

    The first version solved the offline problem, but testing showed that we had created a new positioning problem.