Aai's Puran Poli
From A 40-year home recipe sold by word of mouth and re-typed WhatsApp chats → to A heritage-framed storefront that turns every visit into one structured WhatsApp order.
- Client
- Handmade food kitchen (solo founder)
- Role
- Strategy · UX · Copy · Design · Front-end
- Scope
- One-page marketing site · WhatsApp-led ordering · SEO/OG/schema · custom illustration + motion
The problem
A handmade food kitchen has no brand, no storefront, and no ordering system — only word of mouth and ad-hoc WhatsApp messages. It has to earn a festival-sized order’s worth of trust from a first-time visitor.
Do that without a cart, a payment gateway, or staff to run either — the seller can’t sustain infrastructure, so the site has to convert on the rails she already uses.
The approach
Close the trust gap with heritage and ingredient transparency, then make ordering effortless on the seller’s existing channel.
- 01
Diagnose the trust gap
A handmade kitchen’s hardest online problem isn’t taste — it’s believability: why trust an unbranded WhatsApp seller with a festival order? Every decision that follows closes that gap.
- 02
Lead with heritage, not a product grid
Marathi script, “made the way your aaji made it,” the 40-year recipe and visible ingredients (desi ghee · chana dal · gul) carry credibility a logo can’t.
- 03
Make ordering frictionless on the seller’s real rails
No cart or payment gateway a home kitchen can’t sustain — WhatsApp deep-links pre-fill type, quantity, date and address, dropping a ready-to-fulfil order into the channel she already runs on.
- 04
Merchandise by occasion + festival demand
Ganesh Chaturthi, Shraddha (Naivedya-grade), family-function catering (50–500) and corporate gifting — meet buyers at intent, each a dedicated pre-filled path.
What we built
WhatsApp-first ordering — no cart, no checkout
Why
The buyer is on mobile; the seller is a home kitchen with no inventory or payment system — a gateway adds friction and operational burden she can’t sustain.
What changed
One tap sends a structured, ready-to-fulfil order into the channel the seller already uses.
Heritage-led, ingredient-transparent framing
Why
A handmade kitchen competes on trust and authenticity, not scale; making provenance visible is the conversion lever.
What changed
A home recipe presented with the credibility of a heritage label.
Occasion-led merchandising
Why
Puran poli is bought for occasions; meeting intent (“I need this for Ganesh Chaturthi”) converts better than a flat menu.
What changed
Four occasion paths, each a pre-filled order.
Transparent tiered pricing with minimums
Why
“How much?” back-and-forth kills home-kitchen orders.
What changed
Per-piece + box pricing and clear minimums set expectations before the first message.
What changed
Ordering
BeforeScattered WhatsApp chats, re-typed each time
AfterOne tap → a structured, pre-filled order message
Trust
BeforeAn unbranded handmade seller
AfterA heritage-framed brand with visible provenance
Discovery
BeforeWord of mouth only
AfterSEO + Open Graph + festival-intent landing
The offer
BeforeAd-hoc “how much?” back-and-forth
AfterClear per-piece + box pricing with minimums
The result · Strategy & design outcome
The deliverable is a live, deployed brand and ordering system: a credible heritage-led storefront and a zero-infrastructure WhatsApp order path that fits how the seller actually operates. It proves the studio’s thesis — that trust-building and strategy, not decoration, are what convert — on a hard case: an unbranded handmade kitchen.