Tunzaa: Category-grounded positioning and messaging system for growth
Context
Tunzaa is building a save-to-buy model that helps customers plan purchases without debt, while helping merchants improve conversion and customer value. Ahead of a website refresh, new product launches and updated product communications, the priority was to strengthen clarity, trust, and the path from interest to purchase.
My Role
I advised Tunzaa on positioning, messaging and customer experience. I led the category and competitor reviews, synthesised customer and merchant insight, built a merchant segmentation framework to align messaging with priority merchant types and their decision journeys, defined the positioning and messaging hierarchy, and rewrote the website copy to reduce friction and improve conversion clarity. My focus was the strategy and communications layer: how Tunzaa presents itself, who it speaks to, and how clearly the offer lands, working alongside the product, engineering and commercial teams who owned build and delivery.
The Problem I was solving
The save-to-buy model is unfamiliar to most shoppers, so the funnel depended heavily on how clearly and credibly the proposition was communicated. Two things were eroding confidence: an offer that was easy to mistake for debt-based "buy now, pay later," and policy communication that could raise doubts at the exact moment a shopper was deciding whether to commit. My task was to close both gaps in how Tunzaa presented itself, without overpromising in ways the product could not stand behind.
Approach
A category and competitor review across comparable save-to-buy, layaway and instalment platforms in several markets, benchmarking how each handled onboarding clarity, trust building, fees and returns, to identify the patterns that built or eroded confidence.
A structured diagnosis of the returns and cancellation experience, which surfaced the sharpest tension in the work. The existing cancellation terms were, on one reading, a reasonable way to cover real costs; on another, they posed a conversion risk, were more punitive than several competitors, and created a potential compliance exposure in at least one intended expansion market. I recommended treating this not as a fee to defend but as a trust signal to redesign: a clearer, fairer structure, communicated in plain terms up front, with the speed of resolution used as an advantage rather than the penalty used as a deterrent.
A merchant segmentation framework to align messaging to priority merchant types and their decision journeys, so the proposition spoke to what each type actually needed rather than to a generic "merchant."
A positioning and messaging hierarchy to make three things unmistakable: who Tunzaa serves, what it enables, and why it is credible, with the save-to-buy model clearly distinguished from debt-based alternatives.
A conversion-oriented rewrite of key website pages, with clearer "how it works" explanations and policy communication rewritten to reduce doubt at the point of decision.
The Judgement Call
The central tension was how far to lean on trust and fairness as the headline, versus the more conventional route of leading on price, choice or product range. Leading on fairness meant confronting the weakest part of the existing experience, the returns and cancellation terms, rather than working around it, and it meant persuading toward a structural change that sat outside the communications remit I had been brought in for. I judged that clarity and fairness were the credible wedge for an unfamiliar model, and that messaging which papered over a real friction point would not hold. That framing is the one that carried through.
Outputs
A positioning and messaging hierarchy, a merchant segmentation framework, a returns and refunds benchmark with product, messaging and strategy recommendations, a journey friction summary, and rewritten website copy for key pages and conversion pathways. Tunzaa adopted and implemented this work. The positioning architecture, product messaging structure, and reframed returns and refunds communication remain live, in an evolved form, on the current site.
Measurement
A post-launch measurement approach was proposed, using directional indicators such as traffic quality, engagement and enquiry actions, to guide iteration as the site and communications mature.
Results to follow.
Confidentiality note
This caselet intentionally avoids sensitive commercial details, partner specifics, and internal metrics.