Changing dynamics from experience to Life That Matters – COVID19 Defines the New Normal for the days to come.

Anxiety, fear, vulnerability, insecurity, isolation, and so on are the prominent emotions which this virus has brought out. With the world gripped into it, driving economies to the knees to cough up stimulus packages, industries forced to adopt the new normal with their employees working from home and government lockdowns to social distancing to contain the COVID.

While you think of the fearless past to what we are in today together, our human race is set to change in the way we live, we think, we behave, we do, we conduct, and we look at. Every piece of breakthrough till December 2019 would be questioned. Business dimensions would change from experiences to life that matters. What this virus has made us realize is the value of our life, the very basic which hid in the cloud of experience.

Keeping the source and origin aside from the virus, if it is here to stay, there are lots to change. While governments and enterprises are working day & night to get the solutions in place to detect, contain, cure and vaccinate for the future, the question is how secure is life. It’s not about insuring your future but living life fearless again.

Its time investing in Securing Life as we built security to secure the systems from viruses. The world around us is not going to be the same as before. One’s life would be the utmost priority and health top of the agenda. What would be essential is the transparent health system, alarming people on the outbreak at any corner of the world. What would change is the eminence of health care technologies, while molecular-based science would be working on human cells, supporting technologies to identify and securing the world would add in the checklist of every individual driving confidence.

The unfortunate part of such unprecedented pandemics is maintaining equilibrium between people and the economy. Both are hand in glove and clearly, there is no balance, countries prioritizing on people are seeing the impact on the economy. Long durations of lockdown would impact demand & supply at some point, like manufacturing set up can’t function with employees working from home. This would lead to cascading effects across the chain. Given the scenario what would lead the change in technologies is robotics, automation, and 5G. Humanoid might see its evolution which was debatable so far.    Coexistence with humans would be explored as part of BCPs.

As market shifts from experience to life that matters, data science would make it’s the way through and through systems in driving one view in visualizing an individual. COVID-19 is also about traceability to contain the exposure. The government would need to think of connecting citizen through technologies driving traceability and identifying arising anomalies which can be treated and actioned using AI. Data would be the key to the unpredictable and vulnerable society we have stepped into.

Smart would now have to add to a social value proposition. It is back to basics to detect, contain & cure. The need of the hour is technologies and consumer durables operating on medical technologies in defining smart.

 

Creating Single Vision of a customer – The Digital DNA

We talk about unified platform, data driven marketing, big data and so on, unfortunately, when we look at feasibility of such practices among brands, its far-fetched reality and just a board room discussion. Just the way we have clutter in customer segment so is the IT platforms in many of the organization, which are a sheer tick mark in terms of investments or legacies which have not been reviewed with changing trends, but not seen from one vision point of view.

For example, today if we have to perceive the persona of a customer from the company’s prospective, he would be seen through different filters such as CRM, Loyalty, Social Analytic, web analytic, BI tools drawing different persona of the same customer instead of building one customer persona, resulting in irrelevant & multiple campaigns, promotions targeting the same customers, most of the time irrelevant and not hitting the ROI mark.

The crux is customer centricity, not in terms of a single department, but in terms of the entire company looking at it. A persona is a result of collation of various signals from different sources; offline & online modes. It is matter of drawing a strategic view to draw those visions, because they translate the investment pattern into technologies which help you to optimize, predict and monetize in terms of understanding the right behavior, customer segment, place to target and offer.

Just as time & tide waits for none, so is the customer today, it doesn’t take time to become irrelevant to them, with irrelevant messages which flows in from various sources where he/she are in at the time of display. For instance, the FB ads or any other form of displays, excepting contextual mapping, how many time do you even look at it, forget click “know more”, the answer is majority of you ignore or don’t even see it.

The digital DNA, is just not building websites and creating brand presence across various online vehicle, it is more to understand your customers by delivering the right content at right time. The time has come where in your brand should deliver the experience by making the customer feel  special, through knowing or predicting who he/she needs and innovating your offering to them.

Industrialization brought in masses with economy in scale whereas digitization is going to bring in personalization with understanding customer behavioral signals. As said by Marcel Proust “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes”. Implementing the right unified platform which integrates applications of business technology & Information technology holds the key of success. The digital empowerment today is going to fade data silos in organization, in a vision of building one single customer persona.

 

Building experience flow which matters, through adoption of right analytics and tools- A part of engaging Idle Mind Strategy

Marketers have been working on building experience flows to capitalize on analyzing consumer behavior to build personalized experience, which can enable brands to associate itself with the consumers and build them into the product sales life cycle. The crux of the game here is how to build effective tools and analytic which could help the marketer engage those minds which have been looking out, but aren’t engaged yet.

As technology evolves with more and more closer association to complex data, which are nothing but what consumers leaves as footprints either in the way of search, feedback on reference sites, updates on the social medias or in the means of queries, sharing & liking of interesting videos, which are nothing but coded wires which needs to be interpreted and analysed into right impulses to be played on. In other word these are those forms of big data which needs integrator in terms of digital marketing tools to translate positioning and targeting strategies.

These trends are only evolving out purely on all odds of traditional medium which were purely in terms of print and in person engagement in building mind share among its consumers. With the growing acceptance and penetration of smart technology, it throws more and more emphasis on adoption of these trends to engage minds which are at look out, and are also at an early stages of acceptance of brands.

The adoption of digital marketing tools should be an integrated approach where in a brand could track every aspect of online behavior then just one aspect, as observed in the case of big data, data source can be from anywhere. Unilever’s move in India towards skewing their marketing dollars towards online medium is just the start of the era of investments in these technologies. Telecom majors in India like Airtel use these tools not only to note what people have been talking about them on social but also use it as a medium to engage with their prospects.

The essence is on understanding the online behavioral side of a consumer and focusing on the right vehicle of engagement in terms of selection of mediums of smart technologies & platforms, and integrating them which helps is channelizing the minds which are in lookout. This brings in the importance of a well thought through experience flow, keeping in mind of the consumer and his modes of being online. Stressing out on a stream lined experience which is seamless, engaging and carries the brand essence through out to building a loyal customer, who just can’t stop talking about the experience he/she had while engaging with the brand.

Creativity is no longer an elective, it’s the future.

No matter who you are, what you do, what you want to do or where you want to go, creativity today is a very important skill set which enables every individual to build his or her own identity. Hence, it is very important as an educator to imbibe the creative skills at an early stage, which allows people to think different and grow as an innovator at some part of his/her life.

Growing stress on creativity in education is only emphasizing the fact of building innovation. Every country today wants to have their own Mark Zuckerberg or Larry Page to boast upon, but they fail to understand the crux lies in innovation coming from fostering creativity in the education system.

The jargons like adoption of technology, substituting interactivity from lecture only mode, creation of content, crowdsourcing are some of the buzz words which today emerges every institution to build youth icons, dictating the new era of business tycoons.

The question that daunt every institute today is “how well are they equipped to cater creativity in their institutes” Answer from recent survey on creativity conducted by Adobe shows  69% of the respondents in India said they were hampered by education system that is not geared towards creativity. Another 45% cited lack of resources to support their efforts. Let me share a beautiful case study which is not Indian though but answer the question.

Interactivity is yet another mode which makes education more meaningful, the growing acceptance of the same can be seen in K-12, where the schools have started adopting these technologies to make the best for the students. The beauty of this technology is learning is more of fun based with the experience it comes with.  This is still an area which is not explored well and could be by far up leveled with  teacher’s adopting tools which enables them to bring out their strength in their subjects they teach students then using a third-party tools. Creation of content using tools in eLearning space builds capability not only to create content but to build repository, which could be used to refer or share. Education is not just gaining knowledge but spreading knowledge, which helps people & society to grow with you. Check this video which is all about creating content.

Today, the expression has a new meaning, creativity, which only grows as the way it has been taught, glows by the way it is shared and blossoms by the way it is expressed with. The pace of technology only enables it better and better, as educators the prime responsibility is an enabler to change and bring in seeds of innovation among individuals.

Subliminal Moment of Truth – Redefining engagement with captive minds through Mobile technology

An Empty mind is marketer’s paradise, is so true, ultimately every modern marketing strategy today while being written is on the shifts seen in consumer behavior cycle starting from  impulses through desire to demand, and what is phenomenal, is that, such basis have always brought in solutions which become the part of a business paradigm. Let’s see, how some of them have revolutionized marketing strategies; Moment of Truths by P&G, which talked on showcasing the product (first moment of truth) went on the bring in the visual merchandising & packaging as one of the prime component of retail strategy; followed by experiences on consumption (Second Moment of Truth) to become feedback for product improvement & innovation, testimonials for the artifacts to encourage prospects in the process of being lead. Then came the era of searches, as the searches started growing in prominence, the resonance was reflected  in Google’s Zero Moment of Truth, theory on searches, solutions are quite evident in terms of presence in terms websites, audio-visual aids on various platforms, ad words, usage of keywords with what the prospects search, to reflect in the top search ranking.

In all the paradigm mentioned above, we see reflection of the buying behavior, what comes more appealing is that engaging customer at the right time, right place & with right messaging, no doubt the phrase of ‘rights’ looks so simple but it isn’t. We have been seeing through the Great social Media revolution, which is now been used by every business to engage their prospects, but it’s still not clear on time & place. The right time, in many cases are engaging an empty mind or idle mind of an individual, and direct them to what you want. As a marketing professional, when we question on our efforts being enough on engaging our prospects, down some where answer is,’ no’.

Thanks, to the all-round development in technology in past 5 years, what is seen, the opportunity in engaging people are growing through the horizon. Smarter, lighter & customer centric application have enabled the growth in dependence on personal devices, to an extent that today you have avenues to reach your prospect, through them. You just need to be smarter and have customer centric attitude in you.

Empty mind or in other words captive minds are huge potential today, if I would have to talk on the same couple of years back, people would have stared at my thoughts, but today, it isn’t the scenario. Have you actually seen how an ideal individual spends his day, lets look at the balanced media diet, courtesy Steven Leckart in Wired Magazine issue 17.08  shows an illustration of time spent by individual on various sources of entertainment like starting from Television, social media, micro blogging, gaming and so on.

What comes across is that, smart devices are becoming more and more prominence in an individual’s life and in some cases they accompany the individual with the source of entertainment, the relation of smart devices with sources of entertainment is of symbiotic nature. Hence, it is very important for any brand today to be present to capitalize on the empty mind or idle mind, and have mobility options in their strategy. The challenge here is if you could engage that state of mind creating an impact on the subconscious mind, you have An Empty mind, which is marketer’s paradise.

With this, I am tabling across, today, a paradigm of engaging, captive minds or idle minds or an empty mind, which is the Subliminal moment of truth, in other words, it is engagement of that state of mind, where an individual has nothing scheduled and looking for sources, any activity involved in engaging that state would result in greater engagement with the brand, leading to other Moment of truth mention above. Subliminal Moment of Truth, brings in relevance of integrated messaging through various modes & Mobility Components (Smart Devices), in some form or other in terms of applications, mobile advertisements, campaigns which goes in your marketing strategy to engage prospects. Hence, it is very important for any brand, to have their mobile strategy in place, to engage such idle minds. To give you an example, Click on the link An Empty Mind is Marketer’s Paradise – Leveraging Airports To Enhance the Customer Base, is an perspective to engage people using an interactive mobile app, which would lead to Moment of Truth, and more over creates a deeper impression in the mind, which goes to become talked topic. Check the video which stress on the growing dependence on mobile devices.

Thanks to company like Google, Apple, Samsung, Microsoft who have been continuously innovating and emerging thought leaders in the mobility, their every release sets a new paradigm for marketers to engage with their prospects. Subliminal Moment of truth, gains more momentum when you check the statistics of the usage of mobile in one of interesting info-graphics shared by Sarah Kessler in an article in Mashable.com on Mobile Marketing,  indicates the internet usage on mobile would overtake desktop by 2014, Mobile tags provide more product information like comparison shopping offers than traditional barcodes, 86% of mobile internet users are using their devices which watching TV (Opportunity for marketers to engage), 29% of mobile users are open to scanning a mobile tag (interesting applications could increase brand engagement), 91% of mobile internet access to socialize (integrated approach with digital media could have a far reaching effects). Interestingly to note  how people use their mobile phones; 61% for gaming, 55% for weather, 50% for maps/ search, 49% for social networking, 42% for music, 36% for news, 33% for entertainment, 25% for dining and 21% for videos. Aren’t these statistic enough to show how the paradigm of Subliminal Moment of Truth i.e engaging empty or idle mind through mobile application is possible. In fact, if you don’t have the mobile strategy for your product you have missed on something.

You Could reach me on adarsh.pete@gmail.com or connect with me on  linkedin

3 Key Components In The Making Of B2B Marketing Strategy; Influencers, Perception & Value Prop

Over the past few weeks, I have been researching on to the B2B space, which happens to be complex and marketing is slowly taking prominence over the traditional approach. Prospects in these spaces predominantly are becoming more & more informed and are more risk averse then before.  Digital Media has shown its impact on to it and the marketers have started capitalizing on to Modern Marketing strategies to mature the leads from awareness followed with engagement, to be in the prospect’s minds and to evade the risk of not being in the short listing process.

There are three main categories which underline strategy in the B2B space; Influence-rs, Perceptions & Value Proposition, which help marketers to take their product into the target market. Each of the components is symbiotic to the other; hence the strength of the strategy is defined on an optimized rational equation, rather than just based on observation. All this derived from the impact of technology advancements happening, which are not sequential rather all round, turning more& more user models into user centric, predictive, smarter & mobility based values changing the consumer decision-making behavior.  To top it predictive analysis have strengthened companies today to build their decisions based on rational thought process to counter economic scenarios.

Influence-rs – These are the stakeholders or gatekeepers, involved while deciding on B2B products. In certain cases they even show greater prominence while decision has been taken, hence your strategy would be incomplete without them. They could be anybody from Analyst, Trade bodies, Go-To-Market components, ISVs, system Integrators, Consultants, Advisers, internal employees and so on. Identifying the right one is a challenge, and the tip is that every product category shows a particular type of behavior and following it would help to recognize them. Hence, Messaging, Segmentation, Targeting & identifying the right kind of strategy is the key here. The best what works in terms of influence-rs is engagement tactic through building communities of like-minded people and identifying what Go-To-Market suits to the recognized community.

Perceptions – These are those notional value sets which go to define the brand equity of the B2B marketer in the minds of the customer. Usually, this is the one which is most ignored and classified as the cost items. They are tricky though when you are venturing into vast product portfolios catering various segments of verticals & horizontals. In some case, where you have already foray into the defined segment like services and you are venturing into products portfolio, they become even more challenging as you have a preset conceived values in the minds of the customers. In these cases, it’s very critical for any B2B brand to optimally play using digital media and various thought leadership forum to demonstrate the innovation capabilities and domain expertise in area being ventured. Identifying the key product experts in the company as the face of your product works well (apart from the Company leadership team), building attractive artifacts, being present in the industry leadership forums which is looked upon, makes a promising appeal to gather perceptions about your products.  In today’s world, Zero Moment Of Truth by Google holds weight and edge in the digital era, complemented with tradition methodology.

Value Proposition – These are beneficial values which a B2B consumer is going to get. The smarter strategy would be to be consumer centric, understand the industry requirement, visionary features and values what your consumers are talking about and address those pain area. If you are able to bridge in the gap between the requirements and being developed, the value proposition has been well said. Nevertheless, it is not the case always; hence the marketers would have to work through their guts to bring out the Product Positioning through various competitive intelligence, Market analysis in terms of revenue band that the segment holds for the players, and characteristics of the band to devise unique selling proposition to position for their product against the need of target audience. Value Proposition plays a critical role while devising the B2B strategy.

Trade Tips

Once the components are defined, it would make more sense if the products could be encompassed as a business theory, in terms of answering a business problem. Business theories or Modern Marketing strategies hold loads of power in defining your products & solutions being developed, as they become synonymous or law of the land to the business problem, hence the prospects would be able to relate it with their scenarios and buy in for your product. The advantage of these business theories are that, they have the strength to lead the product life cycle road maps as they are outcomes from what industry wants and addresses pain areas. The Good leading example is the Modern Marketing strategy defined by Google for its searches, Zero Moment Of Truth.  The rationale behind the theory enables marketer to perceive their business problem, which inherently brings in the Buy–In for all the Google Search related products.

You Could reach me on adarsh.pete@gmail.com or connect with me on  linkedin

Loyalty Avatars – Gamification Technique to Redefine Loyalty Programs

As customer engagement evolves through the social media & mobile technology, more & more brands are aspiring with customer centrism. Technology has been at it’s best in the recent time with web 2.0, which has evolved a new paradigm changing the codes & architecture of once CRM & now social CRM. One of sequential of CRM is Loyalty Program, a program to entice shopper to the brand, build in a much required dosage of adrenaline through the veins of buying decision of a shopper, to make them loyal. But what we see now is that, these programs are done to death, monotonous, daunting & cumbersome, which are not fairing as it is expected.

The trends started from driving consumption in the same category, went on to cross category, not necessarily the same brand through strategic alliance to benefit shoppers with wide range of products & services. Take the hot example of Kingfisher Airlines, there are cards like American Express who have tied up with other brands, to convert the loyalty points into miles to fly, the question here is are these “wow” and has it boasted the much required usage. No doubt these program are meant to engage and encourage usage, unfortunately not every plan flies.

We have also seen professional bodies, coming into existence whose day job is management of Loyalty programs; they on behalf of brands manage in their name & build alliance across categories in segments to boast usage collaboratively. But the very customer engagement goes missing in these programs. If we rig and use a crystal to granularity, we would see a fine phrase in loyalty programs called customer engagement, where one of the principles of engagement is aspirations.

Understanding customer aspiration is the key to any program and cherry in the icing would be to have understood trending behavior. For example “Gaming” there are hundreds of infographics which talks on how gaming is been engaging people online & once such statistics which pinned me down is 57% of the people who played games had never used gaming before, isn’t this rising your eyebrows. Well if that is the case, have you thought even Loyalty programs could be influenced with gaming.

If Farmville had to be popular in India, it was because every one of us had the aspiration of farming, but in reality knowing the difficulty, limits them to venture, but when they found virtual people jumped, across the globe, to a extent of day talks on what was the cultivation in their farm, isn’t it astounding. Then why not try the same principle of aspiration in your Loyalty programs using gaming methodology.

Creating an Avatar

This is how you do it, Loyalty Avatars, which are your shopper’s aspiration in terms of superheroes, personality, film characters, relevant personalities, brands & so on. Helping your shoppers in understanding the Virtual Avatar they want to be and helping them to recreate in virtual world through the consumption of your product. Every quantity the shopper buys goes closer to that of what he wants to be. There by you allow quantity, consumption across your product range & to top it, point to brag among his friend, moreover you build a close connect and wall of fame.

Virtual Environment through real life actions 

Now that you have the avatar ready, let the avatar face some challenges, you model an environment of constraints & challenges in terms of activity related to the consumption or to the character or in the virtual interface  for it, thus creating season & campaign calendar for yourselves. And in the process you have built a community which engages, fans to applaud leading to the second moment of truth, reviews boasting your product and before you realize you have them talking on product ideas which have a ready target audience.

Thanks to technology enhancement, we have tools & applications which help you to engage & such ideas are not farfetched but opportunity which knocks only once, one who adopts first has first mover advantage. This concept is ideal synchronization of the social world (engagement), gaming (environment) & mobile technology (reach). The words in brackets explain the impact of each activity. If you are into the Consumer Product Group (CPG) or FMCG or eCommerce or Multi-retail outlets this works so well, limiting yourselves to just the branding merchandise of your promotion is hampering your engagement.

Use this concept in synchronization of the trending like social world (engagement), gaming (environment) & mobile technology (reach). While I was on customer engagement through the social media, I found an interesting application using facebook, by a company Adepto which calls its products as Trolly, they have an interesting feature where they gamify the way the customer shares the purchases, this methodology not only helps in engaging them but also shares in the network there by creating ripples and excitement. This application is a clue to what can be done. Check the video

These are just the clues what I call Grey Munchies for you to think a loud and engage your consumers. Customer engagement is the key in today’s worlds as shoppers’ are informed, social & mobile device savvy, if you are not there, you have lost your game.

Tips of the trade

• Brands adopt the recent trends such as social media just not to gain fans, but engaging them too.
• Innovation, Relevance & Reach is the new mantra
• Adopt gaming to create excitements
• Not to forget mobile technology while you lay your plan in integration.

You Could reach me on adarsh.pete@gmail.com or connect with me on  linkedin

An Empty Mind is Marketer’s Paradise – Leveraging Airports To Enhance the Customer Base

Facebook has over 250 million mobile user, advertiser expense for location-based services would set to approach $ 10 billion dollar by 2016, The rise of tablets allows airlines to come out with interactive apps to book tickets, a tweet which said around 30 airports in US would be able to access through free wify, HTML  5  is set to revolutionize the standardization and features for mobile devices. Does it ring the bell, if not check?

Millions of passengers use airports annually across the world either on one way or round trip, at an average people would be spending anywhere between 3 hrs – 8 hrs after check-in of their luggage, any idea, what happens? What have been emerging more appealing than the duty-free shops, window shopping & youthful staff around, is the world of internet, running through their smart devices, which could keep him occupied with things which would keep him away in his / her normal routine life. His / Her tablet or laptop or smart phone is the only device left after checking.

What could be true is using this captivated time, which I call a subliminal mind, of an individual, which is with clutter of prospective running in the mind, whether read a magazine or go around window shopping or check in the duty-free or stare at hanging advertisement banners or chat with the fellow passenger and what is very predominant among the clutter is use his/her phone, either with the bandwidth what his service provider has or the free wify in the airport. Have we thought, what an opportunity it throws for eCommerce platform, then imagine a digital display on your device, while you enter the airport premise, which says

“You are now in world of ABC eCommerce, kindly download the app on to your device”

This app, enables every passenger who have the Bluetooth on, to get the app, which helps him to gain the limited access, which is sponsored or in alliance with service provider at the airport. This access gains authentication (resolving the security issue), and starts the interaction with your prospect, who was cluttered all this while and you have channelized him to what you want, you are accessing him to posts in his social networking site and list of guided things.

“Lets’ do window shopping”

A feature, which is the lonely passenger’s friend, using the GPS navigation or equivalent technology, you are guiding him through the airport, helping to window shop, through your searches and comparative pricing with online on your site, in a way that you are showing the benefits with you and helping him to capture munchies while he is on board.

“Check the QR code, Hi, You have a surprise”     

Features which could allow you to identify the sponsored QR codes to entitle discounts on your online stores and free buys, to make the experience more exciting, eCommerce could use augmented reality, to click him pictures across to cherish his memories, all this happening under your umbrella of access, allowing you to be where his posts are.

“Do you want us to connect to your friends through Facebook”

What could be the next logical step once you are through with you checklist, start conversation with your friends, tweet on the services, link networks, share picture which are branded with you.

“Check what your favorite airline has for you to offer”   

These are what eCommerce platform leverage on, is channeling the airline’s loyalty program to your site, allowing passenger to shop, leverage on promotions. This would get a connect with your customer, understand the taste and what brings you closer to your customer centric strategy.

“How about you munch on what you saw, searched, connected, while you are on board”

Once you are about to go on the airplane mode, the application allows you mull the activities, and allows you now to create post, write remarks, check what you have been looking as fads, are they trending, which could be brought in your decision process, and once you are online, allows you to update on your platform, as one of the engagement.

eCommerce today has enormous potential, thanks to technology advancements, tablets & smart phone, it is up to  the player to decide, to explore the new segments to be in and get the user base by being as close as possible with the customers . The above narrative, is just an example to how customer engagement could be taken to a different alter all together, through the shopping online, writing reviews on the products (good adrenaline dosage for people), as this is the time when people have their thinking hats on and allowing you to be in the subliminal mind, which would definitely give you ROI, if not immediate, then future definitely.

You Could reach me on adarsh.pete@gmail.com or connect me linkedin

Tips for eCommerce

• Airports throw enormous opportunity to build customer engagement and footfalls
• It is just not important to be there in terms display banners, but makes more sense if you could relate your online experience  through mobile & tablet apps, which brings consumers closer to the platform
• The Narrative is a good example of an App.
• Especially Player who operate in the Travel & Leisure category, have you tried this, then check this stats which says, trials for the new ebookers.com website showed that 70% of hotel booking made through the new mobile website were for same day Check-In.

Changing Faces Of eCommerce: Technology & Business Models

eCommerce or eRetailing, is just getting more and more exciting with the advent of new technology which are smarter, lighter and advanced, to convert every experience closer to reality. Every platform today can boast one new feature, a new innovation and optimized technique to entice their shopper. The trick is to bridge the gap arising from the real life shopping, reduce the rejection on delivery and increase process efficiency.  While I was writing on Augmented reality & Social Commerce, in one of my posts, I considered them as a boon to the eCommerce, but as I started researching for new technology which could overcome the biggest challenge in the fashion category, in the eCommerce model, where the rejects after delivery is as high as 30%, purely because of the nature of the buying behavior & size match, I came across a cool technology and methodology, which is as hilarious as:

Technology : Webcam Measurements for Buying Clothes Online

Like any other Success story, the technology UPcload, also started through addressing the pain area after self actualization & returning the delivery of the online shopped cloth, by the founders, purely because of the mismatch of size. They found an opportunity and brought a solution through two years of effort, which is now spreading as a wildfire, with it’s originality & fabulous methodology of scanning the body online through a webcam & holding a CD. UPcload uses your webcam, and here is the clever part—a CD or DVD—and a whole load of image processing, to work out your exact measurements. You stand in front of your webcam, in reasonably tight-fitting clothes, holding the CD in front of your navel. The system takes your picture and then runs it through object recognition processing. Since the system knows how big a CD is, it can work out your relative body dimensions. This technology is here to bring the much required revolution while shopping for your fashion line merchandise.

The discussion with Asaf Moses, Founder of UPcload, was totally a visionary one, he is set to change the online shopping experience and has been very optimistic with the soft launch in Germany & set to open shops in US now. UPcload has started seeing it’s adaptability from various leading platform and he quotes “It means we can suggest clothing ideas to people that they may never have thought of before. The program is using your body shape to suggest genuinely new ideas to people rather than simply suggesting on the basis of your historic buying pattern. It is like having your best friend with you.”

Such, inventions, innovation & explorations would only, make the online shopping experience more exciting & realistic. This would strategically be very beneficial for fashionable clothing line, especially when it comes to experimentation of new trends, fads in the fashion line. With this technology we would see more and more people experimenting. Also, such technology would make certain lines more accessible & open to the broader market base, using body shape, it  would enable to see yourself with new trends & even more, going forward you could ask your friends  through social networking sites. This business model would work more or less in the similar way to PayPal for financial transaction; a user could actually create his or her profile through their site and save it online, and use measurement while shopping online.

Takes for eCommerce Industry

• Measurement technology would change the online buying experience of the shopper and reduce the rejects 

• Increase experimentation leading to move on perception on trends to trial, with the blend of social commerce, would only increase the market base by cross-Category  adaptation in the fashion apparel category.

Business Model: Orderwithme.com ‘s Changing sourcing Model

Success stories are always born from the opportunity of gaps, and so is another example, which was the winner of TechCrunch DISRUPT in Bejing, Orderwithme.com.

During the founder Jonathan’s  education days in China, he was fascinated with the cost arbitrage to US, he went on to set up a shop in United States, sourcing Bags & other accessories from china, soon he found himself sailing on the ugly side of the sail, not because of the cost, but the quantity. The question here is, do you have so many customers to exhaust your procurement, which soon would be a dead investment in terms of inventory. He found an opportunity, in the entire sail where he was not alone & there were many small retailers, which his new platform could cater too, in sourcing through group buying. This model is now the version 2.0 when compared with alibaba.com, which too is sourcing model from china.

Orderwithme.com, found opportunity in sourcing for all the small retailers in United States through group buying, hand picking goods for their customers, walk through the journey of procurement & selection, quality evaluation & many more attributes, making the sourcing site the most effective platform for it’s small customer & adding the flavor of personalization. The value in the model is creating a platform where various small retailers could queue the order for the bulk pick up from china, as like the founder, not everybody would be able to relinquish the quantity procured, even though you have the cost advantage.

The Learning from the model is their personalized touch which makes every customer of their feel of being in China and procuring goods, through Video, high definition pictures on the journey of purchasing and Account manager who liaison with their customers, understanding the requirement & taking care of the order.

You Could reach me on adarsh.pete@gmail.com or connect me linkedin

Takes for eCommerce Industry

• Enhancing the online shopping experience with more digital aids like the high definition videos & pictures, which could bridge the decision making process of the real life

6 Point Strategy To Pin Your Customer To Your eCommerce Model In Emerging Economies

ECommerce, as such, is not a new concept, but it is considered as a new model when it enters the emerging economies, where infrastructure and technology is trying to keep pace with the people’s perception. Moreover, they would have seen the organized retail flaring new heights, people adapting to new culture, where they are exposed to brands on shelves, feeling it, investigating it & top it, freedom of choice. Given the behavioral adaptions & the technology advances, eCommerce is seeing a new wave with Social Media & mobile technology vis-à-vis web 1.0.

Not biased on the brand though, but it’s amazing to see flipkart’s approach to the dig in the 10,000 cr market segment in the book industry, commanding  to sell a book every minute and gaining the foothold in eCommerce industry. The founder, while being interviewed in Young Turks, based his entry strategy to gain the consumer confidence, as books don’t cost much (helping the shopper to gain confidence) and secondly books don’t break or get damaged while in transit. Interesting to note here is, in spite of them being start-up couple of years back, they have gained a commendable market share and huge traction even in their newly introduces categories of with respect to white & brown goods. Yet another point to note is that they have good volumes churning from tier 2 cities and more so their advertising campaign have been very appealing as they are more on to the typical pain area, with respect to  why people hesitate to opt for eCommerce.

Wooing shoppers is the toughest task with any player today in the internet space, Thanks to the digital advancements in terms of technology, operating systems, mobile technology & enterprise applications, eCommerce has seen a sea change. Players like DataLink , who are the prominent players in the space, help budding & existing eCommerce Companies, in developing, supporting, maintaining flawless architecture which are constantly been innovated & updated with the  new ways like the social & mobile commerce which could help your platform to be on top of the mind of the shoppers. Such agencies play a crucial role in bridging the gap & help focusing the player on to the business.

As the social wave & mobile technology (in terms of smart devices) picks up heat and the numbers trending towards eCommerce being a prime channel strategy for any brands to reach their consumers.  6 point strategy to pin your customer to eCommerce model would be an approach towards finding ways & means to attract & have them with your model.

1. Play on Perception – Flipkart is a good example which has played a pioneering role in addressing and educating people, around their value proposition. The ad campaigns which were more on towards replacement guarantee, EMI options, pay on delivery and so on, caught bang on with Shoppers. The beauty of the entire campaign was, no where they touched on type of deals & offers. Such a thought process always creates the right kind of buzz and sets a platform in the emerging economies, which has a large addressable and consumption base.

2. Partner Brands as a channel in their sales Strategy – This point strategy builds the notional value among the user, when the consumer finds their choice of product tagged to the platform, it plays the much required promotions. A real life example, I was checking for the Samsung Tab in their website and curiously went on to see the online retailer in India, was Flipkart. This example is again not to talk on the Flipkart, but to articulate the value of being one of the prime channels in the sales strategy. Please note such a presence not only builds the loyalty but also helps to extend the brand loyalty of the product to the platform. In case of India, where eCommerce is seeing huge traction, such a move plays a lot on notional values.

3. Explore Mobile Apps for mobile devices – Mobile devices are proving to be one of the most intrinsic part of the consumer life, impacting their behavior, lifestyle and even more the decision-making process is not the same any more. We have already seen in one of the theories of Google and one of my previous blog on Zero Moment Of Truth . With the advent to tablets, every company is mooted towards developing applications which are lighter, quicker and smarter; it would be a big crime in this smart world, if the applications are not optimized to the mobile devices. Application plays a huge role in engagement too and also building the brand presence, and more so, smarter application reinstate the brand  prominence in the mind of the prospects in influencing the decision-making, through various engagements. An example to mobile app, evaluating  products, brand tracking through feeds and so on.

4. Adopt Social Commerce – Adopting social commerce principles could help the platform to boast their footfalls, also create the experience closer to reality and in the company friends, developing reviews, sharing, asking friends for recommendation and the list goes on. If not the social commerce platform at least the features, this ads to the engagement which is the core to pin your prospects. As in the case of the retail format, every outlet tries to engage his or her own customer to increase the footfall and enhance their shopping experience. Digital media could boast with the type of technology coming in, for example the augmented reality app connected to the social media can play wonders in promotion.

   Courtesy Rackspace, building43

5. Building a community of Happy Faces “The Brand Face”  & program around –  It is very important today that eCommerce needs to create a connect with its customer, and what better way it could be having your happy customer on to your ‘Wall of Fame’. The time has come now to build a community around the happy faces, not to have the freebies, but to facilitate value ads to its frequent & loyal customers to its credit. This point strategy purely works on the consumer buying behavior and their spending pattern on the social media circle, for example in the case of category dealing with books, how fascinating it would be for a customer to have a personally autographed books or meet his favorite authors or thinking a loud a chat or live video from the author in form of streams.

6. Practice Zero Moment of Truth – When we look at the buying behavior of a shopper after having a desire to buy a product, he has different ways today to gather more information, either he gets on to his mobile device like Laptop, iPad, smart phone or get on to stand alone PC, hit the search button, the best in today’s world what people say is ‘Google’. Your favorite search engine is able to throw loads of information from the product details, availability, location, feedback to reviews; they are so intrinsic that no brand can actually neglect any of these details, if they want to win their shoppers’ heart. So in the case e-commerce, not only the site would have to be optimized to the search engine but it would have to be calibrated for various devices from the smart phones to other smart devices, making it friendly for the shopper to view the information. The last thing you would want is the opportunity loss for unfriendliness in viewing the product.

More or less, when you evaluate the different players, these point strategies are prevalent, what is missing today is being customer centric and building engagement around them. It is not hard to have a sale today, but what would make a difference is building a community around the happy customer & tools to engage, it is just not enough to have a fan page to communicate people on the deal, but what would work is allowing the brand to speak, listen & engage with their customer.

You could reach me on adarsh.pete@gmail.com or connect me LinkedIn