Monthly Archives: June 2021

Capillary’s Latest Product Features Amplify Your Ecommerce Website Experience

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When a crisis hits, a challenger brand thinks of new ways to emerge out of the situation and thrive despite facing market odds.

 

When the pandemic hit globally, many retailers pivoted their focus from offline retail to digital channels and up their ecommerce game to not lose out to competition. Owing to a permanent shift in customer purchase patterns brought by the pandemic, the ecommerce space exploded!

 

‘72% of retail professionals said the crisis accelerated their digitalization plans by at least one or two years with 21% saying it fast-forwarded plans by at least three years.’ – A survey by Euromonitor International

 

Technologically advanced retail experience is the future – digital and physical. As customers increasingly become dependent on ecommerce for grocery to white goods even when stores are reopening, enabling a smooth and seamless experience is the key goal of a marketer. As the data shows, after a surge of almost 34% in 2020, ecommerce retail sales are expected to grow 13.7% this year while non-ecommerce sales will see 2.2% growth. To aid marketers ride the wave of ecommerce growth, we have released technologically advanced features to fetch the best value out of the digital world!

 

1. Search box enhancements on ecommerce site

Today’s customers are technologically empowered. A website/an app becomes the face of a brand when they shop online. Enhancing the complete customer journey with technology can go a long way in making their shopping experience truly enjoyable. To enable a great customer experience and maximize the effectiveness of the website search box, here are the recent additions to the Anywhere Commerce+ Platform.

 

  • Spelling correction: Typing out the incorrect spelling/short form of words and missing out some letters while searching for a product online is one of the most common mistakes. To auto-correct it and show the right results for the customers, this feature can be enabled. With spelling correction, the shoppers can now be shown products which are closest match to the keywords even if they spell it incorrectly in the search window. Find out how to enable this feature here.

 

Use Case: A query for Pajama instead of Pyjama can still show the right product results.

 

Benefit: Allows shoppers to continue their journey on the website leading to higher chances of adding products to the cart.

 

  • Synonyms: There could be a huge difference in how a brand categorizes its products and how a customer searches for it. This difference could lead the search queries to ‘no results found’ page. With the Synonyms feature, brands can now enable similar words for common searches that can match with the shopper’s search criteria and show similar items. This feature also has high relevance in regional context where people might be using local words to search products

 

Use Cases: In India, customers might search for the regional word – ‘Badam’ of Almonds for a supermarket’s website and still get the right results.

 

A shopper searches for pants but the ecommerce website has categorized it under the ‘trousers’ section’. Enabling synonyms could be helpful in this case.

 

Benefit: Higher click through rates leading to higher conversions

 

  • Stopwords has the ability to ignore unnecessary keywords such as prepositions, conjunctions, articles from search queries.

 

Use Case: In a search query – Tops for women, ‘for’ can be ignored to get the results for women’s tops.

 

Benefit: Boosts precision and improves the system performance by saving processing time during search execution

 

  • Tracking no search results: Brands can now slice and dice the queries leading to ‘No search results pages’ in Google Analytics to measure the impact of no search results on conversions and their frequency. It also enables brands to understand the efficiency of keyword search, recognize synonyms, and add any more product lines customers might be interested in. Learn how to enable this feature here.

2. Enhanced Webpage experience

Google emphasizes on user experience once again with the Core Web Vitals to rank the websites with a good on-site experience higher. Google has shared 7 search signals to improve the health of the website and delivery search results. While the 4 vitals – Mobile friendliness, Safe browsing, HTTPS/SSL, or encryption, Intrusive interstitials have been around for quite some time now, the last three are going to impact the ranking majorly.

 

  • Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Decides the page loading performance to show the largest website content such as images and videos
  • First Input Delay (FID): Processes the first interaction on the website after it loads
  • Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Refers to unexpected layout shift while users are interacting with the website

 

At Capillary, we aim to rank your website higher with the recent enhancements on our Anywhere Commerce+ Platform inline with Google’s Core Web Vitals. The Google Lighthouse Score, which measures the quality of web pages has been improved to bring more traffic to the website leading to a possible increase in the conversion rate. Learn how to enable this feature here.

 

In this customer oriented world, merely providing a good experience is not enough to provide an edge to your brand. Customer behavior is different from what it was yesterday and will be different tomorrow from what it is today. Constant amplification of a complete retail experience with the change is what’s needed.

5 Ways Digitization And Ecommerce Can Swing Up India’s Offline Retail Sales

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At the heart of the Indian retail tale, the true star even through the pandemic, is the friendly neighbourhood ‘kirana’ store. This makes sense when you realize that the grocery sector accounts for half of India’s retail consumption, and kiranas (which are small- to mid- sized conventional stores, often family-run) account for about 90 percent of the country’s roughly $500 billion food and grocery market.

 

In our previous blogs, we have written about the impact of COVID-19 on global and regional retail industries. The pandemic spurred the adoption of online retailing (India’s ecommerce market is estimated to be growing at a 30 percent compound annual growth rate over the next five years), but the pandemic also led to a renewed trust in local stores, with a surge in new consumers visiting local stores both in metros and non-metros. In fact, in contrast to the fashion industry, the food and grocery retailers fared relatively well during the pandemic, and even reverted to pre-COVID-19 level sales and profits in the third quarter of 2020-21. This is because grocery retailers were crucial during the COVID-19-induced lockdown. Even though the lockdown and coronavirus mitigation protocols forced more consumers to shop online, the e-commerce industry was hard hit as it was not deemed an essential service (and could not deliver goods) and for other reasons like last-mile logistics. The retail sector incurred massive losses of about INR 5.50 lakh crore (approximately US$75 billion), and at least 20 percent of Indian retailers shut their businesses due to COVID-19. In this blog, we outline why small retailers should digitize their sales and business operations to reduce similar vulnerabilities.

 

1. Kirana stores need a tech makeover

 

 

According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s Business-To-Consumer E Commerce Index 2019, India ranks 73 out of 152 countries on its readiness to support online shopping. Increasing internet penetration and smartphone and social media use have driven the growth of e-commerce in India. In fact, ecommerce has become increasingly popular even in Tier II and Tier III cities, due to services like cash-on-delivery, free home delivery, deeper discounts, flexible payment options, buy-back policies, and a wider offer of products.

 

Ecommerce has made massive leaps in India’s retail sector: 220 million people are expected to shop online by 2025, and the industry is predicted to grow to INR 13,97,800 crore (US$200 billion) by 2027. The Grocery and Fashion apparel sectors are poised to drive this growth, triggered by the expanding internet and smartphone penetration. Given these insights, it becomes imperative for kirana stores to take steps to offer an ecommerce option for those who choose it, or risk losing out on sales. Many kiranas agree— as many as 58 percent of traders surveyed in metro cities and 46 percent in the non-metros are convinced that they need to digitize due to Covid-19.

 

2. Adopting the Phygital model

Although online food and grocery retail has made headway in the country, it still counts for just 0.2 percent of all sales (according to consulting firm Redseer). Of India’s over 12 million local retail shops, only 15,000 have digitised their operations with mobile apps. Being heralded as the way forward to bridge this gap is the ‘phygital model’. It can be viewed as an integration of digital technology (digital) with personal interactions with consumers (physical), to bridge the gulf between the two. It combines the mileage of human service and trust with the efficiency and power of digital technology. An effective phygital retail strategy ideally focuses on three I’s – immediacy, immersion, and interaction.

 

  • Immediacy understands that customers are looking for the quickest ways to find the products they want and one-click checkouts.
  • Immersion factor provides personalized experience everywhere
  • Interaction focuses on the engagement between the customer and brand.

3. From brick-and-mortar to brick-and-click model 

The evolution from ‘bricks vs. clicks’ to ‘bricks and clicks’ will see the mix of traditional stores, modern brick-and-mortar stores and online channels, with each complementing the other. Developing such symbiotic partnerships will enable the growth of small and medium stores by widening the customer base and marketing potential. Meanwhile, customers will be able to choose from a mix of shopping modes. Several such partnerships are currently being explored, such as:

 

 

  • The Facebook-JioMart deal will allow consumers to order groceries from local shops via WhatsApp.
  • Similarly, Amazon launched an initiative to allow local retail stores to sell their products on its site, and will invest US$1billion (INR 7,349 crore) to encourage small businesses to move online. This takes forward its existing partnerships with small format traders through the ‘I Have Space’ programme where local neighbourhood shops receive and deliver goods on behalf of Amazon.
  • Paytm has introduced a loyalty programme for kiranas and provides them with a digital ledger through the ‘Business Khata’ service.
  • Flipkart has also partnered with over 35,000 convenience stores to bridge ecommerce.
  • During the lockdown, food delivery platform Swiggy also teamed up with several local stores to supply groceries.

4. The tactical social media gambit

 

As restrictions start easing, Indian retail stores can advertise their offline business through platforms like Facebook and Instagram. In June 2020, Instagram hit one billion monthly users—more than an eighth of the world’s population. That said, about two million advertisers use Instagram every month—this is still a very small percentage of one billion. This shows there is still an abundance of opportunity to leverage social media channels as a platform to sell your brand, and draw larger audiences.

 

For large brands with a significant audience, taking a direct sales approach through social media posts may work well, as they are more likely to have already established trust, and have a loyal customer base. For brands lacking a sizable audience of followers, one method is to buy ad space on social media networks instead, which can help businesses to target individuals who are more likely to be interested in their product, rather than mass marketing to everyone. Small businesses can also have the advantage of offering a personal touch while responding to followers. Responsiveness is the most sought-after quality in a business social media account (according to a survey by Sprout Social), and it’s the one thing that’s most likely to lead to sales in all demographics of online customers.

 

5. Digital payment solutions

 

About 80 percent of India’s retail stores continue to be cash-intensive and operate in the informal economy. Cash is the preferred mode of payment in kirana stores due to its ease of use, familiarity, and for the sense of control it provides. Studies to uncover the reason for merchants’ slow adoption show that trust was a major influencing factor, along with factors like usefulness, trustworthiness, and non-fraudulent and error-free transactions. In some instances, kirana owners’ attitude towards digital technologies is strongly influenced by the fear of tax implications and additional costs levied by banks on digital transactions, as well as the potential investment needed to use the technologies (such as to buy or hire POS devices).

 

 

There has been a concerted effort from the public sector to push ecommerce and digital payments across India. A few of their programmes aimed at digitising small retailers include Aadhaar-based biometric systems, the Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), the government-promoted Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) app, Bharat QR code, RuPay cards and the ‘Digital India’ programme. Additionally, private sector initiatives have complemented these efforts to promote digitisation.

 

However, in the past year, retail digital payments have seen huge growth as more people gravitated towards digital modes of transaction owing to fear of contracting the virus and convenience. Retail payment platforms such as Unified Payments Interface (UPI), Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), and National Automated Clearing House (NACH) saw a near doubling of both transaction volume from 12.5 billion to 22.3 billion, and value from Rs 21.3 trillion to Rs 41 trillion between FY2020 and 2021. To increase digitization even further, the security of India’s overall digital architecture will need to be fortified to improve trust in digital technologies among merchants and customers.

 

Conclusion

 

Retail is India’s largest industry, accounting for over 10 percent of the country’s GDP and 8 percent of employment. Local convenience stores still account for the majority of retail transactions, making small retailers the backbone of the Indian economy. It is of paramount importance to support digitization efforts using transparent policies and platforms that benefit small- and mid- sized local retailers, hence giving more power to them and the local communities they support.

The CX Revolution: Growth Strategies And Future Outlook

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The race between competitor brands in the Middle East has recently become very intense. Almost 70% of the population is less than 30 years of age with a dynamic purchase behavior. Unless brands build a robust feedback system to understand customers’ needs, buyers could easily jump to another brand to find their desired product. Therefore, brands must focus on constantly improving shopping experience, review feedback regularly and set up omnichannel interaction to attract the digitally savvy youth.

 

A quick poll during our fireside chat on ‘The CX Revolution: Growth Strategies and Future Outlook’ pointed out that most retailers hope to delight customers and gain their trust through their customer experience strategies. In fact, that is the holistic and big picture that 15-year-old fashion and lifestyle brand REDTAG is looking at. With over 200+ stores across GCC, REDTAG has been beating competition by its winning CX strategy. If your brand is looking at making inroads in the Middle Eastern market, here are 5 differentiating ways to build a next-gen customer experience.

 

#1. A loyalty program isn’t enough. Personalized loyalty program is the key

 

What’s in it for me? This is a common question in the consumer mind when they first choose brands. And implementing a personalized loyalty program that involves listening to your customers and delighting them beyond the transactional aspect of brand interactions could be the differentiating feature between you and your competitor.

 

#2. Addressing feedback timely and wisely

 

Quick response to customer feedback goes a long way in delighting customers, and in turn results in higher repeat sales. REDTAG gives huge importance to customer requests and as a policy, the brand ensures that customers get the exact products they were looking for. The brand enables store managers themselves to source the products and deliver it to the customer, resulting in satisfied testimonials from buyers.

 

#3. Retail is Detail: Data-driven engagement, from start till forever

 

Once the initial contact has been established with customers through loyalty program enrollment, brands must remember not to stop there and find ways to keep triggering excitement elements. Data-enriched personalized communication can keep customers engaged with the brand. The data can help predict the store visiting pattern and push customers to buy more by issuing instant vouchers.

 

#4. Omnichannel campaigns, keeping up with the trend

 

Earlier, retailers would focus on horizontal marketing campaigns and post ads in generic channels. With the advent of big data, brands have tons of data to help them segment customers and engage with them in the platforms that they are present in. For example, Snapchat is a popular platform in Saudi Arabia and it would not make sense to campaign on another platform which is barely used. The covid pandemic has further pushed the need to opt for digital channels.

 

#5. Domain Specialization

 

The most obvious differentiator from your competitors that buyers are looking for is – what are customers looking for in your brand? It’s important to provide the best from the domain you are in, and the hint to understand that again comes from what the customer is looking for. REDTAG achieves this swiftly by nominating personal stylists that answers customers’ queries on fashion and helps them to quickly find products that they are looking for.

 

#6. Aim for x+1 and never an x-1

 

The beauty of customer experience is that it is constantly evolving, and retailers can constantly learn and adapt to new customer behavior and emerging retail technologies. For more insights on CX strategies, Middle Eastern retail, and how you can emerge a winner amid competitors, check out our exclusive discussion with Mr. Shehbaz Shaikh (Chief Retail Officer, REDTAG).

The Power Of Feelings: How Emotional Loyalty Can Revolutionize Malaysian Customer Experience

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When the pandemic began, the immediate customer trends showed a major dip in consumption. However, in the second half of 2020, a part of the overall spending bounced back, and studies showed that this uptick can be explained by consumers’ motivation to seek an external stimuli’. This helped them to feel better during lockdown restrictions. Another report by the Zeno group shows how Malaysians, amongst other Asians, did a lot of emotional consumption during the pandemic year. Consumption was driven by how much the customer agreed with a brand’s values. The survey also found that almost 91% of Malaysian consumers stopped buying from brands they disagree with.

 

With evidence of ‘cancel culture’ (practice of withdrawing support to a brand) and comfort buying during pandemic, it certainly seems like this is a crucial time for brands to appeal to customers through emotional loyalty.

 

Elements of emotional loyalty

 

Emotional loyalty aims to bring consumers closer to the brand by creating trust and belief in the brand’s vision. It involves understanding what the customer feels to create a personalized interaction with them – right from advertising up to the purchase of the product. Research by Forrester suggests that making customers feel appreciated that encourages them to spend more with a brand and recommend it to friends and family. This clearly shows that emotional loyalty is the easiest way to foster loyalty and retain customers through thick and thin. The Data and Marketing Association describes the ‘3Ps’ approach to achieve the best of emotional loyalty.

 

 

Partnerships: Brands must seek to create a partnership with the customer, to exchange valuable information with them. Examples of a good partnership includes rewarding certain behavior such as advocating for the brand, sharing feedback and product reviews.


Purpose: Loyalty programs must be connected to issues that resonate with the customers values. In recent pandemic times, health and sustainability have been important topics that concern a majority of the population. Initiatives related to these topics would play a role in capturing consumer attention.

 

Personalization: All loyalty programs would be incomplete without the element of personalization and emotional loyalty is no exception. Personalized communication and offers can make the customer feel special and included, and can lead to more repeat sales.

 

Why Malaysians are rooting for emotional loyalty

 

Let’s take a look at recent customer trends in Malaysia, which demonstrates how buyers warm up to brands that understand and share similar views with them. What does an average Malaysian consumer look for in their brands, apart from the product or service itself?

 

 

Sustainability

In Malaysia, there has been a year-on-year increase in Google searches like ’metal straw’, ’eco shop’ and ’hybrid car’, proving that consumers are very conscious about the environmental issues faced across the world and they want to do their part by choosing products that are sustainable and don’t harm the environment. Experts say that incorporating sustainable business strategies is an inevitable step towards the future, and it is best that retailers start planning for this as soon as possible. Brands can create an incredible journey towards sustainability and get customers to follow them along the way, and therefore building the buyer’s confidence in the products.

 

Halal versions of products

With 60% of its population practicing Islam, Malaysia is a major producer of halal goods in Asia. Halal is an Arabic word that means permitted by the Islamic law and it is commonly applied to food, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. Therefore it is not a surprise that there was a 550% year-on-year growth for searches like ‘Toblerone halal and ‘Ovaltine halal‘. There is also major demand for halal cosmetics. This is a clear indicator that brands must respect religious beliefs, making consumers feel understood.

 

Value Addition

 

Much like all other countries, Malaysia has seen a lot of suffering during the pandemic, and people are looking for experiences that spark joy. In a non-pandemic scenario as well, positive experiences created by brands inspire trust and advocacy among customers. Buyers remember the brand for positive and optimistic marketing messages and they’re more likely to recommend products friends and family.

 

For example, KFC Malaysia launched the #KepciKitchen campaign in early 2020 to creatively engage customers. The brand encouraged customers to share photos of how they eat KFC chicken by giving them a chance to win delivery vouchers.

 

Expert views also suggest that familiar things make customers feel better, at a time of crisis. Therefore, making personalized recommendations and introducing localized goods can be favorable strategies to boost sales.

 

Donations

 

Adding on to the positive brand messaging, brands need to create meaningful contributions to causes that customers are involved in. The pandemic situation has brought the entire community together, and it’s an essential time for the brand to show up for the cause.

 

During the pandemic, popular home improvement store MR.DIY ran a donation campaign called ‘You Share, We Donate’. In this campaign, the brand aimed to encourage customers to share the company’s social media posts for a good cause – for every Facebook share of their short film, the company donated RM1 to the Malaysian Relief Agency.

 

There are many such examples from various brands, ranging from small stores to large conglomerates who have managed to build an optimistic brand image during tough times.

 

People buy emotions, not things

 

In the book ‘How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market‘, author Gerald Zaltman demonstrates that 95% of purchasing decisions are made through unconscious urges. Therefore, all evidence is pointing to emotional loyalty being the fastest way to carve a niche in the consumer’s heart. As customer priorities in Malaysia shift, it is more important than ever for brands to leverage emotions in their rewards program. Find out how you can include emotional loyalty in your campaigns / brand emotional connection and loyalty campaigns by talking to an expert.

 

Top 5 Loyalty Programs That Are Raring To Go In Singapore

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For most of us, this year too seems like a reflection of last year. The Lion City is not an exception too. Of course, the changes that pandemic has brought were inevitable and Singaporeans are now adapting to the post-pandemic habits. It was noted that last year 31% of Singaporeans actually shopped online for the first time during the pandemic! The same study also predicts that even when the pandemic ends, half of Singaporeans would prefer shopping from large online marketplaces. This sudden surge in ecommerce shopping activities have brought a twist to the current retail arena in Singapore.

 

Retailers and marketers are thus focusing more on creating a loyal customer base. Combating the sky-rocketing shop rental costs and reduced store footfall, loyalty programs could be the hook retailers are looking at. The importance of having an omnichannel loyalty program has gained more momentum than ever. A report by FIS (payment software) claims that 81% of Singaporeans prefer shopping with the retailer who has a loyalty program. Sadly, 48% of Singaporeans feel that they have very limited engagement with the loyalty programs. So before we distill the fine practices of a loyalty program, let’s take a closer look at some of the top loyalty programs in Singapore that have been there and done that, and that too exceptionally well.

 

1. The GrabRewards – Cashless First, Loyalty Program

 

 

Leading with the changing environment around is Grab Rewards. A leading public infrastructure provider, Grab is now home to the popular App offering hyper local services as well. Their loyalty program has gain more precedence in the last year owing to its consistent intent and endeavor of promoting cashless, contactless payments by offering more rewards. They have a 4-tiered membership where the members can climb from Member to Silver to Gold and finally Platinum by adding more points. As they have introduced GrabPay Wallet as the mode of payment, it allows its members to earn more points through the same tier benefits if they pay through Grab wallet. The best part is its point expiration policy. As long as you make 1 Grab cashless transaction within the next 6 months of your last transaction, your points will continue to accumulate.

 

2. TungLokFirst – Instant Gratification Loyalty Program

 

 

With over 35 restaurants across Asia, the TungLok Group is a delight for the Singaporean diners offering both traditional Chinese fare as well as the Modern Chinese cuisine in Singapore. TungLokFirst, their loyalty program enables multiple touch points by offering members to redeem their points across different restaurants under the group. It provides personalized offers, vouchers, discounts and other delectable privileges to extend an unparalleled dining experience to its loyal customers. Besides new sign-up bonus, online sign-up bonus, birthday month special offers; members can also get more rebate during non-peak hours from Monday to Thursday on a-la-carte orders and set menus. One of the unique privileges that its members can avail is the dynamic rebates on their bill instantly.

 

3. CapitaStar – 24/7 Loyalty Program

 

 

Hailed as Singapore’s leading lifestyle and shopping rewards program, CapitaStar is a 24/7 app-based loyalty program that offers members to spend across CapitaLand Malls, eCapitaMall and Capita3Eats. Part of the CapitaLand Rewards program, members earn stars and rewards for every transaction they make in the above outlets. This multi-store cardless rewards program is also available in China and Malaysia besides Singapore. With over 1.1 million members, this program has no membership fee or expiry date. It also offers additional rewards for the birthday month as well as event invitations and promotions to its exclusive member-only events at the participating CapitaLand Mall. It issues a car parking e-voucher that could be used with all the participating CapitaLand malls.

 

4. NTUC FairPrice Group’s Plus – Coalition Loyalty Program

 

 

Introduced by the NTUC Link Private Limited, Plus is Singapore’s most popular coalition loyalty program. With a member count touching 2.3 million, it partners with 1000 outlets and allows members to earn LinkPoints which can be earned online as well as in-store purchase. These points can be redeemed for instant savings or exchanging points. In 2020, NTUC collaborated with Kopitiam and NTUC Foodfare to form FairPrice Group. Created for its members, the Plus App offers a feature – Stamp Your Way which allows members to check-in every time they visit a store and collect a reward on completing a certain number of visits. Members can also review their LinkPoints as they shop with different brands in one single-view.

 

5. Healthy 365 – Health First, Loyalty Program

 

 

Spearheaded by the Ministry of Health and Health Promotion Board Singapore, this app-based loyalty program aims to inculcate healthy living habits. Given the pandemic has further highlighted the importance of health and immunity, this app is gaining traction amongst Singaporeans these days. Users can maintain a log of routine activity like counting the total number of steps per day, exercising time, etc. It also offers a wide array of health articles, go-to health directory of the region and interesting challenges. When a user signup for these health programs and challenges, they earn Health points which can be redeemed to purchase healthier food options, groceries and drinks.

 

The Future of Loyalty Programs in Singapore

 

 

As Singaporeans stay merry with the freebies attached to the loyalty programs, a recent survey states that non-expiring points, cashbacks and rewards with multiple retailers have proven to be the sure-shot way to encourage members to sign up for a new loyalty program. With new innovations like- Friends and Family (group loyalty) and partner programs making inroads; it’s time brands rethink their loyalty strategy and implement the right mix suited to their loyal customer needs.