India, Bharat and Fashion Ecommerce

An online brand now needs to evolveto cater to larger growing population from rural areas who will increasingly shop fashion online.

The split between urban and rural internet users is now more in favour of rural india (~52:48) and thats where the growth in online adoption is. From #internet users, they will eventually become shoppers, currently marred by the quality of physical distribution in bharat.

Thus, most brands are vying up for #D2C routes, #partnerships or via existing ecommerce players who already deliver to close to 100% of pincodes in India.

In my opinion, tech fashion space needs:
👉 More of Visual approach Vs text - More #video than reams and reams of text on detail pages.
👉 More of Assisted shopping models - Voice based tech (#alexa) or human interaction on video
👉 More of Real Shopping experience - Personalized selection and TrynBuy services as a customer associate makes you shop
👉 More of personalized fitting - Tieups across physical stores or tailoring network to get you quick alterations. This is one reasons why sales of bottoms/blazers is lower in online world vs offline (top:bottom ratio).
👉 More of fashion advisory vs just putting up loads of apparel selection - Consumers also shop to get eduacted on how to match, layer, coordinate etc while shopping for fashion.

Additionally mixed models or omnichannel efforts will pave the way for offline online integrated experience to capture this opportunity.

Offline brands offering this thru #WhatsApp chat selling thru catalogues, #video calls and mobile shops. Adaptation to changing #consumer preferences and still keeping focus on key competencies of #offline retailing.

All #salespersons who have a knack of human interaction, of how to traverse through steps of #selling - ice breaking, probing, handling objections etc will still be relevant. The skill of fabbing ( Feature, Advantage and Benefit) of a particular product is more animated than a verbose detail page till tech adapts to dynamically alter level of details sought by a consumer. All those skills can come handy in future on e-commerce as well with video assisted shopping taking shape in future.

You might still have your favourite salesman listening to your queries and offering personalised service, but on a video interface while you shop online. Yeah, but that coffee he offers in store with great reverance to make you feel as a king  while you shop to overhaul your wardrobe, will be missed :)

#fashion #retail #salesperson #experience #skill #jobs

Amazon Prime Vs Flipkart Plus ?

Being a loyalty program creator myself, it is exciting news that one of the best loyalty programs of the world (#Amazon #Prime) is getting some competition from its prime competitor in India, #Flipkart.

Flipkart is now launching Flipkart #Plus wherein they have roped in benefits from #BookMyShow, #Makemytrip and content from #Hotstar. Apart from that, obvious benefits of faster delivery/exciting deals/free shipping etc.

However, its a moot point that whether a consumer will enroll in Plus to get discounts at BMS or MMT? Is this benefit unmatchable or even required? A loyalty program needs to create special experiences for consumers which cant be matched by anybody else.

Amazon Prime with its original content like Breathe or Inside Edge is simply unmatchable (except netflix). A hotstar cant even stand in competition to that.

And Amazon Music with its ad free music also cant be matched even with saavn/gaana (with ads). Thats another unmatchable benefit.

An indian consumer anyways enjoys points/discounts at BMS/MMT, there is nothing new there.

Plus on paper is on a backfoot vs Prime. And thats why its not paid. Its free. How it fares, Time will tell.

#consumer #ecommerce #loyalty #crm #marketing

Artificial Intelligence going Fashion Street

Watched a movie recently, MoneyBall wherein a baseball manager starts picking his team basis results of a computer algorithm created by a geek. And then the team wins successive matches and sets a record for successive wins in the history. And its a true story.

I wondered how come computer algorithms can predict success so much that coaches/selectors who have played the game for years start becoming irrelevant. People who have been there and have gathered that knack of identifying the hidden potential, can be replaced for the better, efficient and faster Artificial Intelligence driven programs.

However, this is getting real and real today. In my industry of fashion too. Yes, an industry which runs on WGSN trends and worldwide fashion walks trends with hordes of designers and fashion pundits and critics giving thier magical crystal ball predictions of future trends and fads. And all the fashion magazine editors, and retailer feedbacks and planners' output will get replaced with what a piece of code can do. And its here. Now. I digged a little on this and found its happening in India as well.

Closer to home in India, ecommerce companies are having a huge gold mine of data of consumer purchase as well as browsing before purchase. Myntra for example has launched multiple brands like Moda Rapido and Here&Now where the design are predicted basis software's suggestions after mining thier database (together as Myntra, Jabong & Flipkart, they claim 70% online fashion market share) as well as crwaling some thousands of fashion blogs and feeds of social media platforms like instagram. Called as Rapid, this technology would come up with a list of attributes: types of collars, sleeves, cuts, colours and other features currently popular with customers and suggest designs to make.

And they claim huge improvements in sell thru(s), so much so that bulk of thier private labels will start working on AI based trends now.

And then there are global players like Amazon using AI-fashion integration by developing an AI fashion designer. The algorithm learns about a particular style of fashion from images, and can then generate new items in similar styles from scratch.

As per online news articles, i found that an Indian designer brand is using IBM’s cognitive tool Watson to map the future of Bollywood fashion by combining analysis of over 600,000 images of fashion runway shows and Indian couture.

In US, a fashion brand called StitchFix, is solely created out of AI predicted designs for different kinds of customer. The styling service has algorithms to predict what styles people of which profile prefer.

Wow! And imagine the impact in terms of how AI can help brands and retailers with predictive forecasting, capacity planning and merchandising. Issues of unsold inventories, deep discounting, 4-6 months of design to inventory cycle, all getting solved by AI.

How paradoxical it is now. Something as creative as fashion is now predicted by a machine! Is it like a victory of geeks over the fashion pundits? Time will tell.

I am an engineer by the way!

Sources - https://www.livemint.com/AI/tdxtlGYRklB16h8rWj7A2H/How-Artificial-Intelligence-is-empowering-designers-in-India.html

https://www.livemint.com/Companies/tchtq74FOkMM43szMIHh0M/At-Myntra-machines-tell-designers-how-to-make-clothes.html

https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/news-analysis/how-algorithms-are-threatening-fashions-white-collar-jobs

Mobile Wallets - A source of valuable data for e-Retailers

Movement towards Mobile #wallets and complete digitization is on its way. Post #Demonetization, now there is month on month drop in ATM transactions and cash withdrawl while usage of wallets and card transactions are growing.

Consolidation is on cards in wallets space as biggies jostle for acquistions of fintech players. From #paytm, #freecharge, #mobiqwik to #amazonpay and #phonepe. Post consumer acquistion thru cashbacks, now players are pumping money into offline retail space where paytm's reach is unmatchable.

And to acquire large number of merchant POS to enable forced adoption of a wallet; there will be more partnerships of the likes of #zopper. May be partnerships in space of loyalty aggreggators like capillary, quicksilver, easyrewards which have large POS reach with these wallet players will pave the way for next chunk of transactions acquisition.

And its evident with monies being  pumped in India by likes of #Flipkart/#Amazon. Why not? #Payment is key to #Purchase as well as #POSdata leading to insights in buying behaviour and patterns to create better #selection making the commerce efficient and profitable.

No wonder why wallets space is so hot; and ATMs are dying. See all 3 news in one place; telling the #story of #money getting #digital.

Why suddenly everybody is interested in delivering #Milk at ur doorstep?

Why suddenly everybody is interested in delivering #Milk at ur doorstep? There are plethora of milk apps (#milkbasket), #grocery #ecommerce players and #offline neighborhood retailers joining the milk-wagon! Why, so much fuss about a low margin, near commodity category like milk?

As indian consumers, we have grown up with #Amul as the only dominant voice in the category. A huge traditional distribution does the trick to make it reach our doorstep every morning. Whats the need to change ?

As a #consumer, its the Power to choose. The night before! When u install that app, because of a tech backed up supply chain, u can decide the night before, what u want to add to that milk? Eggs, Bread, Biscuits? Thats a common problem. U seem to run out of these daily needs and have to run to the kirana guy in the morning.

But what about #retailers? Because, they need a foot in the door. Its an opportunity to change ur #habit, and find a consumer who will buy higher margin categories. And its all stocked up near a big box or small shop near u.

And worldwide #investors dont reward so much on ur revenues so much as ur potential revenue thru active customer count. And India is the biggest populated fastest growing economy. And they have #money!

https://lnkd.in/fUPwvCV

Customers would have wanted a faster horse! - Henry Ford

#Convenience is the biggest attribute of future. Saving #time is the noblest thing to do for consumers. #Brands who marry #technology with #creativity to solve consumer problems with these 2 built in purposes (Convenience & lightening fast) will be the biggest brands of the future.

If you see history with recent successes, its there. Whether it is #Apple bringing Ipods and Iphones with huge convenience offerings or #Facebook with faster way to connect with people or #Google with its fastest search or #Amazon with its fastest delivery, broadest selection & value (Convenience). Its whats that happened. Creating convenience thru technology with creativity in exploring the unknown. 

Why ecommerce players are obsessive about number of clicks? Because they take consumer convenience as obsession to work at breakneck speed to make it happen. From multiple it became 'one click purchase' which in itself was a milestone. But just for a while. Today, consumers we are moving from many clicks to one click to zero clicks. Thats where #AI takes over! And thats what devices/apps like #Alexa or #GoogleHome or #Siri or #GoogleAssistant are doing. Taking convenience to the #ZEROCLICK saving time for the consumers to get what they want at lightening speed!

Why Tech companies are burning midnight oil to create smart appliances via Internet of Things (IOT) that will obey voice commands? Sounds bizarre. Taking customer convenience to an extreme. But that is the future. 3D printing was like a fairy's magic in childhood stories. But thats a reality. Why? To make consumer able to dream and create things basis his imagination. And #Imagination is human being's greatest asset for progress.

And did consumer ask for AI enabled products? Or smart bands? Or Smart cars? Did they dream about it? Did any consumer researches told that they have this need? I doubt it. Its the companies with obsession for consumer, that think about it, put in effort and take risks & create such #innovations. And rule #future.

As Henry Ford puts it fantastically well - “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

Sweet Smelling Newspaper Ad

Wow! When my son started reading today's TOI when i was starting my day with ET, i got intrigued by sweet smell. And realized that its the #Myntra #Ad about the #BeautyEdit event and that the page is smelling.

Such a small trick and uses another sense for a print ad - sense of #smell. And its a gimmick connected with the event's nature (Beauty category).

And then my mind starts racing - can it be extended? How about #perfume sprayers in the womens compartment in smelling #Delhimetros/#mumbailocals? Or, womens restrooms in Malls? Where-ever there is a mirror, it might be the place; lifts?

#marketing #brand #core #ecommerce #activation #Myntra

Online meets Offline in world's hottest market - India

We are witnessing what is offline and online convergence in India. #Online players are forging partnerships with #offline and vice versa.

News of #Amazon soon picking up stake in #Future-retail gets the #Bezos led company a foothold in indian grocery and mass fashion (#BigBazaar, #Hypercity & #FBB). It has already tied up earlier with mid premium fashion retailer #Shoppersstop. It already runs numerous programs like "i have space" to convert huge number of offline grocers to work as delivery points of pick n drop facility to consumers.

On the other hand #Walmart a global offline leader bought #Flipkart to capture indian online space. It already has its cash and carry offline format which can lead to partnerships with lot of offline small businesses. It will further forge more partnerships in India.

While a player like Future group in itself, sensing Walmart' entry via flipkart; has intensified its '#Everyday-low-price' campaign. Its a proposition which Walmart originated with globally and Future group is wanting to create its ownership on the position in India.

This market is going to see fantastic omnichannel efforts going forward. A #kindle selling in a bigbazaar to fast grocery from Flipkart err #Walkart!! Stay tuned.

Retailing - Offline > Online (Part 2)

As explained in the first article, the premise here is that retailing basics dont change whether its online store or an offline store. In last article, 5 Key Areas of retail were described - Consumer Experience, People, Product, Topline & Bottomline. In this article, i would exhibit the linkages to online retailing, discuss key drivers & key actions/strategies enabling them.

1.Product/Service - For any business to succeed, the product/service which you are selling, has to be desirable for customers, offers a good quality experience on usage & adds to a consumer's life. However, before a consumer can experience the product post purchase, her attention has to be intercepted by your product/service for it to get sold.

This is where Visual Merchandising plays a role in offline retailing. From the window of the store talking about that 'stitchless shirt' which intrigues your mind & tickles you to enter the store; to attractive display of product with wonderful VM talking about the story behind say the ' no stitching' or 'anti-radiation mobile pocket' etc. You pickup the product & then interact with the customer associate & give it a shot. Boom. The sale is over.

However in online retailing, there is no intriguing window/VM to have product talk you into buying it? That gets replaced by the 'User Interface & Navigation' of the site enabling fastest discovery of such products. The window is the 'Home Page banner' wooing you to buy that stitchless shirt! VM is replaced by the 'quality of pictures/videos' shot in the studio with beautiful models to make you comfortable while making the buying decision.

Another barrier in online app/website is that you cant define a layout of the store to fix the category navigation the way it happens in offline retailing - putting the destination categories at the back of store & impulse next to cash counter, highlighting seasonal stories at the first fixture & basics at the back. In online retailing, its dependent on how the consumer uses the provided filters to lead to 'product discovery'. However, with #BIGDATA analytics, app should be able to provide varying UIs basis what a purchases. My home page banner on say an Amazon should vary from say yours; leading to bring in that personalized product discovery! Thats more power to online retailing if done well.

2.People - In offline retailing, the omnipresent 'human touch' is what at times makes you discover a new category or brand you would never buy. Thats the power of human interaction. It delivers variable and personalized and live-dynamic delivery of knowledge & product experience. Thats why good brands invest in training their sales people. A product/Brands gets alive in the way creator has conceptualized only when a person gives that product presentation making the story complete. That, 'Joe' in your favourite high street store calls you when your desired product arrives, wishes you on your birthday & invites you to the store, helps you get benefited by the steal deals, customizes your clothes as per your taste/measurements, and once in a while lets you have your ego massaged; is something! Something, that a fixed computer screen cant match!

In online retailing, this important bit gets replaced by the Product Presentation(Picture/Video, Copy, size chart, reviews, ratings, etc). Now, basis all this information, one can take the decision; and as these factors are incomplete vs a human presentation; thats why ecommerce companies offer liberal return policy & faster delivery mechanisms trying to make up for this void & making is easier for consumer to shop. However, with advanced AI & bots; this is getting better to give that human touch to ecommerce.

3.Customer Experience - If the consumer walks into your store & gets presented by the sales person; but doesn't get serviced properly or the store experience is not good given sloppy display or no cooling or rude behavior; everything goes for a toss. A bad consumer experience is like a camphor catching fire; it burns & burns the entire neighborhood of customers. Thus, offline art of retaining is all about consumer experience, the capital factor.

In offline, the experience is elongated. From website experience to the product delivery. The app wasnt loading or the filters were going wonky or the payment gateway wasnt working; all kills the experience. But so does late delivery of goods or rude behavior of delivery boy or wrong delivery of product in the box. Online retailing has its own challenges to ensure a great consumer experience. Most of the ecommerce players have been able to fix the technology side; however most of the issues crop up on the logistics/warehousing errors.

4.Top-line - As discussed in Part 1, Topline being the objective No 2; there needs to be clear understanding on drivers of topline & relationship in between to revenue. As in offline, online retail has similar relationship -

Offline Sales = Footfalls (No of Customers * Freq) X Conversion X Basket Size X Average Sales Value

Online Sales = No of hits (No of unique visitors * visits) X Conversion (Sales Transactions/visits) X Cart items X Average Sales Value

Now the drivers in online piece, are obviously -

A. No of hits or Traffic to the site driven by lead generation out of various campaigns (SEO, SMM, ATL, BTL etc);

B. Conversion on the site driven by 1. Ease of product discovery & transaction on website (User Interface & Steps to transaction completion) 2. Product Presentation (Pics/vids/info/reviews/Pricing) enabling users to make a buying decision 3. Transaction completion net of returns (Lot of transactions get cancelled post conversion/post delivery due to poor acceptance or impulse) which needs to be controlled with better product quality checks/ product presentation & efficiency in logistics & delivery.

C. Basket Size on the eCommerce website can be boosted by running campaigns of cross promotion (shop across shirts & trousers & get extra discount), shipping free (order > Rs 1000 get shipping free) and so on. Cart can also be boosted with recommendations showing users who bought A also bought this book. Basically giving a benefit (discount, freebie) on increased basket.

D. Average Sales Value is the last factor on the topline; which is driven by premium assortment, branded merchandise, better quality and so on. Sell more suits and blazers than shirts & your average sales value sky rockets! How can a website influence you to up-trade your ASP? Using recommendations tickling the ego (Consumers choosing an apple iphone have bought apple branded accessories only); highlighting high priced products basis shopping history; or plain and simple 'personalized pricing' within an app (Same hotel room to Mr X is $1000 while Mr Y is $1200).

5. Bottom-line - Obviously, this is the No 1 objective for which businesses exist. One needs to drive all revenue factors up and all costs factors down without dropping consumer experience, product quality & people standards in offline retail. Same factors apply here in online retail - One needs to boost margins by arm-twisting vendors, ask minimum guarantees, increase #private #labels, boost traffic at lowest cash burn, drop costs of logistics & warehousing, and reduce discounts and so on. Make unit economics work!

I think the basics remain the same; be it online or offline; its the passion that drives the business ahead to serve consumers! I hope this 2 part article; was a good read. If yes, please drop in your valuable comments & lets strike a conversation around retailing - Offline or Online!

For going to part 1 of this article, please click here. 

Retailing - Offline > Online?

With so much happening in the retail industry in India; Online Vs Offline is a topic touching emotions anytime in a room. There has been huge hue & cry about how online retailing is changing the way consumer shop or how it is killing the offline retailing or how offline retailing is under pressure from Mall rentals or how offline retailing's touch n feel cant be replaced by online and offline retailing understands economics while e-commerce players don't. I am penning my thoughts around something called retailing as i learned it from my childhood days in a family owned retail business to organized retailing work experience in offline/online world.

Selling a product/service to an end-consumer is primarily retailing. Does its principles change when the mode of transaction with end consumer is immediate (offline) or distant (online)? Are these so different that people who run these businesses apply different skills to run them? Does the consumer of the two modes of retailing different? Answer is No. Lets start from basics.

What are the key focus areas of a retail business? I call them as BIG 5 Pillars of Retail -

1. Product/Service - These are the "goodies" you are selling to the consumer. These are goodies as they are supposed to be 'good', making a consumer happy after purchase. If you sell them well, it becomes a part of life of consumers adding value to them. If you dont sell them, they remain part of your inventory adding to your costs. Its important to keep the product at its best levels & measure the indicators through various activities.

• Customer Feedback/Satisfaction - Work on the goodies basis consumer feedback. Consumer knows on what she like about you and also wants to tell you on what can make it better.
• Competition Bench-marking - Work on keep improving the goodies Vs competition.
• Product Performance - What are the various indicator's of its performance -
• a) Inventory Sell Through - If the goodies are good, then how fast are you selling them? What are the activities which can speed things up?
• b) What is selling better? - Out of an assortment of goods kept in store, what is selling better, so that you can change the mix accordingly? What categories give you better profits (margins)? (Category Performance)

2. People - These are the "human beings" that advocate your goodies to end consumer and sell to them. If these are good/well-trained/motivated sales force, they ensure fast selling of goodies and ensure consumer keeps coming back basis the last interaction (Customer Service). If they are'nt happy/not trained; it shows on customer experience and consumers wouldnt connect with your goodies & lead to poor sales/repeat sales.

• People Competence - Is my staff trained & competent on giving your desired customer service? What are the drivers? Invest in right talent & training. Are they clear on what they are selling? Are they sold on the product themselves to sell it to consumers?
• People Satisfaction - Is my staff happy/motivated so that they can wow the consumer? What are the drivers? Keep them engaged, make work a fun place, recognize their performance, reward them with commensurate rewards/benefits,
• People Performance - Is their performance evaluated at periodic times so that they can make changes to improve? Are there simple monitoring systems & improvement methods known to them?

3. Consumer Experience - This is the ultimate driver of a retail business which leads to sales & growth of a company. A good consumer experience entails everything - From the kind of ambeince in which goodies were delivered, from the kind of interaction with the salesperson that added value to the consumer's life, the kind of after sales journey consumer goes through; all add to the chances of her coming back to the company for more!

• Consumer Satisfaction Scores & Feedback - Keep working on understanding levels of satisfaction and what they are saying about your products. This helps in improving again and again.
• Consumer experience is an amalgamation of everything and you need to understand exactly whats going wrong. It could be any cog in the wheel, that might derail you - Store ambience (was it lit enough? Was it clean?), Product/Assortment (Product quality wasnt good? I couldn't find the product? (Supply Chain/Layout), It wasnt appealing? (Quality/Visual Merchandising), Customer Service was not good? (Training/Motivation), Price wasn't right and so on..

4. Topline (Sales Revenue) - This is objective No 2, out of investments in first 3 drivers to generate value for the business. One needs to understand various drivers and relationship leading to revenue. In retail, it is as simple as -

Sales = Footfalls X Conversion X Basket Size (BS) X Average Sales Price (ASP)

And then one just needs to work on the cause effect ladder for all the drivers to arrive at levers of these drivers & list down activities & indicators to create a plan. For eg -

• Footfalls = (Old customers coming back again & again) + New customers
• Retained Sales drivers = Activities for greater engagement leading to them coming to buy and coming back multiple times, usage of loyalty program benefits to bring them back, usage of sweeteners (points, points back, discounts), exclusive events.
• Acquisition Sales drivers = Activities to add new footfalls like trial generation activities, alliances with non-compete brands, attracting footfalls within catchment through an event or a mega broadcast through advertising.

Footfalls = (Retained customers X frequency) + (Acquisition of new customers)

• Conversion - This is the success factor in a retail store; how many footfalls get converted into buyers or invoices. In order to boost conversion; you work on training on selling skills or product knowledge (people cant sell properly), or discovery of desired products in store is an issue (layout change) or desired merchandise is missing (category mix issue or poor estimation of demand leading to stock outs) and so on. Activities can include a in store promotion/in-store communication/etc.

Conversion = # of Invoices/# of Footfalls

• Basket Size - BS or UPT(Units per Transaction) is no of items in a customer's basket. To boost BS, one needs to work on product knowledge of sales persons. One starts training people on cross-selling to educate customers to buy a matching trouser with a shirt. Or buy a shampoo, conditioner & serum of same variant. Apart from cross-selling, retailer work on basket building promotions like - Buy 3 get 2 Free, inducing the consumer to buy more items or bundled packs with a price off (Buy 3 soaps at price of 2).

Basket Size = Total items sold / # of invoices.

Average Sales Price (ASP) - Average Sales Price is nothing but the average selling price of a unit sold. To boost the ASP, one needs to work on the merchandise mix in a store. As retail space is expensive, one needs to stock & sell merchandise with higher ASP. In garments category, its about having a mix of merchandise at Entry, Mid & Premium price points. The retailer will always work to move the average to Mid & Premium price points. You also need to educate salesperson to "Up-sell", which means selling a Rs 2000 shirt instead of Rs 1500 by talking about the benefits of Rs 2000 one (a wrinkle free shirt Vs a normal cotton shirt). You need to highlight premium options in a store like a special section with inviting visual merchandising so that consumers get attracted, and so on.

Average Sales Price = Total Sales / # of items sold

• Average Transaction Value (ATV) - ATV is another factor important in retail; which is nothing but average sales value of a transaction. In order to boost ATV, one can boost Basket Size or one can boost Average Sales Price or both. A retailer running an offer of - Shop worth Rs 10,000 & get a duffle bag free; is trying to push the ATV to 10,000.

Average Transaction Value(ATV) = Total Sales / # of invoices

Also, ATV = BS X ASP

5. Bottomline (Profits) - This is No 1 objective for a business; and one uses the earlier 4 pillars in such a manner that you generate profits. When i look at bottomline as a key focus area; i look at various costs which impact the revenue generated leading to bottomline.

One needs to list all costs & work towards minimizing them (without impact on the earlier 4 pillar) and create positive bottomline. Again, you list all factors of costs & activities to boost bottomline. Eg -

Cost of Goods, Cost of Discount, Cost of Inventory, Rentals , People , Utilities

With all these 5 pillars well monitored & executed for perfection, one can expect a good return out of a retail business. There are surely many other factors or jargon you might find; but you can bucket them in these 5 pillars, thus bringing clarity of thought and focus. Just, keep these 5 pillars under your control like 5 fingers of your hand & you shall do well. In the next piece, I shall write about how the same 5 pillars matter in Online retail as well & the basics never change.