BUILD – Dutch Uncles

How Mattress Brands should Market Themselves?

Shalmoli Sarkar — Fri, 01 Apr 2022 12:32:02 +0000

Rewinding the time machine to the early and mid-2000s Kurl-On, India’s then sole player in the mattress industry made a commercial that threw a question about having a good night’s sleep to its audience. The commercial portrayed individuals belonging to all age groups yawning at the odd hours of the day.

Cut, to 2022 today’s mattress is more than about a good night’s sleep and yawning during the daytime. The mattress industry largely dominated by the unorganised players, which use cotton material as a filler is witnessing the entry of organised players and is poised to grow at a CAGR of 10 percent to become a market worth $2.5 billion as per a Redseer report. As disposable incomes rise, and people become more considerate about health they are focussing more on the comfort and functionality of the product.

Pandemic has led to sleeping disorders

With the corporate rat race becoming fierce, the sleep cycle of Indians already went disturbed which further aggravated the outbreak of the virus. The anxieties surrounding health, finances, a slump in business, and reduced incomes topped with abrupt lifestyle changes like going to bed late brought irregularities in people’s sleeping patterns. Many complained of having insomnia, sleeping hours getting reduced, and difficulty in falling asleep. The mattress brands in line with the changing times should include innovative marketing strategies to gain traction. Mattresses are no longer considered consumer durables but they indicate the quality of life. Here is how they can do it.

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The mattress industry largely dominated by the unorganised players, which use cotton material as a filler is witnessing the entry of organised players and is poised to grow at a CAGR of 10 percent to become a market worth $2.5 billion as per a Redseer report.

Marketing strategies for mattress brands

An easy buying experience: Purchasing a mattress online will not be welcomed by Indian consumers, since buying one requires a measurement of the bed that is to be matched with the mattress size. But, mattress company Casper solved this hassle by easing the process of buying a mattress online without worrying about the quality and measurements. It developed several unboxing videos and made easy guides, manuals, and graphics that helped buyers easily place orders on the website. An easy buying experience becomes the topic of positive word of mouth for the customers. It also offered a 100-night free return policy — no questions asked.

Sell comfort and sound sleep: Few people are aware or unconcerned that insufficient sleep deteriorates health. Most people are unaware of the number of hours required for a sound sleep. Therefore, the marketing campaign should contain educative content that strikes the correct pain points of their consumers by educating people about a night of sound sleep. It should look like your business has the solution to the problem of sleep.
Expanding the product line: For a mattress brand, the lifetime customer value is low since the mattress is a product that people will buy once in several years. There are no repeat and multiple orders from the same customer. To increase the order value, the company must develop products other than mattresses that will help sleep better. Products such as flight cushion pillows, aroma candles for sleep, sleep oils, and sleep yoga should be added to the product range directing people to people to sleep better.

Social media: Mattress brands can effectively leverage the social media user base to promote their offerings by engaging the audience in a two- way communication through quizzes, contests, and memes. Advertising on social media platforms will widen its reach as the outbreak of the pandemic has increased the screen time of Indians on social media.

B2B Market- a territory untapped for mattress brands

Apart from going B2C, the new age mattress brands should consider targeting the B2B customers as the demand for construction in both residential and institutions is on a steep growth curve in India. It should target more hotels, strike deals with builders, educational institute hostels, dormitories, etc.

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UPI 123 Pay : Democratising Retail Payments for Small Merchants

Shalmoli Sarkar — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 12:39:28 +0000

For financial inclusion of the feature phone users in India, RBI has recently launched UPI for the non-smartphone users in India to further deepen and democratise the digital payment network, especially in rural areas. Although India is on the cusp of the smartphone revolution but has a sizeable number of people who use feature phones. According to Statista’s reports, out of a total of 118 crore mobile users in India, around 44 crore people yet use feature phones and 74 crores have a smartphone with them in the country. The UPI 123 Pay will enable users of the lower economic strata of our society to effectively use digital payment who cannot afford smartphones to access UPI.

People from rural India are aware of UPI payments but want to stick to feature phones, also if they own a smartphone as a second device they do not want to keep it solely for making digital payments.

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According to Statista’s reports, out of a total of 118 crore mobile users in India, around 44 crore people yet use feature phones and 74 crores have a smartphone with them in the country.

How does UPI 123 Pay work?

UPI 123 Pay differs from standard UPI which allows users to integrate their feature phones with bank accounts to pay digitally without internet connectivity. This payment system does not require any QR scan code to pay.

Digital payments through UPI 123 Pay is a three-step process of the call, choose and pay. Through its voice-based system or IVR, users need to call 080 4516 3666 a number provided by NPCI, select their preferred language, tap the ‘1’ key on the phone to transfer money, confirm the bank name through voice-based command, again tap the ‘1’ key to transfer the amount, enter recipient’s mobile number and the amount followed by the UPI PIN to authorise the transfer. The UPI PIN can be set up on the call through debit card details before transferring the amount.

There are three more ways to transfer payment:

The second mode of payment is through an app-based channel where app functionality is offered in a feature phone.
The third mode of payment is through sound proximity where the technology is based on sound waves to enable contact and networking to make contactless payments.
The fourth mode of payment can happen through a missed call where users can send a missed call and will get back a call to authenticate by inputting a UPI pin and carrying out the payments.

The central bank has also launched a 24*7 helpline for digital payments – DigiSaathi

How will UPI 123 Pay benefit small businesses?

For small merchants in India, the launch of UPI 123 Pay is poised to become a gamechanger, since the payment settlement time through cheques takes up to 48 hours, and if there are bank holidays, festival holidays, or weekends the settlement period might extend up to 6 days. Hence, managing cash becomes cumbersome.

Also, this feature in non-smartphones will allow the SME business to flourish, explore more new markets, channels that took a backseat for not using digital payments. The UPI 123 Pay makes the facilities under UPI now accessible to the lower rungs of the society which were so far excluded from the digital payment landscape.

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Delhivery: Balance of Technology and Human Touch Both are Essential in Logistics

Shalmoli Sarkar — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 12:39:12 +0000

Musician Dave Caroll along with his band Sons of Maxwell came up with a trio of hilarious protest songs under the name United Breaks Guitars after he received a broken guitar after flying with United Airlines in 2008. His guitar while in United Airlines’ custody was roughly handled by the baggage handlers who threw his guitar on the ramp at Chicago O’Hare International Aiport during a layover on his flight. He arrived at the destination only to find that his $3500 Taylor guitar was brutally damaged. He had applied for compensation from the aviation company but was ineligible since he failed to claim within the 24-hour timeframe. He also underwent fruitless negotiation for about nine months. In his song, he sang how the employees of United Airlines turned a deaf ear to the manhandling. The song became an immediate hit on YouTube and iTunes upon its release in July 2009 and a public-relations embarrassment for the airline. And soon a sarcastic dig on United Airlines became synonymous with an aviation company that breaks guitars.

When people pay for expensive flight tickets they expect their belongings to be handled with care and in return, if they do not deliver as expected tends to erode their reputation. Similarly, in any logistics business, the smooth handling of shipments and parcels is integral to its success. But, for Delhivery- an Indian delivery and e-commerce logistics company rough handling of the goods seems to have resulted in harsh customer reviews. According to Trustpilot- an online customer review platform, it found 93 percent of the customer reviews are negative about the rough handling of goods. On other customer review platforms Mouthshut.com and TrackingMore, customers have expressed their harsh reviews about receiving no response and updates from the company regarding the shipment and delayed deliveries. Some people have complained about its WhatsApp chatbot that does not solve issues with its automated replies. According to NewVoiceMedia’s report, poor customer service in a business costs losses worth $75 billion annually. In addition to this, a survey from Voxware finds that 69 percent of consumers are unlikely to shop from e-commerce retailers again if an item they purchased is not delivered within two days of the date promised. This speaks of huge losses and high consumer acquisition costs for e-commerce and D2C retailers which will be about 5 to 25 times more than retaining an existing customer.

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According to NewVoiceMedia’s report, poor customer service in a business costs losses worth $75 billion annually.

How can Delhivery improve its operations?

Implement Cargo Trackers and monitoring: Logistics business is an execution game. If a significant percentage of the cargo or shipment gets damaged due to rough handling one cannot know since, the managers and business owners are not on the field to monitor and review the handling and have no information in case someone has mishandled it, which is a challenge. Therefore, the challenge can be overcome by employing an advanced, real-time cargo tracking and monitoring service.
Minimise Delays: Delivery delays in the logistics business are an existing problem that further worsened with restrictions in the pandemic. To minimise late deliveries the business must have diversified supply bases and alternate shipping routes as contingency plans for when troubles arise. To minimise delivery delays, businesses should look forward to adopting micro-fulfillment centres, and cross-docking. Let us peek a little deeper into what do the above ones mean-

a. Microfulfillment centres: Micro-fulfillment refers to small-scale distribution centers positioned closer to the end-consumer.

b. Cross-docking: in a cross-docking facility, the main function of the distribution center is as a place where goods quickly move through to the next stage of the shipping process. Storage space is minimal, and everything must be carefully organised according to inbound and outbound shipments.

Prevent tampering of goods: while goods are in transit they change several hands and pass through several different partners, employees, therefore one cannot figure out if the package has been tampered with. Tracking tampered packages or parcels becomes a challenge, where blockchain integration comes to the rescue. Blockchain integration is backed with real-time sensor data that ensures the integrity of the supply chain and prevents any unauthorized manipulation of cargo.
Chatbots are not enough: Several consumers have complained about Delhivery’s WhatsApp chatbot giving out replies for solutions for predictable problems. In chatbots the solutions offered to the problems are mechanised, and when there is an occurrence of complex or technical questions, consumers would like to speak with a live agent. As per NewVoiceMedia’s survey, 86 percent of customers feel that an emotional connection with a customer service agent is likely that customers will continue to do business.

Seamless warehouse management: Seamless warehouse management is the need of the hour for every logistic business. There have been common instances where customers are found complaining that the goods have reached a wrong destination, no updates, incomplete orders, etc., these are errors which if not regulated can be costly. These can be avoided with the help of effective and updated warehouse management systems. Implementing new warehouse technologies such as mobile apps for picking, automated picking and packing systems, voice picking, develops a system of checks throughout the process that can reduce errors and streamline processes. Assuring that warehouse staff is well-trained and that policies clearly state where and how the product is to be handled reduces the risk of error.

Therefore, the key takeaways are that the logistics business should not lose sight of human connection. There should be a balance of both technology and human interaction. Nonetheless, technology will certainly aid the business to simplify, speed up and enhance customer services but people will never forget how in their time of need you made them feel. The art of regularly communicating and sending updates to the consumers will further increase their loyalty to the business.

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Sustainable Products: How Companies Should Market It ?

Shalmoli Sarkar — Mon, 21 Mar 2022 12:43:18 +0000

At the COP26 summit, India’s Prime Minister took an ambitious pledge to reduce the country’s net-zero emissions by 2070. By taking this pledge, the government has shown its willingness to support innovation around sustainability to curb carbon emissions.
Several brands from fashion, beauty and cosmetics, food, and furniture have jumped on the sustainability bandwagon. The products of the sustainable range are highly-priced since they are difficult and expensive to create and most importantly the sourcing of raw materials makes it expensive. Natural fibres, no chemicals, cruelty-free compounds, and scientific advancement requires both investment and time making the product fall heavy on wallets. Are Indians ready to buy such an expensive product range? Well, the numbers say otherwise.

Sustainability and sustainable products are just fads?

The statistics from Capgemini Research Institute found that sustainability is on top of the customer’s agenda, around 79 percent of consumers are changing their purchases based on social responsibility, inclusiveness, or environmental impact. In addition to this, covid-19 is driving the demand for quality eco-friendly products and sustainable purchases for a better lifestyle.

However, the numbers from Statista reports, present a different story. Around 30 percent of Indian consumers think that sustainability is a buzzword and will lose importance in the future. Consumers lack trust in companies that claim to be sustainable. Around 40 percent state that the term eco-friendliness is used loosely by the brands to sell over-priced products and generate revenues by selling a small volume. According to Capgemini’s report, 49 percent of consumers said do not have any information to verify the sustainability claims made by the products. Does an Indian consumer really care about being sustainable or purchasing eco-friendly? What are brands doing to erase the consumers’ perception regarding their sustainable range of products being highly overpriced?

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Around 30 percent of Indian consumers think that sustainability is a buzzword and will lose importance in the future.

Brands and their sustainable range of products

Marketers are facing the heat of consumer scrutiny about their products being sustainable. Apparel brands and FMCG brands have been attempting to do the same. However, the awareness of sustainability is yet limited to a few customer groups. What should businesses do to drive people’s awareness in buying sustainable products?

Sustainability behaviour among Indians was seeded when there was scarcity. But as disposable incomes increased it paved the way for use and throw products. The concept of recycling and reusability got lost in the race of newer and upgraded products that accelerated the use of plastics. No matter how much we hold summits and awareness about saving the environment or take pledges about reducing plastic usage, the usage of plastic in routine life is a matter of convenience and marketers continue to attract consumers to embrace unsustainable products.

What should businesses do to promote sustainable products?

Sustainable marketing requires businesses to first admit the damage that they have caused through their unsustainable practices. They should realign their brand purpose by researching more about better business practices, reallocating resources, and developing fair treatment practices for stakeholders. The production, sale, use, and recycling should be aligned to sustainability. In addition to this, NEPA Nepa, a leading Consumer Research and Analytics company found that the meaning of sustainability to Indian consumers is not about going green but also includes aspects of equality, inclusiveness, and wellbeing. Therefore, marketers through its communication should build a system for motivating customers to participate actively in their sustainability projects. According to NEPA’s consumer survey, one in two Indian consumers understand Sustainability and are likely to continue using the top sustainable brands. As the awareness picks up, the brands first to capitalize on this theme are sure to benefit in the long term.

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Cockroach Startup: How to Become One ?

Shalmoli Sarkar — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 12:28:13 +0000

The four-year-long battle of world war -II ended with the infamous brutal bombings at cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US forces. The cities were engulfed into radiation of 1000 radon units which appeared to be fatal for the humans or any living being when exposed for 10 minutes, but interestingly the cockroaches remained alive and kicking even after being exposed to this level of radiation. Since then, the cockroaches usually looked upon as mere creatures rose to become one of a kind species that can endure any disaster.

Similarly, in the startup world, tagging any venture to be a cockroach startup is an appreciation since it means a business that is hardy, resilient, able to withstand struggles and changes in the market, and keeps moving in the forward direction just like a cockroach. Its speed of growth if we compare it with unicorn startups will appear to be slow.

The race to become a unicorn startup

It’s the beginning of 2022 where already 10 Indian startups have boarded the unicorn bandwagon. India’s obsession with becoming or building a unicorn startup brand became quite evident from the reality show Shark Tank India where a majority of founders expressed their interest to straightway become a unicorn. To which Boat’s co-founder and CEO Aman Gupta corrected the contestant’s thinking saying, that one needs to pick up an unaddressed problem, solve it, build a market and a large customer base and then think about reaching the unicorn status. Of late many established startups such as Flipkart and Snapdeal after reaching the unicorn status had difficulty in raising funds from investors at a higher valuation since their revenues were not matching up to their expected valuation.

Investors are not shying away to fund the cockroaches since these startups are imbibed with the old school principle going ‘ slow and steady’ that have robust business models to scale slowly and can stand the test of time. For investors, investment cockroach startups are a risky investment.

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A cockroach startup is an appreciation since it means a business that is hardy, resilient, able to withstand struggles and changes in the market, and keeps moving in the forward direction just like a cockroach.

How to become a cockroach startup?

Here are ways for new entrepreneurs to become a cockroach startup :

Reduce spends on fixed assets: Building a startup requires money which one needs to avoid. For example – initially, a startup can rent a co-working space instead of owning an office and instead of purchasing laptops for each employee, they can ask employees to bring their laptop to the office.
Understanding business economics: Most startups that begin well tend to fail at the cost of launching and manufacturing a product, customer acquisition costs, delivery costs, etc. The business needs to get its unit economics right since there is no point in starting a venture without knowing the novelty of the service, product, or availability of funds. Well-funded grocery delivery startup PepperTap operated on a negative margin per delivery, where the profits looked dismal.
Focus on profits: A cockroach startup does not hurry to become popular in the market by spending money but focuses on increasing revenues and profits.
Better products will help to survive: Cockroach startups are adaptive as they can survive in tough conditions by having a real product or service. Usually, when a business starts picking up the right direction, founders forget about the product or service and start focusing on getting funding. Whereas in a cockroach startup, the energies and money are always spent on improving the product or service.

Lastly, if you have adequate money, backed by big funds, one can afford a high burn rate and still survive. But if one has no or little money in the pocket but a sound value proposition is all that you need to survive. Initially, the start-ups in the initial days should focus first on surviving, next on profit, and only after both are achieved reasonably should go for growth.

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Shiprocket: How Resentful Reviews Can Impact a Brand

Shalmoli Sarkar — Mon, 07 Mar 2022 08:30:03 +0000

Owing to the ubiquitous internet connections and affordable smartphones, e-commerce shopping in India is gradually becoming mainstream. The emergence of new fulfillment models such as instant deliveries, 24 hr delivery, same-day delivery calls for an efficient logistics and delivery partner. Most companies forget or put less emphasis on logistics and shipping but in reality, it forms a broader part of the customer experience. Imagine the plight of an enthusiastic shopper who bought something online and is eagerly waiting for the shipment but is disappointed when the package is not delivered at the said date eventually impacting the reputation and loss of business of the e-commerce seller partnered with that logistics company.

One such apt example is of Shiprocket – a tech-enabled startup providing shipping solutions, is attracting flak and negative reviews for not being able to efficiently drop the parcels. At times, there are no whereabouts or updates of the shipment further worsening the customer experience with the brand. According to the data of Trustpilot- an online customer review platform found 48 percent of Shiprocket’s reviews are negative. In another review platform Mouthshut. com, most of the reviews of customers were found to be resentful about poor customer service, no updates of shipment and have given poor ratings of one star. Besides, customer dissatisfaction, Shiprocket’s irregularity in services will be hampering the delivery process of several small to mid-sized D2C companies that have partnered with them attracting anger from its customers.

In such cases, what should Shiprocket do to improve its image? Branding ,marketing and social listening cannot be the only solution.

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According to the data of Trustpilot- an online customer review platform found 48 percent of Shiprocket’s reviews are negative.

What can Shiprocket do here?

Using automation: Most of the reviews about Shiprocket online are about bad customer service that in turn repels customers. The implementation of automated chatbots enhances the quality of the overall freight forwarding customer experience. Chatbots are capable of striking a personal conversation through data entered by a customer and interacting through advanced APIs. Automated chatbots not only provide ease-of-access and user-friendly systems but create a responsive environment that nurtures outstanding customer experiences and ensures higher customer retention rates.
Put good systems in place: It will keep any individual under stress if the shipment is not delivered on time. In addition to poor customer service, Shiprocket packages or shipments were laden with delays. This can be improved by putting proper systems and processes in place. Logistics companies should understand that customers are either buying from B2B or D2C businesses that effectively demand reliance on clean, accurate data, integrated systems, and visibility. Visibility is a term used in supply chain management that refers to the act of being able to see detailed information on different processes within a supply chain. More visibility ensures the right systems processes are in place to monitor and improve freight forwarding customer service.
Streamlining of document management: Companies should keep manual processes and paper handling to automate traditional office workflows. There should be virtual storage of necessary documents that should be accessible at any time. The disruptions in the pandemic created the need for shippers, suppliers, and carriers to use fully integrated systems that can communicate with one another in milliseconds.
Reduce consumer touchpoints: One of the customers expressed his dissatisfaction regarding weight management, where his 1kg package was charged as per a 13kg package. By contacting Shiprocket’s customer care, they heard his problem for 1.5 hrs but could not provide help to the customer with an effective solution thus, leaving him disgruntled. When a customer submits a support request, they expect a quick solution, and not that the complaint being handled by four different people. They want to discuss the issue with one person and get it resolved immediately. This will also entrust belief in the company.

Successful online shopping always ends at the delivery of products at the right time and the said address. Logistics and delivery here form a crucial part for which a logistics company needs to set up a line of communication between all relevant support teams such that customer problem speedily takes place. Irregularities in customer servicing in logistics and shipping partners of D2C or mid-sized e-commerce companies make them answerable to the customers for the delay resulting in low customer retention and negative reviews online calling the company a fraud. On a B2B level, the logistics company will also lose business since e-commerce companies will show reluctance to partner.

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How Sports Tech Startups are Enhancing Fan Engagement

Shalmoli Sarkar — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 12:54:41 +0000

The outbreak of the virus and its evolving versions have caused the stadiums of football, cricket, and the Olympics to wear a deserted look. The absence of constant cheering of sports fans, banners, and placards with bold font showcasing affection, whistles, waving flags, drums, cymbals, and what not from stadiums for over a year and a half has impacted fan’s engagement with the tournament. In addition to engagement, the absence has immensely hurt the ticketing revenues and other revenue sources i.e. merchandising. Although match updates, after-match discussions, memes, behind the scenes, social media, contests are the existing mediums to drive engagement but are insufficient for engaging in a meaningful manner. Recently, IPL’s Lucknow franchise Team opened a contest for the fans to suggest names for the new team in the upcoming IPL season, it was a success however the limitations related to social media platforms will not guarantee similar fan engagement in the future. For sports that do not have a year-long schedule such as Kabaddi, Indian Super League, or Olympics, maintaining off-season engagement is a herculean task.

Interestingly, sports tech startups having technologies like blockchain, AR/VR, gamification, and NFTs can drive fan engagement in sports in a virtually connected world.

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According to a survey conducted by The Current State of Sports Technology, 78 percent of respondents believed that fan engagement technologies such as live streaming, content platforms, and esports will have the biggest impact on the sports industry in the next 12 months.

How sports tech startups can bring in fan management

According to a survey conducted by The Current State of Sports Technology, 78 percent of respondents believed that fan engagement technologies such as live streaming, content platforms, and esports will have the biggest impact on the sports industry in the next 12 months. Here are some of them:

Blockchain: Blockchain technology can help teams develop tokenised membership or precisely ‘fan tokens’ to engage fans. Fan tokenisation is an engagement model that has already begun in Europe and is yet to be adopted in Asia. In fan tokenisation, both the teams and fans can be engaged in various levels of team decisions such as voting for the colour of the jersey for the next tournament.
Player auction using token mechanism: When the player auction session begins team franchises can bring in heavy engagement from fans by taking opinions from them. Franchises through fan token mechanism can design a reward mechanism where fans can build their potential team and win rewards for correct prediction in the form of reward points that can be converted to fan tokens.
Gamification: Gamification for fan engagement is nascent on traditional social media platforms but holds potential. Playing games on blockchain technology offers great avenues of fan engagement during the off-season. The rewards for winning games can be in the form of fan tokens that can be exchanged for merchandise or financial gain.

What lies ahead for the sports tech?

A new report from the Capgemini Research Institute finds that Indian sports fans are accepting of emerging technologies such as virtual reality, gamification, and contests in their sports viewing experience both inside and outside the stadium.

Sports fans love to remain active and will never shy away from any opportunity that requires expressing their views and engaging with like-minded people for the teams they support. By saying meaningful engagement, we mean viewers crave a deeper engagement by becoming experts in their ways by understanding strategies of the game, the player statistics, and their strengths and weaknesses, which through technology the sports tech startups should utilise and drive fan engagement.

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Conversational Marketing: Driving Conversions through Personalised Shopping Experience

Shalmoli Sarkar — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 12:43:08 +0000

In today’s digital era, it is a common sight to receive a pop-up or chat icon eager to talk to the website visitor with joyful greetings. The power of technology has transformed how we communicate and keep connections with our friends, relatives, and acquaintances. The change has also been reflected in the manner we want to be communicated with brands that have a digital presence thereby altering our expectations and paving the way for conversational marketing.

Conversational marketing is a method where the brand engages consumers in dialogue-driven communications offering personalised experience using AI chatbots which use machine learning and computers to create unique interactions with consumers at a one-to-one level. Chatbots are a form of conversational AI which uses natural language processing to converse with consumers.

The quarantine isolation in the pandemic has raised the expectations of consumers that want brands to listen, understand and effectively solve their pain points. Meanwhile, these meaningful conversations aid brands to revaluate their existing strategies and messaging to discover new consumer behaviour and demands.

A study from IBM confirms that early 80 percent of customer queries can be addressed through chatbots. Such one-to-one interactions will help brands establish long-lasting customer relationships.

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A study from IBM confirms that early 80 percent of customer queries can be addressed through chatbots ie. through conversations.

How conversational marketing benefits brands

Personalised conversations improve satisfaction: Leveraging conversational marketing, digital-first brands can improve user satisfaction by delivering a consistent, purposeful experience at each digital touchpoint. By providing a chatbot, one can increase consumer engagement, confidence, and loyalty by empowering users to interact directly.
Effective marketing: A conversational marketing strategy makes communication with the customers seamless and straightforward. With AI chatbots brands can generate prompt responses making the businesses dependent on such instant messaging services to encourage sharing to the point information to win customer loyalty.
Build trust: According to a study by Salesforce around 41 percent of the consumers do not trust an organisation’s lookout for society well being while making a purchase decision. A report from Drift Insider says that consumers’ frustration over brands and businesses not being responsive towards pain points has grown 5.7 times more since 2019. Forty-two percent of consumers don’t believe that companies are truthful. Implementing AI tools such as natural language processing to showcase authentic voice brands can create empathy and cement trust among users.
Strategise future marketing campaigns: By conversing with the customer, companies can obtain a wide range of information. The insights gained from the conversation will businesses to design specific categories, optimise websites, or create new products. In addition to this one can quantify the impact of the marketing campaign on sales, product development, and in-store management by getting near real-time consumer feedback.

What happens to businesses not using conversational marketing?

Since online shopping is becoming the new norm, companies not embracing conversational may fall behind. Businesses need to consider the importance of customer experience and how the industry is leveraging AI conversations. Today’s tech-savvy consumers demand answers and issues be resolved quickly and with the onset of COVID-19, they crave the in-person connection online that was offered to them in-store.

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The House of Rare : A Contemporary Indian Fashion Brand that Knocked Global Doors

Shalmoli Sarkar — Mon, 07 Feb 2022 09:09:29 +0000

The vibrant colours and motifs of Indian ethnic fashion have cracked the global fashion market but there are a handful of Indian names whose contemporary western fashion has barely been at a fair place globally. With brands Zara, H&M, DKNY, etc, dominating the contemporary and luxury fashion space for ages, the Indian counterparts are a bit unwelcomed to the western consumers. But, The House of Rare – a premium and luxury fashion brand seems to be an exception. The brand is the most admired fashion brand in the country and across Asia, it aims to establish its premium brands Rare Rabbit in menswear and Rareism in womenswear that will introduce the newest fashion trends in the market at competitive pricing while selling in a premium environment.

The House of Rare is a subsidiary of Radhamani Textiles Private Ltd”, one of the most valued apparel manufacturing companies of India with an annual manufacturing capacity of 2 million and 6 million annually. By 2025, the brand aims to strengthen its foothold in the global fashion market for which it wanted to build its eCommerce platform that could scale with its goals.

The House of Rare: The becoming of a global brand with Shopify

The House of Rare initially launched its exclusive collection on Koovs. The brand’s European-styled apparel with detailed designs was quick enough to attract attention that led Rare Rabbit – a premium brand for men’s fashion from the parent fashion brand to develop its fan base. Witnessing an impressive reception from customers, it nudged the brand to launch Rareism- a premium brand for women’s fashion that further encouraged them to set up their online store.

From a competing platform, the fashion brand decided to build its online store on Shopify in 2019. The reason for choosing Shopify can be attributed to its easy store setup and scalability.

The House of Rare certainly did not want to hire an experienced in-house tech team to manage the functioning of their online store site, which makes Shopify a suitable choice. The platform ensures speed, minimise or eliminates the occurrence of technical glitches, and provides easy scaling with a vast range of plug-and-play applications available for different use cases.

The brand’s e-commerce owner Pulkit Verma wanted to focus on branding for which an e-commerce platform was desired that could be set up using its easy-to-use advanced customisations. With myriad apps and integrations available on Shopify, the fashion brand wanted to improve the shopping experience for the customers without worrying about the site not functioning at any given point in time.

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The brand’s e-commerce owner Pulkit Verma wanted to focus on branding for which an e-commerce platform was desired that could be set up using its easy-to-use advanced customisations.

Easy payment at The House of Rare’s – integration with Shopify

Easy payment for the completion of purchases forms a major part of providing a seamless shopping experience for any online store. A customer with a shopping intention should never leave the cart due to the lack of their preferred payment method. But to set up multiple payment methods manually consumes time and is equally daunting. The Shopify- Razorpay integration helps a digital store to make their online payment seamless. The platform’s one-click integration with Razorpay helped the brand accept payments through the Razorpay Payment Gateway. It enabled the site to accept payments via debit card, credit card, net banking, UPI, and other supported digital wallets. The Shopify plugin offers seamless integration allowing their customers to pay on the store without being redirected to another page. To strengthen their foothold in international markets The House of Rare required a smart payment solution that can accept international orders. With Razorpay’s integration, the site witnessed an increase in international conversions.

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The ratio return to origin indicates the returning of products to the warehouse without reaching the customer.

Minimising the return to origin (RTO) ratio

As more conversions began happening, several incidents of fraud orders took place. The House of Rare being a premium brand in the fashionwear space, tracking and identifying orders that have a high return to origin vulnerability became an essential task. The ratio return to origin indicates the returning of products to the warehouse without reaching the customer and wastage of resources that involved packaging to forward and return logistics costs including the blocked inventory costs. The brand had an RTO ratio of 30 percent on the orders. To minimise the ratio, verification of addresses is required which is a cumbersome process if done manually and can hinder any brand’s growth. The House of Rare needed a solution that would seamlessly work with their payment gateway. Since their site was already integrated with Razorpay for enabling online payment, they were introduced to its AI-powered RTO & fraud detection solution, Thirdwatch, which was installed to the Shopify store with a single click. Thirdwatch is an e-commerce solution by Razorpay which is tailored to suit the Indian market and has helped many e-commerce businesses to successfully reduce their RTO and increase the number of successful order deliveries.

With the Thirdwatch installation with the Shopify store, its AI-powered engine captured more than 300 parameters from the store data. The data captured was then processed to understand which orders were risky and had a high RTO ratio. The solution marked the low-risk ones green and the red ones high. With this solution installed in their Shopify store, the brand’s women wear range i.e. RareRabbit achieved the following :

Identified orders with high RTO risk to enable timely cancellation.
Detect incomplete or fake addresses.
Flagged incorrect contact information (email ID/mobile number)
Updated the address before order shipping by speaking and confirming orders with customers.
Detected and cancelled fraudulent orders before shipping.
Predict impulse purchase patterns with high RTO rates

Using the Thirdwatch application, business owners can also send automated messages via WhatsApp and SMS to the buyers of the red-flagged orders. This adds a layer of confirmation before you approve the orders for shipping. The application’s ability to indicate high-risk orders from the customer data, the Shopify-Thirdwatch integration enabled the fashion brand to implement customer recovery and loyalty strategies like offering direct discounts to shoppers through payment links to incentivise them for upfront payment.

As The House of Rare readies itself to scale its online store to conquer the territories of global markets, the quick plug-and-play integrations offered by Shopify ensure a robust infrastructure and retain the authenticity for the brand to grow on.

The post The House of Rare : A Contemporary Indian Fashion Brand that Knocked Global Doors appeared first on Dutch Uncles.

Top 4 Trends to Look Out for Direct Selling Business in 2022

Shalmoli Sarkar — Tue, 01 Feb 2022 08:35:12 +0000

The catastrophe caused by the outbreak of the virus has plagued the businesses in India , not leaving direct selling business an exception to it. Despite the unprecedented challenges laid by the first wave, the vaccination drives brought an air of positivity and the industry remained resilient despite its own set of challenges. The sector according to the industry body IDSA has clocked a double-digit growth of 28.26 percent to Rs 16,776.2 crore in FY 2019-20 against Rs 13080 crore in FY 2018-19. The grim times of the second covid wave also could not deter the growth that made the direct selling business grow by 4.7 percent to touch a sales value of Rs 7518 crore. According to a joint report by the FICCI-KPMG report, the industry currently pegged at approximately Rs 16,000 crore is projected to become Rs 64500 crore by 2025. Here are some of the trends that direct selling businesses can expect in 2022.

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According to a joint report by the FICCI-KPMG report, the direct selling business is currently pegged at approximately Rs 16,000 crore is projected to become Rs 64500 crore by 2025.

The trends that a direct selling business can look for in 2022

An alternate source of income: There has been a loss of livelihood and paycuts in the pandemic, which made direct selling an alternate source of income for sustainability. According to a recent report by Indian Direct Selling Association (IDSA), the industry witnessed 53 lakh, new entrants, during April-September 2020 period. With no minimum qualifications, zero seed capital, and flexible working hours, direct selling became an alternate and popular source of income while handling a full-time job. Therefore, direct selling businesses will get more independent sellers.

More sellers from tier-II and III cities: Increase in disposable incomes and aspiring to live a better life is paving the path for demand and supply for direct selling business in smaller towns.IDSA in its annual survey has found Assam alone contributing for Rs 771.6 crore which is 47 percent of the total revenue of North East India’s direct selling market, which shows that the demand for tier 2 and 3 cities will grow and will present more business for direct selling businesses.

Digital adoption: Since it does not require any pre-requisite skills to become an independent seller, the use of digital or virtual tools or technology is alien to them, which is a challenge for businesses. Here are the four platforms that are underutilised by the businesses:

CRM system provided by the Company
Resource sharing platforms such as Google Suite
Meeting tools such as Zoom, Skype, etc
Marketing platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, etc.

Right now businesses must impart training on the usage of the platforms to their network of independent sellers.

Good news for health and nutrition businesses: Health and immunity will assume greater importance and would witness traction. The first half of the pandemic hit 2020-2021 made sales of Rs 7518 crore, with most sales brought in by the health and nutrition businesses followed by cosmetics and personal care followed by household goods and durables segment. According to IDSA, 55 percent of the gross direct selling turnover comes from the wellness category.

Thus, the direct selling business will be a fast-growing sector in times of adversity, the industry will be providing an alternate career to millions. Therefore, it will be a win-win situation for businesses to invest in training the sellers on social media marketing, usage of virtual technologies, etc. to increase customer base.

The post Top 4 Trends to Look Out for Direct Selling Business in 2022 appeared first on Dutch Uncles.