

Subhro Chakraborty
Subhro ChakrabortyVice President and General Manager, Capillary Technologies

How Indian retailers can make the most of the festive season

The first step to being prepared for the festive season is to understand your customers' shopping preferences during the festive season.
Nov 15, 2018, 03.32 PM IST

The festive season, across the globe, is marked by family get-togethers, home-cooked food, vacations and loads of shopping! The scene is no different in India. Despite the diverse geographies, socio-economic factors and customer preferences, India stands united in its collective obsession of going on a binged shopping spree during the festive season. And thanks to the mega sales like Amazon’s Great Indian Festival, Flipkart’s Festive Dhamaka Days, Myntra’s End of Reason Sale and, of course Diwali and the upcoming Christmas sale, people have enough and more reasons to splurge.

For retailers in India, the festive season brings with it equal amounts of excitement and anxiety. On one hand, it's the golden period, which has the highest potential to boost their revenue. On the other hand, it's also the time when their supply chain, technology platforms and customer service will be tested to their limits. The first step to being prepared for the festive season is to understand your customers' shopping preferences during the festive season, so here it goes:

According to IDC’s 2017 report on the state of the retail industry, 96% of consumers revealed that they don’t feel the relationship they have with brands is personalized enough. Indian consumers are tech-savvy, socially fluid audience and they crave personalized communication and engagement based on their lifestyle, brand preferences and purchase patterns. The new-age and millennial generation in this region are especially averse to a one-size-fits-all brand engagement. To strike a chord with this digitally connected audience during the festive season, brands will need to move away from blanket campaigns and treat each customer as a unique individual.

Seamless Omnichannel Experience
India is at the cusp of a massive digital revolution that is connecting affluent customers and businesses across vast archipelago, diverse cultures and language barriers. This new connectivity paradigm has led to the rise in the usage of social media, apps, instant messaging platforms and m-commerce in this region. As a result, consumers now expect a seamless, connected and continuous brand experience across multiple brand touchpoints like apps, websites, social channels and in-store. This expectation peaks during the festive season as people start building wish lists across multiple channels and are likely to start, pause and resume their purchase journey from any channel at any time.

While these benefits are good to have at any time of the year, they become especially critical during the festive season when sale volumes and customer expectations are at an all-time high and the expected delivery times are shorter than ever before. Seamless integration of all such channels goes in a long way to provide that satisfying feeling resulting in a delighted customer.

In short, omnichannel retailing creates a win-win scenario for both customer as well as the retailer.

Queueless In-Store Shopping Experience
Traditionally, customers in India and around the globe accepted over-crowded stores and serpentine queues as part of the whole holiday shopping experience. But consumer behavior and expectations have been rapidly shifting towards 'easy, simple and fast' in the recent years. As a result, the percentage of customers who expect a delightful shopping experience, even during the peak shopping season, is at an all-time high this year. Shopping is supposed to be fun, not a chore to be done with.

Retailers can solve one of the biggest gripes of the holiday shopper by installing Endless Aisle solutions in their stores. This digital platform within the store allows shoppers to skip the queue, checkout using an online interface, and have their purchase delivered to their homes. Endless Aisle also addresses the God forbid ‘stock out’ scenarios. Something not available at the store, say a particular size, shoppers can order using the above mentioned online interface and have their purchase delivered to their homes.
There lies in a great opportunity for Indian retailers to invest in cutting edge technology for enthralling customer experience. AI-powered computer vision technologies like footfall counters and people trackers to gather insights like visitor age and demographics, footfall to conversion ratio, store peak hours and customer affinity for specific products during the festive season have a capability to provide exponential growth to the retailers while ensuring delighted customers.

Instant Updates on Deals and Offers
While the FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) sentiment is relevant globally, consumers in India are especially wary about missing out on a great offer during the season sale. This consumer behavior is a testament to why instant, personalized and omnichannel communications during the festive season have a whopping 80% higher conversion rates.

Great Mobile Shopping Experience
Mobile shopping apps are becoming popular among Internet users in India, with more than 60% of them buying goods from online marketplaces at least two to five times a month, according to a study conducted by online marketing firm Criteo.

In a survey led by Criteo, 80% of shoppers responded that they feel as comfortable and secure using mobile for online shopping as they do while using desktop/laptops. For majority of the customers in the region, mobile is usually their first interaction with a brand; usually sparked off by a social mention or a review. During the festive season, the number of mobile-based purchases is at an all-time high, mostly driven by limited period offers and flash promos. Customers expect the mobile app to provide a seamless and continuous experience in terms of faster checkouts and personalized recommendations based on their previous behaviors across other channels like website and in-store.

Integrated Loyalty & CRM
According to a recent report, 86% of buyers will pay more for a better customer experience, which is precisely the reason why retailers should integrate their loyalty and CRM platforms during this festive season. When combined together, a loyalty plus CRM platform offers retailers powerful campaign management capabilities like hyper personalization and customized promotions. With the addition of AI to the mix, retailers can glean actionable insights from customer feedback by tracking trends and patterns.

The retail sector in Indian is undergoing a rapid transformation propelled by several factors such as, increased consumerism, e-tailing, favorable demographics, and easy credit availability. Today, the Indian retail industry accounts for over 10% of the country’s GDP, witnessing entry of new players at a speed never seen before and is expected to nearly double to US$ 1.3 trillion by 2020 from current US$ 672 billion. Equally fast paced, if not more is the growth trajectory of the Business to Business (B2B) e-commerce market, which is expected to reach US$ 700 billion by 2020, whereas Business to Consumer (B2C) e-commerce market is expected to reach US$ 102 billion by 2020. The Digital Wave is further expected to accelerate this growth, opening up possibilities for disruptive customer oriented business and operating models. Faced with rapidly changing customer behaviour and fierce competition from global brands, retailers in this region are quickly realizing that innovative retail solutions, especially those powered by AI and Machine Learning technologies will give them an edge to stay ahead of the curve.


About Subhro Chakraborty

Subhro is Vice President & General Manager, India with Capillary Technologies.He is an accomplished business leader, with a strong understanding of enterprise software market and Digital Marketing Solutions. Chakraborty has a deep understanding of digital requirements of large enterprises, and over the years has built high performing teams, led complex customer engagements and enabled innovative solutions. Prior to joining Capillary Technologies, Chakraborty was with Adobe Systems as Head of Digital Marketing Solutions.