Shopback: Desktop remains effective channel to drive high-value orders
KUALA LUMPUR: Shopback’s analysis has determined that while mobile continues to overtake desktop on the browsing and purchasing rates, desktop remains an effective channel to drive high-value orders.
To answer the question of whether mobile has usurped desktop as the leading platform in driving online purchases, Shopback presented its findings in terms of usage, transaction numbers, and average basket size on mobile and desktop across five key economies in Southeast Asia; Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand.
ShopBack first entered the ecommerce scene with a desktopfirst approach. The mobile app, which was launched in July 2016, topped the charts within 24 hours of launch.
“In less than a year, the mobile app surpassed desktop as our leading source of traffic. In fact, its growth continues to outpace that of desktop over the last few quarters.
“The difference in growth rate is particularly pronounced during the year-end period in 2017, with mobile app growing at least three times more than desktop,” ShopBack said.
“We analysed our traffic data by the hour of a typical day and found that users are more engaged with their smartphones regardless of the hour of the day; the most compelling difference is typically observed at 11pm with close to seven times difference in traffic volume between mobile app and desktop.”
ShopBack also found that mega shopping days such as 11.11 Singles’ Day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and 12.12 accounted for the lion’s share of sales over the year-end period. In Malaysia, the recent 11.11 saw ShopBack generates over RM17.5 million of sales for merchant partners, representing more than 170 per cent year on year (y-o-y) growth.
Based on ShopBack’s data, revenue earned from one of these popular shopping days is roughly equivalent to three-quarters of a month’s revenue in 2017, of which mobile app alone accounted for three-quarters of orders.
Of the five countries, Thailand displayed the strongest preference towards making purchases via mobile app.
Malaysia’s mobile app purchases gained 18 per cent over the past four quarters, Singapore gained eight per cent, Philippines gained 16 per cent, Indonesia gained 20 per cent, and Thailand gained 36 per cent.
It is estimated that by the end of the fourth quarter of 2018 (4Q18), the volume of app orders in Malaysia will grow beyond 65 per cent.
“Notably, ecommerce giants have been creating mobile-app features to heighten stickiness of the platform, such as Shopee’s Shake and Lazada’s ‘Slash It’. All of these helped to nurture a regular ‘open-app’ behaviour and indirectly led to the growth of mobile purchases.”
Withallthesefindingspresenting a mobile-dominant trend among users, grounded on evidence from its user interactions, ShopBack argued that desktop is and will remain an important channel for ecommerce merchants.
“In fact, in terms of average basket size (average dollar value spent per order), we found that desktop purchases tend to be higher than that of mobile purchases. This finding is consistent across all countries, particularly in Malaysia, Philippines, and Indonesia.
Tapway launches facial recognition solution for brick-and-mortar businesses
PETALING JAYA, Selangor: Tapway has launched FaceTrack, a facial recognition solution for businesses that have physical locations such as retail stores, banks, and hotels.
With FaceTrack, businesses can detect faces and have the images processed so they can gain insights to help them improve customer experience, enhance security at their premises, and streamline operations.
Currently in beta version, FaceTrack is suitable for smalland medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as well as large enterprises in any industry including retail, banking, hospitality, and healthcare.
Offered as a package that consists of camera devices, software, a server hardware, services, and online subscriptions, FaceTrack is available only in Malaysia at this time.
Lim Chee How, CEO of Tapway said, “We’re leveraging on facial recognition technology because of its capabilities to address certain issues surrounding customer experience, security at physical locations, and their operations. What’s interesting is that FaceTrack is available for businesses in any industry. Its release further strengthens our commitment as a provider of behavioral tracking solutions in the country.”
Currently, FaceTrack is being tested at a shopping mall in Kuala Lumpurfortrackingdemographics such as the age range and gender of people in front of an advertising screen.
The Company plans to conduct more pilot tests in other locations in the coming months.
“Included in the FaceTrack solution package are camera devices. However, if a customer already has sufficient surveillance cameras installed, those can be integrated easily with Tapway’s software system provided they support Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP).
“This is an advantage we are offering to customers – a system that is interoperable with a variety of camera devices,” explained Lim.
Tapway has also partnered with AmazonWebServices(AWS)where images that have been detected and qualified using Tapway’s own artificial intelligence software are sent to Amazon Rekognition to be analysed. This process is to determine the age range, gender, and emotions in addition to having the faces identified.
All faces that go through the identification process at AWS will receive their own face ID that are encrypted to protect the privacy of the individuals.
FaceTrack can benefit businesses in a variety of ways. For example, in retail, a brand can use a Whitelist feature to alert a store assistant when a VIP customer steps into the store, so he can react accordingly such as make personalised greetings and offer product recommendations based on the customer’s interest.