The e-commerce surge
E-commerce in the GCC is a $22 billion market. It has seen a 32% year-on-year growth. By the end of 2020, it will account for 10% of total sales. It will more than double in the next 3 years and a recent study has shown that 50% of consumers are shopping more online since Covid-19.
These were the words with which Jeremy Denisty, Customer Director – Operational Lead MENA at Scopernia started the panel discussion on the e-commerce surge in the region. Also participating in the session were Heba Al Fazari, Founder of Coveti, Majed M. Al Tahan, Founder and CEO, AYM and Co-founder & MD, Danube Online, and Neelam Keswani, Director at Glamazle.
The numbers show that e-commerce is not just here to stay but is going to be a strong driver of retail sales. However, one question that the industry has and many retailers are still struggling with is nailing personalization and connection online.
“Customers are looking for speed, reliability, and overall prices. When you touch on these things, customers realise that there are people behind these screens. And people need to feel that these aren’t just screens and systems, but there are actual people behind it”, said Majed M. Al Tahan.
Being an e-grocer, when the pandemic hit, Dawood Online was burdened with a massive surge in orders. The market expanded tremendously, as a result of which their customers and clientele grew as well. But the fact that they had a 3 year head-start before the pandemic hit to deal with online traffic, helped them focus on acquiring and retaining customers.
“We also empowered our customer service staff. Whenever you reach our customer service staff they try to go over and beyond to fulfill your needs. We assigned a customer service representative for each client/customer, who stays with him/her for many orders. This helps in retention and gaining live customers. ”, he said.
For Al Fazari, it was always about an emotional connect , without which her brand can’t survive.
“For luxury e-commerce shoppers, it is an emotional experience. Everything from A to Z has to be a perfect experience with a personalized touch. We introduced a new technology with an AI empowered personal shopper. It talks to the customer, we train our bot to give our customers a very personalized experience. Virtual commerce is an added experience and the introduction of AI increased our conversion rate by four times”, she said.
Keswani’s business model has been all about the formula. They focused on the website looking slick, convenient and effective and that, according to her, would result in a good customer experience, which in turn would yield the results.
“Someone once told me that whenever you do something, make it very “stupid-proof”. If you are talking about e-commerce, everything should be intelligent. That’s what we are doing”, she said.
“We wanted our website to be beautiful, responsive, and give the right experience to the customer. The other thing we worked on is the fastest way to check out. Thirdly, all the information needs to available right there for your customers from shipping details, any free gifts, payment, timelines and these things eliminate the need for human interaction”, she added.
Customers are looking for speed, reliability, and overall prices. When you touch on these things, customers realise that there are people behind these screens.
Someone once told me that whenever you do something, make it very “stupid-proof”. If you are talking about e-commerce, everything should be intelligent. That’s what we are doing.