RJIF 2021: ‘Experience Driven Online Retail: Building new solutions for recreating the magic of interactive retail selling’

Winning customers for life is every retailer’s dream. Decades and sometimes centuries of legacy work really well on that direction, but one needs to do extra legwork to appease today’s customers. Paving that path was this session showcasing online interactive techniques.

Beyond try-at-home features and e-commerce, pandemic presses upon the need to build deeper customer engagements, for which strategizing as per buyer persona is the key. “The jewellery industry has achieved impressive ROI through promotional techniques in the pandemic. The industry can definitely replicate the success online by leveraging consumer data,” said Biplove Belwal, founder, RECIPROCI, a pioneer in customer behavior analytics, multi-channel data collection, gamification and loyalty engine centered around increasing customer lifetime value.

He urged the audience to think if the experience through luxury boutiques, try-at-home apps and other offers can truly help a jewellery brand engage a customer for life. He presented a step-by-step process of how online engagement works as a catalyst to convert prospects to loyal customers through the journey of a mock buyer persona named Sandra, a 25-45 year-old affluent woman discovering a jewellery brand online.

Belwal used Club Apparel’s (Club Apparel is a cardless, mobile app based loyalty program of Apparel Group which comprises of more than 75+ brands and 1750 stores across the GCC.) tested techniques to engage Sandra via gamification. “Once Sandra surfs your website or app, you can push a notification to fill a form regarding products she wants to buy. That’s the first set of information about a potential customer,” said Belwal. He suggested that the brand can engage next through a QR code-enabled contest related to a new collection, helping Sandra win loyalty points redeemable through the brand’s product purchase. Demonstrating the strategy, Belwal engaged with the audience with interactive contests.

Then he gave the most important example of interaction in terms of data collection by urging prospect Sandra to build a user portfolio with images of herself wearing her favourite jewellery. “By asking users to upload their images, we get consumer data, which we can use to target them more effectively,” he said.

With the first purchase, Belwal opined that the brand can direct customer Sandra to an of-line event. With an elite membership club, the brand can continue interactions through augmented reality apps and jewellery consultancy to make Sandra feel valued. This influences regular purchases which can encourage the brand to pitch the idea of exchanging old gold with new jewellery, gifting, and more product consumption by redeeming gamification-led value through purchase, he added.

From the first purchase and an in-store invitation, Belwal used brand interactions in months-long intervals to show how existing gamified interactions can help Sandra move up the product price ticket ladder and go for an aspirational purchase through SIP schemes online.

“Your customers need to have a certain kind of taste and ability to spend. Serve and engage important customers for better brand recall,” he concluded.

Courtesy: Retail Jeweller India News