It has been said that online shopping does not exist, that it’s just shopping at the end of the day.
With customers buying across multiple platforms — both offline and online, across different form factors such as desktop, mobile, tablet, etc — what is clear is that they must not sacrifice functionality. Increasingly, the consolidation that is taking place across the retail landscape is reflecting that ethos.
Even as the upper end of the market spectrum (the traditional skew that is witnessed in most industries in Dubai, from real estate to retail), has rolled out sophisticated omnichannel platforms as well as logistical solutions to overcome the last mile problem, the low-cost market continues to thrive on social media, capitalising on the latent demand that exists. Often, they have compensated for the lack of technological prowess by offering a customer experience that is curated to the ethnic sensibilities of the customer. Similar to the traditional retail low-cost concepts such as Primark in the UK, these retailers have started to differentiate themselves through ethnic channels. And in recent months have even begun experimenting with branding across blogging and vlogging channels that have started to win followers.
There are two keys to the success of the low-cost retail strategy in Dubai. The first is the harnessing of the data that the online platform offers in order to answer questions about the customer and improve strategy and response times.
These questions range from answering known knows to unknown unknowns, and a plethora of possibilities in between. At GCP, we have been successful in harnessing the social media platform to target demographics that resonate not only with different calendar festivals throughout the year but also sporting events that capitalise on ethnic competition (for instance, the recently concluded Champions Trophy final between arch-rivals India and Pakistan).
The second key is to manage the customer experience post-sale. Policies ranging from product exchange or refunds to ensuring that the product is working effectively (this becomes a challenge when dealing with multiple languages) is key to fostering an environment of loyalty rather than a transnational platform that has defined this segment of the market thus far.
Engaging these customers through call centers and/or through social media channels can only be effective if the team in question knows what the reason was to buy in the first place, and have the adequate knowledge and background to deal with the customer in answering the questions.
Similar to traditional retail channels, stores that have become successful are distinguished by their customer service representatives. In the US and Europe, the response has been increasingly technological (i.e. Artificial intelligence through chatbots).
The efficacy of these channels is still in its infancy, and the jury is out on its multilingual abilities as yet, thereby increasing the need for staffing at these retailers. Curiously though, the predominant response thus far has been transnational in nature, perhaps explaining the high turnover rate in these low-cost websites and social media platforms.
What is surprising is the despite the need to centralise, efforts to manage the customer experience have become increasingly fragmented silos — one team managing the call centre, another managing social media, a third the email, etc.
Invariably, these all operate independently of each other, all offering variable quality of service and skill. This clearly becomes more problematic in a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual landscape, where online sales have surged despite the ready use of ethnic platforms, not because of them.
What remains clear is at the low-cost end of the market, the customer experience cannot be anymore diluted than it is at other ends of the retail spectrum. While common solutions are readily available to cater to this segment, it is the execution that will be key in differentiating the players over the medium term.
