Trade: New Crisis-Based Formats
The pattern of customer behavior in Ukraine during the crisis caused by coronavirus and quarantine has changed dramatically. Online purchases, take-away services, distance work, courier delivery, new trading technologies - all this is gradually becoming familiar. So, entrepreneurs should pay attention to new formats of old activities.
With a wide variety of forms of retail trade in Ukraine, there are still formats not covered by domestic business that have worked well, for example, in the United States or China. Evgeny Saransov, IT expert and founder of the Reactor.ua open innovation platform, spoke about several of them that may be promising for implementation in our country in the current situation.
Self catering
The desire for contactless shopping is a trend that has swept the whole world. Alibaba has opened more than 65 self-service Hema supermarkets in Shanghai, Beijing and other Chinese cities. Customers interact with the store through an application integrated with Alipay. In the application, they can scan the product and find out more information about its composition and origin, as well as order express delivery to your home and pay for the purchase.
The Silpo tries to follow the same path. A new Click & Collect service has appeared - buying products online and choosing a store where the customer will be pre-assembled and prepared an order, and he will only have to pick it up from the market. Creating a website and offering a similar service is worth it even to individual, retail stores.
Self-service stores in the grab and go format (take and go) are not yet represented in Ukraine. You should try to launch an innovation in millionaires, in multi-storey new buildings with a more affluent young population. The store is equipped with cameras and sensors that support machine vision technology and monitor customer behavior. At the exit, the system automatically reads the goods that the customer has purchased and debits the money from his account (accordingly, you must first create an account on the store’s website). A bank card is tied to a personal account. By 2021, Amazon plans to open more than 3,000 such Amazon Go stores across America. The benefits are obvious - minimizing payroll costs.
Interactive Stores
Stores where clothes cannot be selected but online orders can be quarantined have become a trend. In small format shops, Nordstrom Local also offers to get stylist advice, hand over clothes in the atelier, and even do manicures. Our interlocutor believes that in Ukraine the demand for fitting, sewing, and clothing repair will also grow. And clothing stores should add these services as additional services. In the case of a new quarantine, the store will continue to operate in a closed dark-market format, that is, opening to serve the customer.
Pop-up shops
Instead of a long-term lease of retail space, pay attention to the opening of short-term trading floors, which operate from a few days to weeks, and then close. Alibaba by the day of the bachelor opened 60 pop-up stores with virtual fitting rooms, which were in demand. Such a store may not close, but move to another place. Bonobos fashion retailer has a “showroom on wheels” in which customers can try on clothes, consult a stylist and order their favorite goods for home delivery. Such formats are relevant for small towns, villages, sleeping areas.
Targeted Trading
During quarantine, people are accustomed to making purchases in their area, and this habit will remain after, says Sarantsov. Target hypermarket analyzes data on residents of the area in which the store is open, and on the basis of this information fills the shelves with relevant goods. For example, if there are many families with children among residents, then the distribution network will bring more children's goods to the store. Evgeny Saransov recommends similar experience in supply management to ordinary convenience stores. Another channel of customer search that was not used in Ukraine is sales promotion through the post offices of the district where people come to receive and send purchases. Ukrposhta so far offers to distribute advertisements in the desired area. In Kazakhstan, the national postal operator is already working with big-data and offers promotion on its bases. The expert believes that Nova Poshta, which has a large customer base linked to the areas where the branches are located, will also soon offer similar services.
Personalization in marketing
“The client has become closer, he is just a click away. We need to communicate with him, write to him, build relationships, comment and predict his needs, ”says Evgeny Saransov. Today's sales method is human to human - Human2Human. Therefore, CRMs are systems of personalization of relations with a client that preserve all data about clients and communicate with them in different channels. An interesting example of implementation. In the Goat sneaker’s marketplace app, a user can add a pair of his or her own to the wishlist and indicate for what price he is ready to purchase it. If the goods fell on sale or its value fell and amounted to plus or minus 5% of the amount indicated by the client, he will receive a push message.
