Been a while. Time to restart.

Its been a few years. Was quiet and on Twitter. 

A lot of exciting stuff happening around the world so time to pipe-in with my own rant. 

Beware again :-)

Store specific coupons - no longer a big deal.

Mobile Coupons are an effective tool to get shoppers into the store, or on their app or web-store. However, this effective tool has been out of reach of small neighborhood merchants. The process of issuing m-coupons to consumers, tracking them, redeeming them etc. is generally out of the capability of independent merchants who cannot afford the services of specialized marketing agencies or the costs of the required high-end technology. 

AaramShop has been able to address this challenge. We have opened up the opportunity to our partner merchants to use their mobile app (AaramOn), to publish, push and then deem coupons which are specific to their store. We have enabled this as a free to use feature on our merchant app (and across the entire tech stack). 

We have taken things a step further to add a little more aaram for our shoppers. They now have multiple options to redeem the coupons issued to them - on their app, on the web-store or when they walk into their neighborhood store. 

Here is a video to explain how simple it is for the retailers to deploy their store coupons. 

Buy Now Pay Later - demonitization special

Demonetization led to neighbourhood retailers, especially grocery stores, been adversely effected as business volumes dipped due to lack of availability of loose cash and the mindset amongst consumers to hold on to their low denomination currently.

However, rather than getting pulled down by that, we worked with our partner retailers to ensure they leverage their years of relationships & trust within their community. 

We have enabled a great feature on our mobile apps for our partner retailers keeping in mind the scarcity of monies on account of demonitization. 

Our retailers can now extend informal credit to their known consumers, using our merchant app (AaramOn). The retailer himself decides the amount of credit extended and it’s duration. AaramShop communicates the info of the credit amount etc seamlessly to the customers. 

This informal credit line means that the consumers can shop for the daily needs without needing to worry about cash in hand. The shopping can be done not just on the app and the website, but also in-store. The customers can pay at the end of the credit term, using cards, JioMoney, cheque or even cash.

AaramShop has extended this service to all retailers at zero cost to them and their customers. This is to ensure that the pain demonitization is eased by the years of relationship and trust between the retailers and their customers. 

Mobile Coupons Drive Traffic to the small retailers.

The independent retailers have had a drawback. Their marketing efforts lacked teeth. Unlike the large format stores, the neighborhood based independent stores have been unable to undertake precise and results oriented marketing. 

Mobile Coupons are known to drive consumer engagement and usage, but their usage has traditionally been limited larger establishments with well defined CRM practices. 

AaramShop has finally brought forth a solution that combines the power of mobile coupons with the ease of use and flexibility. A solution which is custom designed for small retailers and their specific requirements.

Our coupon solution helps the retailers drive:

1. increased awareness among the shoppers in the neighborhood.

2. sales of specific product lines or bill cuts of higher value.

3. increased footfalls and orders. 

And all with the flexibility of using our free merchant solutions on the app, cloud or in-store - AaramOn

Blurring the offline online divide.

 

The more I interact with our partner retailers (and potential partners), the more convinced I am, that the advantages enjoyed by the offline neighborhood retailers - that of close proximity to the consumers, perfect mix of assortment & pricing, low cost delivery model and ownership of real estate; when integrated with the opportunities offered by the digital mediums, makes for a perfect commerce model. 

More so in the grocery and personal care domain. 

Neighborhood based commerce needs to be hybrid in nature, and enabled on all possible touch-points for the consumers. 

Hybrid Retail is what we at AaramShop have enabled for thousands of independent retailers - wherein we help them not just with relevant in-store technology, but seamlessly help take their inventories online via smart web-stores and mobile apps and supported by unique assisted shopping for customers. 

To learn more, please visit www.aaramon.com or write to me. 

AaramOn POS Solution - going beyond "billing @ store"

AaramOn is a technology innovation for retailers of all sizes, but speciaclally designed keeping in view the business needs of the independent retailers, and ensures they can use it as a dependable tool to grow their business. Retailers use AaramOn as a mainstream and modern alternative to traditional POS terminals which have been designed to address the single issue of “billing @ store”, and are expensive to implement. 

AaramOn supports multi-device integration.

Business demands are more complex and are ever evolving. AaramOn has been built with the smart phone at its core and hence it ensures full integration on the AaramOn app, enabling the business manager to have all relevant business indicators available to him at all times. It further integrates web & app based orders, tracks the entire delivery and payment process. It comes bundled with CRM and store-market on the finger tips, while at the same time it also does the “billing @ store”.

AaramOn POS has been designed in a way that it can either operate on the cloud or in the unforeseen event where the network connectivity between the POS and cloud breaks, AaramOn with its native database ensures business continuity. The application, which supports both windows and android OS, allows the retailer to continue business as usual and ensures data integrity when the connection is restored. Give it a try here.

Shopping Bag Analytics - on steroids.

Beta testing AaramShop's new Analytics Engine. 

This is the 1st look into product category intelligence based on the content of the shopping bags. Objective is to understand purchase patterns on which products categories are most likely to get into shopping bags together. 

More updates soon.

Since the video is low res, have added a couple of screen shots as references.

Fig 1 : Soaps and Sanitizers.

Fig 2 : Cereals and Breakfast

Fig 1 is the % of other categories which get into the shoppers bag, when products in the "soaps and sanitizers" category are bought. 25% of the shopping bags also contain "hair care and styling aids" products. 

Fig 2 on the other hand is about buying behavior around Cereals and Breakfast and I am curious about the 37% buyers also buying into the Skin Care category. :-) 

Do share your views with me. 

Punctuating the shoppers' phone based journey.

The growth in the Home Order segment has significant implications for brands.

Most current in-store marketing strategies are primarily focused on influencing the customers @ the store, however, with the customer reducing her visits to the store, and Home-Order segment increasing rapidly, brands might miss out on this large section of busy-consumers.

Research undertaken by AaramShop indicates that almost 50% of FMCG shopping in urban India happens on the phone.

AaramShop has innovated to punctuate the consumer's phone based order journey at over 10000 partner AaramShops, with relevant brands in order to make a more informed shopping decision.

Thus, by intercepting phone orders, AaramOncall enables brands tap this increasing segment directing the brand message straight into the households.

Know more here

General Trade & its evolution - our take on it.

General Trade in India (and a number of other emerging economies) continues to be at the forefront of the grocery business, with as much as 90% of the business flowing thru them. 

AaramOn - blurring the difference.

However, the very nature of the general trade is rapidly changing with outlets adopting the modern business methods, be it store design, self-service, methods of stocking etc, while at the same time continuing to service their consumers with finer aspects like quick service etc. 

The change is gradual, but given the huge numbers ... even when a small percentage of 13 million retailers upgrade the impact is significant. 

Our experience at AaramShop, makes us believe that biggest change would be in the way the retailers adopt to technology in the next 1 to 2 years, and the technology that would lead would be mobile based and will help the local retailer connect with his local consumer, with ease and effectiveness. 

With this increased adoption to technology, the difference between "modern" and "general" trade seems to blur out.

The retailers now have access to an awesome solution in the form of AaramOn to get digital in a meaningful manner.

Michelangelo's Beautifully Illustrated Grocery List From 1518

The master's shopping list

The shopping list, which comes from the collection of the Florence museum Casa Buonarroti, is accompanied by illustrations that were most likely drawn to help guide Michelangelo's illiterate assistant while browsing the market.

It's separated into three days by horizontal lines, and includes requests such as "pani dua" (two loaves of bread), "un aria" (a herring), and "un bocal di vino" (a quart of wine). 

Inspiration for our mobile app based shopping list at AaramShop. :-). 

The need & the solution was identified long back by the great Michelangelo.

We have tried to copy the great master and build the functionality of the shopping list with the additional power of the mobile device. 

Our version of the modern shopping list

Try out our shopping list creation section on our app. Our app enables product selection & additions (along with pictures), sharing and co-creation amoung family members (maybe servants as well :-)) and of course auto re-ordering. 

And given the over 10000 AaramShops that help us power this app, it really means that your shopping list would be delivered to your doorstep within hours - and no servants needed (one up on the great master)

I dare say that we have created a tad more advanced than what the great master created, but alas, not as beautiful and only a few hundred years later.  :-)

Download our app for Andriod or iOS and give it a go. (currently available in India only)

Trends Study - FMCG, India & Digital.

Google and Bain Consulting's recently released report on the impact of digital and ecom on the FMCG brands was extensively covered.

Of the multiple aspects of the report the two that leaped out for attention were:

50x projected growth in about 5 years - with about 5% of the sales being online.

 The other was that in 5 years 35% (35 Bn USD), would be digitally influenced sales.










The critical role of "digital" for FMCG brands is clearly established. Fun times ahead.

Bing's Image Widget.

Thought this was interesting enough to share. Bing Image Widget. Try it here

John Oliver on Native Advertising

That's not bullshit. It's re-purposed bovine waste!! Epic :-)

State of Grocery Home Delivery Report : India

As part of our constant endevour to understand the evolving trends & shopping behavior of grocery

consumers, AaramShop undertook an exhaustive research across 150 stores in the Delhi & NCR. The core objective was to understand the entire scope of "home delivery" within the FMCG segment and its current and future impact on brands. 

The research results are in and they indicate that Home Orders at the neighborhood retail stores are starting to become very significant indeed.  This, of course, has significant implications for brands from the following points:

a.    How to influence the customer when she is planning her monthly purchase

b.    How to influence her when she is placing the order

c.    How to influence her when she is getting the delivery

We found that 60% of the shops surveyed had more than 40% of their business coming from the Home Orders. Y-axis represents the % of business via home orders.

If you are interested to get hold of the full report, please send me an email or a tweet.

Related articles

• The changing profile of Indian retailers & AaramShop.
• Point of Sale has moved - from the store to the consumers' home.
• Mobile Disrupting Path to Purchase.
• Simplified Online Plan for FMCG brands in India.

The "gross margin negative business model".

The recent article in ET on "How success of e-commerce start-ups are making traditional retailers rethink their model" was interesting reading, however, what was more interesting was the view of Mr. Biyani. On this one (the two points he makes) I agree with him.

The darling of everybody at this point in time is "the great ecom experience", however, the business viability & margins on transactions are the elephants in the room that are getting ignored. The gross margin negative businesses are not sustainable and are completely dependent on the VC funds for survival - a fact validated by a number of business leaders who were unable to raise a 2nd or a 3rd round and ended up shutting the once 'viable ecom' business.

Another article worth reading on the subject is Issues with Inventory models .  

Looking forward to see how the category progresses and the models that will finally sustain.  

Related articles

• From the web to the consumers' doorstep; enabled commerce for FMCG brands.
• The changing profile of Indian retailers & AaramShop.
• The truth vs hype of big retail.
• The future of commerce is a hybrid model with (entertaining) showrooms + online fullfillment

Interesting Innovation.

15% of the retail revenues are lost because the consumers can't find the product / brand. Interesting opportunities.

Neighbourhood kirana shop is spiffing things up.

Business Today examines how the traditional trade stores (general trade stores) are managing the challenge posed by the large format modern trade outlets in markets like India. 

The feature examines both the initiatives taken by the owners / retailers themselves and the support that they are getting from multiple organizations like AaramShop not just to stay competitive but to thrive.

Read the full article here

Related articles

• Networking the neighbourhood kirana @ AaramShop
• Who Wins? Modern retail chains or Mom and Pop stores?

Prof Rajiv Lal on retailing in India.

Came across Prof. Rajiv Lal's interview in the recent Forbes and this brief interview with Mint. His views echo our business premise and his jargon-less logic is superb especially on food retail.

Passion is Overrated!!

Interesting perspective :-) and a captivating presentation. Getting hold of the book next.