AR commerce, Data Commerce, Metaverse may sound like a new things, but they are already happening in e-commerce. Even without COVID, the e-commerce business is already growing. Covid is just a catalyst for more consumers to shop online make this business grow faster. Khun Mek Nithi Satjatipawan, Managing Director and Co-Founder MyCloudFulfillment E-commerce warehouse company with more than 3 hundred thousand orders per month shares experiences about the trends in e-commerce business including the key to how to make e-commerce business to be able to compete and grow continuously.

The e-commerce market in Asia is valued at 45 trillion baht, which is the largest market, larger than all continents combined. There were 2 billion e-commerce shoppers last year, growing more than 30% with the largest growth in Southeast Asia. In Thailand, the value of e-commerce is 200 billion baht, the second largest after Indonesia. There are 34 million e-commerce shoppers in Thailand and it's growing. The average spending amount is 7,200 baht/person/year, which is considered quite a lot of spending. And interestingly, at present, only 60% of Thais have access to the Internet, which means the other 40%, the market still has a lot of potential for growth. The covid also has a positive effect on the market as well. But the problem is that although the opportunities are wide, the chances of entrepreneurs losing are also high. Because these problems:

·        The cost is getting more and more expensive. Advertising costs are more expensive. In addition, various e-commerce platforms It's not free as usual.

·        All big companies are doing business on e-commerce in Thailand. The three giants that have grown e-commerce in Thailand but at the same time also dominate the Thai e-commerce fortunes: Alibaba Group's Lazada, Tencent's Shopee, and Central Group, which have teamed up with JD.COM, resulting in massive price cuts. Scramble the sales area

·        It's harder to reach customers because one customer buys things through multiple channels, including Lazada, Shopee, Facebook, and Instagram, making it more and more difficult to please customers.


Mek said there are many uncertainties that can cause businesses to lose quickly. The cause is cell phones will disappear Mobile will not be the only main channel. The second reason is that Gen Millennials will rule the world, a new generation who is very tech-savvy and familiar with the virtual world. The third cause is the time bomb, 10 years, 5 years, 2 years, 1 year, which is a business that changes rapidly within 1-2 years, born and dies very quickly. The last point is Thai people are less competitive because Thai people are still stuck in Thailand. while other countries expand to do business and work in other countries more such as Singaporeans, Vietnamese people who move to work abroad. Therefore, if Thai people do not develop, it will be difficult to fight with foreigners in which four fears have already arisen Foreign e-commerce has developed a long way. Being in our home is lagging. Before long, we must use modern technology such as robotic warehouses, AR commerce, or drone delivery. Mek emphasized that the opportunity was only frightening as well. “We are living in a tsunami of change. How can we surf this change? When we can't fight with them How can we go with them?”

Introduction

Need to understand customers, make customers love and remember us. In this era, it is very difficult for customers to remember us. because there are many disturbances. Therefore, having to go back to do customer journey, must understand the customer how to do so that he can bring him to our shop. The customer journey in online shopping (marketing funnel) consists of 5 steps:

1.       Awareness: Do a lot of advertising and publicity.

2.       Consideration: Make a review, make a blog, use KOL

3.       Purchase: Make good selling channels

4.       Retention: Give a privilege

5.       Advocacy: make a special campaign


The product is not sold on its own. Whether the product will be sold or not depends on the customer whether he sees that the product meets their needs or not. Advocacy is the most important thing for online sellers. That is, there must be people to buy again and tell others to buy. Because if there are no repeat buyers and referrals, the cost of acquiring new customers is more and more expensive. Therefore, what you need to do from the start of your business is to make people remember who we are and who our customers are, what shall we talk about. A good start from day one will allow you to grow well and don't need ads. Which the method is:


1.       Start with why is communication to make us understand what customers want. Naturally, people tend to communicate outside in, meaning only what and how, but the right thing to do is inside out starting with why, how, and what. An example of good inside-out communication is Apple, which is believed from a good start. Steve Jobs always said, “Everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo.” In fact, what Apple does is not new, and others have done it before, but people buy because people believe that Apple = modern, so "belief" is important. We always make decisions based on our emotions. If the mood is believed to be yes, it will lead to a decision. lead to purchase While the numbers, the reasons weren't the reasons why he bought it was just supported. As well as feeling that he was part of something that made him buy. Who is the community of people who use that brand? If he wants to be a part of that society, he must have that product, the sense of belonging. As a brand, we need to light up our beliefs.

2.       Persona If the product is good but the group makes a mistake, we also make a mistake. We must tell who the persona of our customers is who has a personality. How to make a persona in detail will help us to visualize the customer and communicate with them accurately.

3.       How do we communicate? when we know who we are who are our customers, we will figure out how to communicate to reach them. Good communication is to make customers feel that they are aware of the properties of the product through the 5 senses: form, taste, smell, sound, touch, which is what people use in making purchase decisions. It can be done online using photos, videos, and good photography. Good content writing can make people perceive all five senses. Because nowadays there is a technology that can create experiences in the 5 senses perception. When all 5 senses are complete, it will make it easier for people to make purchasing decisions. In many cases, creating good content online can create a better experience than going to the real thing. For example, some people sell the same products such as bags, but their beliefs are different. For example, the first brand says that all men can look good at an affordable price. The customer group is women who buy them for men to use to make their men look better. Communication is a bag and a man wears a suit and wearing leather shoes. But another brand says that men are traces is the pattern, the more you experience, the cooler. The target audience will be sloppy men with a beard, dressed like a man and buying bags for their own use. Communication will be a picture of a man wearing jeans. bags on the road the product is the same, but the starting point is different. The customer base is not the same People also buy with different expectations.


Khun Mek continued that in this era, there is no 4P and no product, price, place, promotion 4P has changed. Today people buy with faith. Today is customer-centric to understand customers as deeply as possible. Do not stick to the product to be attached to the customer. We must know what customers will buy to solve problems. If we stick to customers, we will be able to find new products to meet their needs that change with the times.

Growth State

How to keep growing If you want to sell more, you need to expand channels because the customer is not in the place

1.       Omni-Channel is a multi-channel sales strategy with unified data. The data of one customer must be continuous regardless of the channel they purchase from. Bring the item as close to the customer as possible. Each channel has different advantages. For example, in a marketplace like Lazada, Shopee is used to build good awareness and is used to find new customers. As for social media, it is used to create engagement, which is very important, such as reviewing, blogging, and social media to make people see and believe more. Making a live sale of the experience is better more real touches make people believe more. Or the website makes old customers come to buy again. or build a good relationship through LINE, giving promotions, giving special privileges Each channel must be used appropriately because each channel has a different purpose.

2.       Sales Agents:  Because they can bring our products to new customers, agents can create their own sales channels. Using a sales representative can help us sell more products faster because it will help us reach the customers we can't reach.

3.       Live Commerce Selling products live is a channel that is more and more worth doing. There is still a lot of space to do. suitable for small business can make customers buy because they believe. The current sales are still in the 1.0 range, which means selling inexpensive products. But in the future, expensive products will do more life, which is now done abroad, such as Chanel, showing products through live

4.       Cross Border There is no need to sell only in Thailand anymore. but must know the preferences of each country which is different. For example, a swimsuit shop for A- cup is a woman with no breasts at all. But wearing this brand of swimwear can look good. which sells very well in Japan and China.

Maturity Stage

when it can start to sell There are a lot of channels, selling well, but if not looking at it in the long term, it will move to a point known as a “stalemate”. It's like there's a ceiling that can't go forward. During this period, to be able to grow up, one must be flexible, act as light as possible to adapt faster. Do what we are good at and we don't have to do everything by ourselves, we can outsource other businesses and find people who are good in each field to help our business. Take the time to focus on the customer. Don't invest long term but Invest to build flexibility for yourself, making it flexible. We don't know what will happen in the future so try to make everything more variable cost rather than fix cost. Taking things lightly, such as outsourcing order fulfillment, that turns a business into agile is a modern, distributed business model division of labor.


Problems of modern shops

1.       Stores that need to manage multiple channels and many promotions at the same time.

2.       Managing enough stock is difficult. Collecting too much will cause money to sink and collecting less is not enough to sell.

3.      Good fulfillment requires flexibility. Because sales are up and down, for example, during 11.11, sales may skyrocket. but fewer sales on weekdays

4.       Today's customers want to feel special and important to buy again and spread the word.

solution

1. Order management system connects multiple sales channels channel together the system pulls orders from multiple channels automatically the shopkeeper doesn't have to manage the back of the shop anymore.

2.  Centralized Storage service and optimization as well as providing useful data You can see when each product will run out. Warn which product is too much storage. Or any pieces that are too small to help manage the stock to fit, not to let the money sink.

3.    Flexible Fulfillment, Shipping & return, expanding orders, expanding packing according to customer needs.

4.     Mass Customization, For example, making a campaign for special customers can be customized completely without errors because everything is in the system, for example, buy 3,000 get C products, buy 2 get 1 free, the system will work accurately.


6 secrets to grow your shop during the covids

1.      Keep a little stock from 30 days to only 14 days. Fill stock more often instead.

2.       Reduce lead time in order to be shorter and shorter.

3.      Open for pre-order. Take orders before order.

4.      Use one stock to sell all channels at the same time.

5.      Pay attention to quality and customer satisfaction. to make customers satisfied and buy again.

6.      Be careful about the swinging of orders.

Now we are in the era called Emotional Commerce. Customize for each group of customers, sell with value, sell with branding. And is an era of Data Commerce, producing only what customers want allowing us to sell products using data as a determinant. demand forecast, forecasting future sales, good information is the best fortune teller. For example, Amazon can deliver the product within 1 day because it has a data trend where data determines which stocks should be replenished, keeping the products closest to the customer, data Driven will become more and more important.

3 way to make profit 

1. Arrange the set, arrange the products together, increase the average basket size.

2. Organize a promotion

3. Long-tail rare products that can't be found in general stores. Selling online, selling well, 4 times more

After the Maturity Stage, businesses will be able to move from across the Decline Stage to the New S-Curve if they can do Data Commerce. And business owners don't do it all by themselves, outsource what they don't know and focus on what's more important. Data collection is very important. Because without data, businesses will not be able to do Omni Channel, retargeting, R&D, stock, and make profits. Therefore, data is the key to doing business in this era and in the future.

Mr. Mek has concluded the key to making businesses win in the future world is to be fast and flexible Fast and Flexible, Customization because customers want to be special. And finally, we must collect data to know if we can do better or not. Demand forecasting of incoming and outgoing goods to sell the better. The more you sell, the richer you become. Use data to reduce your risk of sinking costs, minimize costs and create better lead times. Small and medium-sized business entrepreneurs who want to enhance their liquidity or expand their business can apply for a loan online, Manee Tanjai, easy to apply, has quick approval, results in 5 minutes. Learn more at https://www.scb.co.th/th/sme-banking/business-loan/manee-tanjai/tunjai-loan.html

 

Source of the project "The DOTS Digital CommerceX" by Mr. Nithi Sajthipwan, Managing Director and Co-Founder MyCloudFulfillment  December 2, 2021