Founded by Crystal Pang in Hong Kong in 2016, the data-driven platform is redefining the supply chain in Asia through the use of technology, promising transparent, customer-centric services. 

It expanded to Southeast Asia through Singapore and Malaysia in 2017. Yesterday, the company announced a US$37 million Series B fundraise, bringing its total funds raised to US$52 million. This is its third funding in 13 months, with its initial Series A in November 2020, and another Series A+ in July 2021. 

On-demand deliveries for seasonal delivery spikes

According to the statement, this funding will be used to deepen Pickupp’s presence in SEA and Malaysia, as well as strengthen its regional logistics network infrastructure to support the growth of Quick Commerce (Q-Commerce) and e-Commerce.

Q-Commerce refers to the speedier form of delivery in e-Commerce, where customers can get their purchases on the same day, even as quickly as within an hour’s window of time. 

“Today’s customers are looking for a more personalized and flexible logistics service, not only last-mile deliveries but next-day deliveries with no minimum order at affordable rates where customers and small businesses can enjoy a wider range of options,” said Calvin Ma, Co-COO of Pickupp.

According to their website, Malaysian e-Commerce sellers can choose from three different delivery options — on-demand (express), same day, and next day.

Deliveries can start from as low as RM 4.50 per order, making its affordable price point attractive to customers.

Pickupp claims to have over 20,000 delivery agents in Malaysia. As such, they are confident of meeting the needs of clients with seasonal last-mile delivery services at a lower cost.

Picking-upp the logistics slack in Malaysia

The services sector remained as a key driver of growth in Malaysia’s e-Commerce income which rose to 17.1% in Q3 2021, according to The Star.

The Malaysian logistics industry contributed 3.8% to its gross domestic product (GDP) and is looking to realize the untapped potential with the aim to raise GDP contribution to 6.5% by 2030.

So what’s driving this growth in the Malaysian logistics sector? The answer lies in e-Commerce — an industry Pickupp is aggressively courting.

Pickupp believes its reliable and flexible delivery services to retailers and shoppers in Malaysia combined with its tech-driven customer-centric solutions could be key to unlocking this potential in Malaysia.

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Pickupp promises on-demand, 4 hours slot 7 days a week deliveries with 24/7 real-time GPS tracking. Packages can be customized, insured, and come with API integration. Their couriers will also show a drop-off photo with the customer’s e-signature.

Pickupp already has had an operational presence within the Klang Valley since 2018 with recent expansions with regional hubs to Penang in September and Johor in December. The company aims to expand its presence locally in Malacca and Ipoh in 2022.

Pickupp building “Logistics Network as a Service”

Pickupp intends to use its latest funding to strengthen its network infrastructure with a “logistics network as a service” model. 

Pickupp’s plans in Malaysia include providing nationwide coverage and a network of self-pickup and drop-off points, providing customers with greater accessibility, flexibility, and convenience. 

The company is creating an ecosystem for SMEs and individuals with a network of easily accessible pick-up and drop-off (PUDO) points in Malaysia.

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It achieves this by utilizing satellite warehouses as well as multi-city warehouse expansion and developing partnerships with other industry players such as Kirimman and Parcelhub.

“We have taken a similar approach to warehousing, as we do to our delivery agents – we leverage existing, available resources rather than invest in developing new ones. With this nimble and efficient approach to using resources and idle capacity in the market, we aim to make Pickupp the leading logistics network in Malaysia,” added Ma.

“We are seeing more strategic partnerships growing across the e-commerce and logistics industries. Recently, we have been supporting PChome with our last-mile delivery service, which enables them to deliver the best seamless Online-to-Offline (O2O) experience driven by technology and innovation.” 

Pickupp’s customized last-mile delivery services and trademark technology have earned a loyal customer base from notable MNCs and logistics giants to retail and e-commerce.

“We pride ourselves as being an innovative logistics technology company that supports our customers not only with our technology, but with a range of platforms that help them meet the demands of e-Commerce and thrive — including a range of last-mile delivery options, and the Shop On Pickupp platform,” added Pang.

In the last 13 months, Pickupp has expanded rapidly while continuously diversifying its product portfolio and offerings across all industries and verticals, working with more than 23,000 active Malaysian merchants, as well as more than 26,000 delivery agents onboard across Malaysia.

The funds raised also allow the Company to execute not just a holistic business plan, but also to assist and support their strategic investors’ businesses and online strategies.

The Series B funding round was led by Innovate Jardines (Jardine Matheson’s innovation fund) alongside other existing investors including Swire Properties, PChome, Reefknot, Cathay Venture Inc., DRIVE Catalyst (the corporate venture arm of Far Eastern Group).

The post Pickupp: Asia’s on-demand delivery service for the holiday season appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

E-CommerceDigital retail today is an omnichannel experience that allows consumers to easily maneuver and engage with a business’s platform. This, in turn, provides the information and education to facilitate purchasing decisions. 

In the second part of an interview with Andrew Martin, head of AI & data company Databricks, Tech Wire Asia sought to understand more about the challenges digital retailers face, and how SMEs can address them with data and AI. 

What are the challenges that digital retailers commonly face? 

While expectations surrounding the customer experience have certainly risen to new heights, few retailers have invested in the right technology for meeting these new standards. 

From our research, we’ve identified four customer challenges SEA retailers face. They include fraud, delivery theft, returns, and customer service. 

These aren’t only common, but significantly impact their bottom lines. 

So how can data and AI address these four challenges?

Fraud

Fraud has become too commonplace — SEA stands to lose US$260 million annually to online fraud, with Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam expected to be the most heavily affected.

Losses associated with fraud soared to US$56 billion in 2020 globally and accompanied a huge dip in customer confidence in the brand. 

Data and AI can help retailers get ahead of fraud and avoid financial and reputational damages, especially when it comes to proactive approaches. 

A modern data architecture that brings data together from geospatial data to sales trends, across the business can effectively enable anomaly detection at a massive scale to protect losses caused by fraud in real-time with machine learning.

Delivery Theft

Logistics costs are high in most SEA nations due to geographical challenges, the imbalanced concentration of economic activities, and poor connectivity between various parts of the countries. 

The lack of adequate shipping infrastructures will make it difficult to deliver parcels within the promised delivery timeframe. This increases the risk of package theft, which is a significant operational burden on retailers, with global estimates of over a million packages being stolen or lost daily. 

Data and analytics can help logistics providers identify common sites of traffic accidents or package thefts and design their services around those. 

The global shipping industry is also using AI to enhance security measures, both within and outside of business grounds, with shipping carriers using drones to patrol the grounds around their warehouses to collect real-time information and data. Data and AI allow retailers to easily identify such hotspots and frame apt responses.

Returns

Without the tactile experience of brick-and-mortar shops, consumers are returning their online purchases at an alarming rate. According to industry data, at least 30 percent of all products ordered online are returned compared to only roughly 9 percent bought in bricks-and-mortar shops. 

The ability to uncover trends in that data with the power of machine learning allows retailers to better understand customer behaviors, spot high-return items and take action with data to minimize returns. 

To any e-commerce retailer, returned products mean additional shipping costs, which can constitute a significant portion of any retailer’s operating margin. Retailers can also incorporate predictive analytics using data and AI in their returns and reverse-logistics operations, to improve service levels with fewer queries and reported issues.

Customer Service

Customer satisfaction, customer retention, and cost to serve are three factors that can define the long-term profitability for retailers. Although customer issues can be wide-ranging, many issues will be common to reoccur amongst customers. 

For example, Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools can be used to quickly analyze service call notes and easily identify the straightforward and most common issues. These can be tackled by blending digital and call center channels and driving self-service usage for common queries. 

Finally, businesses can arm their customer care teams with visual data snapshots of helpful customer insights – an at-a-glance view of the context, key data points in their history, and next-best-step suggestions while the customer is on the call. This is especially useful while dealing with an at-risk customer identified by machine learning (ML) models who have been routed to the retention specialist.

Are there other challenges that SEA retail SMEs face today? 

Across SEA, countries are still battling uneven vaccination rates and are still dealing with outbreaks and lockdowns. While regional online retail has skyrocketed, SEA economies continue to rank poorly in being able to prepare and adapt to the pandemic’s changing conditions. 

When looking at the retail industry holistically, one needs to be mindful that logistics, supply chain and last-mile delivery are also as critical as the products and services sold and the user experiences provided. With SEA’s retail and consumer goods markets in flux, accurate forecasting that considers variations in day-to-day product demand and distribution will be essential.

Accounting for these shifting market conditions is often well beyond the capabilities of legacy, data warehousing-based tools. The retail industry and related organizations working with ever-growing, day-to-day digital data will need a centralized hub — a logistical control tower of sorts — to orchestrate the technology, tools, and processes used to capture data across all stages of the supply chain. 

The demand for more granular, timely forecasting, can be met with solutions that employ data insights derived from machine learning. These can power the retail industry to generate forecasts that move away from traditional linear models and historical-based algorithms, towards flexible inventory planning that can be precisely adjusted on an individual day and store level.

The post AI can solve your online retail woes appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

But as technology evolves, so will associated costs, making them far more accessible to the masses. This is what’s happening with retail — as more consumers shop online, the time is ripe for micro, small and medium enterprises alike to utilize AI in retail, especially in e-commerce.

Tech Wire Asia had the opportunity to speak to Kaushik Sriram, Partner at Kearney, on how the use of AI in retail can help MSMEs thrive and remain competitive during a pandemic.

Could you briefly explain how AI can be applied to retail?

There are two common and relevant uses for AI in retail — the first pertains to the use of predictive analytics for modeling, and the second is in conversational AI. 

Predictive analytics serve to analyze historical data, discover patterns and observe trends. These functions are incredibly useful to help users predict future trends to help sellers determine what can sell well. 

When it comes to conversational AI (such as chatbots, messengers, etc.), they serve to augment the customer experience journey at various stages of the marketing funnel.

It facilitates the customer service offering that goes beyond enquiries, right into transactions, which makes customers more likely to enjoy your service and return to your store. 

What can predictive analytics do for retailers?

Typically, predictive analytics features in models for marketing and sales, and businesses can easily start efforts with simple rule-based algorithms. 

For the retail sector, especially in verticals such as fashion, these insights are particularly impactful, because the cash investment in these physical goods is high, and demand may greatly fluctuate and cause inventory issues.

For example, if the retailer stocks too many pieces of certain styles that may go out of fashion, they would be left with overstock that would be difficult to sell-off. 

And during covid times like these, MSME retailers cannot afford to make the wrong choices when it comes to inventory stocking.

Getting rid of slow-moving goods may result in lowered revenues, such as when prices are heavily slashed to quickly get rid of stock to make space for newer ones.

Predictive analytics can help ameliorate these issues with demand forecasting in order to optimize inventory planning.

Demand forecasting sounds crucial but expensive. Is this true?

Well, demand forecasting informs supply planning. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t exactly need to have detailed customer data to use this. 

You already have such information in your store, such as product (SKU) sell-throughs or sales volumes tracked during certain periods of time (e.g. paydays, 11.11, holidays, etc.). 

These data are immensely powerful, and it is important to mine them to inform promotional or pricing strategies down the line.

Interesting. So how about conversational AI?

These days, customers’ needs are quickly changing, and it is increasingly showing that customers want more personalized, interactive experiences where their enquiries or concerns are seen as quickly as possible. 

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Those are applicable to both brick and mortar stores, as well as online, although arguably it is easier to maneuver for purely online retailers due to the ease of collecting customer information. 

Are there other applications for AI in retail?

Specifically for brick and mortar stores, AI in retail can be used to identify traffic footfalls. This can be achieved using image processing solutions to understand customer visit patterns and optimize operations in terms of manpower and inventory stocking. 

When it comes to MSME retailers, customer engagement, and marketing and sales analytics are important — they make up about 40 – 45 percent of business value for the retail sector.

Digitalization of customer engagement is key, and this can be achieved with just a simple AI chatbot. It will help keep the customer engaged throughout their purchase journey. 

From placing orders, to checking delivery statuses — these go towards reducing friction. Conversational AI bots can be used to manage and stack orders, even. 

What are the challenges that MSMEs face with analytics?

Online sellers primarily utilize two sales channels — an independent website, or through an e-Commerce platform. 

SaaS analytics can be used on independent sites, whereas e-Commerce platforms can offer sellers analytics services to help tailor products listed to maximize their relevance to customers.

However for offline-only or hybrid retailers, when it comes to sales and marketing analytics, they often don’t have sophisticated POS (point-of-sale) terminals, which impedes the ability to collect and use data, such as when you need to improve assortment choices to target specific customers. 

Information such as billing info, order, value, and even loose tagging of the type of customers will be useful — both for brick and mortar, or solo online stores.

So what can MSME retailers do to optimize the use of AI in retail?

The good news is, that there are a lot of cloud-based SaaS options that come with analytics out of the box. As they’re cloud-based, you don’t have to worry about losing data stored on-premise (e.g. when errors or accidents occur), or when scaling up or integrating more sophisticated applications.

Furthermore, these data often come with easy-to-understand visualizations to help with quicker decision making, and the analytics can be accessed anywhere, across different devices.

It would be wise for retailers to also look at upgrading their POS terminals to be able to capture better data — there are plenty of third-party vendors that offer such services.

When it comes to AI SaaS, depending on what your business needs, MSME retailers can start small with basic packages, and then add on more features when they scale up.

I must stress that it is important to do the necessary research and comparison between vendors and service providers before jumping into choosing the most popular or well-received one, however.

Different retailers have different needs, and it boils down to identifying and choosing what your business needs at which point of time it is in. And this is not just when you are finding a solution or product at the beginning of your AI journey, or for the short term — you should also assess if their offerings are able to support scaling up when your business grows.

The costs to implement these may be a little higher in the beginning, but the payoff will be worth any retailer’s time and investment in the future.

The post AI in retail no longer an option, but a necessity for MSMEs appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

While e-Commerce saved a lot of businesses from being wiped out due to the pandemic, the same could not be said of shopping malls. Southeast Asia, home to some of the largest shopping malls in the world, was badly affected when travel restrictions and lockdowns prevented consumers from going to malls.

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In Malaysia, some 300,000 employees lost their jobs due to mall closures while several malls in Singapore had to close due to COVID-19 outbreaks. Indonesian and Thai malls also suffered a similar fate but are now reopening after governments started easing movement restrictions.

Retail tenants in malls were able to build on their online presence by leveraging various e-Commerce platforms. As such, some retailers have even decided to close their physical outlets in malls and focused purely on their e-Commerce customers.

(Photo by SCOTT OLSON / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)

According to Market Research Reports, offline retail represents 91% of the total retail market in ASEAN and will be the dominant channel of retail sales in the foreseeable future.

In fact, compared to other regions, a majority of ASEAN consumers still prefer going to malls to spend time, try on new products and physically purchase items.

However, mall operators are unable to track daily sales or provide retail rebates and tenant support. For this to happen, malls need to have retail analytics that provides valid real-time data and important insights to make business decisions daily.

Making sense of retail analytics 

Compared to e-Commerce, whereby various types of data are made available, offline retailers like malls do not have access to such data which is key to their transformation. To help mall operators to leverage technology to capture, structure, and sort real-time retail transactions, Aimazing, a Singaporean retail tech company, enables malls to access significant amounts of mall management data. This includes consumer purchasing behavior, sales, and performance can track how customers shop and why.

Aimazing’s retail analytics platform allows mall management to make data-driven decisions with complete transactional data visibility. Their proprietary technology allows mall management to seamlessly and accurately capture all transactional data in their malls without expensive integration, while their data platform provides performance and benchmarking reports, as well as the ability to customize complex recommendation engines for multiple use cases.

“We aim to enable shopping malls to support their retail tenants in making decisions by understanding data such as peak shopping periods in the malls, average basket size, best selling items, and how various categories of merchants from F&B to clothing and retail are performing in real-time,” said Jun Ting, Chief Executive Officer of Aimazing.

Jun added that this data has already been widely available to e-Commerce marketplaces but not to physical retailers and mall operators. Aimazing aims to bring physical marketplaces to a level playing field with this data visibility, as “before this, they were batting blind”.

The tech behind retail analytics

Malls will be able to have access to real-time insights as Aimazing uses a patented solution that captures and analyses offline transaction sale data within the mall to better equip mall owners and retail businesses with insights into making better-informed business decisions.

Malls will also need not worry about high upfront investments for hardware and setup as the solution is based on a subscription model.

Using technology similar to Google Translate’s image recognition, Aimazing’s hardware solution in the form of a tiny black box can be plugged into the Point of Sale (POS) systems of retail businesses.

An image of an empty mall in Singapore affected by the pandemic lockdown. (Photo by Jack TAYLOR / AFP)

The data from the receipts are then analyzed and organized through a machine learning engine and directly uploaded to the cloud where mall operators have direct and real-time access.

With projects live in malls in Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines, Aimazing processes three million data points a month from 1,000+ devices in the region and there is a pipeline of 10,000 devices to be implemented in the next 12 months.

Hopefully, with vaccination rates picking up in the region and with governments easing movement restrictions, malls will be able to have smoother operations. For now, retail analytics may just be the best solution for them, especially in ensuring they can keep both customers and tenants satisfied as well.

The post Can retail analytics be the lifeline for ASEAN malls? appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

On hindsight, that sounds like a no-brainer, right? Right, but the issue is that many companies have not exactly changed their marketing and customer service practices to reflect this seemingly common-sense approach. 

In April, OpenText revealed the extent to which the pandemic has changed customers’ expectations of brands, and the increasingly important role of a streamlined digital experience post-pandemic.

The new data – from a survey of 1,000 Singaporean respondents – revealed that 71% of Singaporean consumers are more likely to buy again from brands which treat them like an individual, rather than the same as any other customer. In short, a personalized customer experience is essential. 

This demand for brands to engage with customers as an individual is mirrored across Asia – in India (77%) and Australia (63%); across Europe – in Italy (70%), Spain (63%), France (59%) and Germany (55%); and in the US (67%) and Canada (68%). 

Two-thirds (66%) of Singaporean consumers only buy from brands that make them feel they understand their preferences, such as communicating with them through their favorite channels or providing tailored deals. 

Customer Experience is key

Almost two-thirds (63%) of Singaporean consumers would be put off buying again from a brand due to a bad experience. In fact, a similar number (62%) do not believe there is such thing as a ‘customer for life’ anymore in 2021, suggesting that brands cannot rely on customer loyalty stretching far enough to recover from bad experiences.

When buying products or services online, more than four in five (81%) Singaporean consumers say that an easy search is very important to them. 

“Creating a positive customer experience is all about removing friction and increasing relevance: the easier something is to do and the more relevant it is to each customer, the better the experience,” said Guy Hellier, Vice President, Product Management at OpenText. 

Furthermore, 6 in 10 (58%) refer to shop with brands that auto-fill and remember their details for next time. There is, however, pressure on brands to store that data correctly: seven in ten (69%) would even be willing to pay more to do business with a brand that is committed to protecting their personal data.

“The COVID-19 crisis has been a dramatic catalyst for digital acceleration across all sectors, forcing businesses to change how they communicate with customers,” said Albert Nel, Vice President APAC at OpenText. 

“As a result, customer expectations have also shifted. They now expect more from brands – more communication channels, more personalization, and, above all, a more continuous and connected digital experience. The ability to deliver rich, ultra-personalized communications at scale, across all touchpoints and channels, is now mission-critical for acquiring, developing, and retaining customers.”

The importance of digital in a post-COVID world

For 73% of Singaporean consumers, the pandemic has changed their expectations of what a brand’s digital offering should be. One quarter (27%) won’t use brands if their experience isn’t excellent when buying online. 

Two-thirds (65%) are now more comfortable with digital-only businesses as a result of the pandemic. For 7 in 10 (70%) Singaporean consumers, a personalized digital experience is now vital to them if they are to come back to a brand time and time again.

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It was also found that six in 10 (62%) respondents say bigger established brands have been able to offer a smoother digital experience than smaller ones during the pandemic.

“Today, customers expect their journey, from researching products to tracking orders, to transition seamlessly from one digital platform to another while retaining a consistent personalized feel – delivered across any device, at any time”, added Hellier.

So for brands, especially SMEs to attract and retain customers, investing in a robust digital platform is now essential. This platform should enable the integration of data, information, and assets in a seamless manner across different digital and offline environments.

The post 70% of Singaporean consumers want a personalized digital customer experience appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Woolworths Group, the parent company of global supermarket chain Woolworths, recently announced the launch of its standalone payments solution, WPay. Targeting both the New Zealand and Australian markets, WPay proffers an end-to-end payments solution for external retailers in these countries. 

Woolworths Group leverages payment volume experience

According to Woolworths Group CEO Brad Banducci, the group has been looking at expanding its payment capabilities for years and is keen to extend the benefits of its investments to external merchants that lack the scale to build their own systems.

They draw on their massive national scale and capabilities in payments, being the fifth-largest processor of card payments in Australia, with over 1.3B worth of annual transactions amounting to over AUD$ 50B in value. 

“Payments are an increasingly important part of the shopping experience both in-store and online and we bring unique expertise to this space as retailers.

“We’ll continue to invest in our platform to unlock the best possible experience for our stores and merchant partners”, shared Banducci.

Aside from payment solutions, merchants in the region are also looking for easier ways to integrate gifting, loyalty, and direct marketing platforms into their services, which didn’t go unnoticed by Australia’s number one e-tailer Woolworths.

WPay’s offerings for retail merchants

The payments and commerce platform WPay boasts features like:

• Integrated in-store and digital payments, supporting traditional card payments, digital wallets, and alternative payment methods, optimized for use in Australia; 
• Payment services including transaction processing at scale, rapid funds settlement and simple reconciliation, fraud management, detailed reporting and merchant analytics; and
• Gift card program management including sales, redemptions, and distribution partnerships

Woolworths Group invests heavily in digital

Prior to the launch of WPay, the group has been heavily involved in various efforts, such as launching digital startup HealthyLife, targeting the health-conscious market with health and wellness advice and products, and revamped its e-commerce delivery subscription service Delivery Unlimited. 

On the green tech side of things, they’ve also invested in a PPA with NSW Wind Farm as part of its plans to achieve 100% green electricity consumption by 2025, on top of facilitating battery recycling by consumers through the provision of 1,000 collection bins across its outlets.

Australia’s Fintech Evolution

According to the report KPMG Fintech Landscape 2020, Australia has 733 active fintech players. This lively ecosystem is being supported by the addition of new players in both consumer and SME-lending subsectors, as well as Buy-Now-Pay-Later service providers.

Additionally, there has been a bump in blockchain and cryptocurrency fintech providers, reflecting the general interest in these segments. Neobanking too has taken off, despite delays in the licensing process by APRA. Global advisory firm Ernst & Young in Oct 2020 expressed optimism for the Australian fintech industry to expand globally. 

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In the EY FinTech Australia Census 2020, it became apparent that in the maturing fintech industry, 78% of respondents saw strong growth in paying customers. The top segments fuelling this bullish sentiment include payments, wallets, supply chain, lending, and data analytics.

Covid-19 pandemic brings increased attention to digital

The Australian government is strengthening the country’s digital economy with a strong emphasis on technology, in the Australian federal budget for 2020 and 2021. The nation has seen a surge in 5G consumption during the period, although operators have been quick to roll out increased services for users, with the government declaring 2021 the ‘Year of 5G’. 

E-commerce, too, has seen a massive boom in both Australia and New Zealand, effectively making these countries the largest markets in the world to see growth in the e-commerce sector last year, a far cry from their sluggish online sales pre-2020.

However, the continent’s rapid digitalization means that local firms are still struggling to deal with cybersecurity issues. In 2020, the government beefed up its cybersecurity efforts with an injection of US$63 million to deal with increased threats during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The post Woolworths Group weaves into Aussie fintech market with WPay appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Prior to this, customers might have been able to order custom-fitted clothing from physical stores, 3D printed to their body sizes. In its first virtual show, the Shanghai Fashion Week tapped the potential of live-streaming, 5G technology, and the digital marketplace to bring the show to a larger audience than ever before. Even the apparel supply chain has become more transparent with the use of blockchain tech.

When it comes to fashion, AI has been successfully empowering both online and offline channels. During China’s Singles Day weekend, for example, Alibaba’s FashionAI deep learning kiosk gives suggestions on what else customers should buy from the retail outlet. And AI-powered augmented reality applications allow online shoppers to virtually ‘try on’ clothing from an ecommerce portal.

When did AI get so popular in fashion? “The technology is starting to become good, and easy to use for both the fashion retailers and the end-users,” says Gijs Verheijke, the founder and CEO of highend streetwear e-store OX Street. “In fact, people already use more AI than they think.”

But in light of recent world events, the lines that traditionally defined what is in-store shopping and what is online shopping have become fuzzy. And AI is playing an active role in blurring the boundaries between the physical and the digital. “It’s most easy to imagine recommended products when you think of AI, but I think the real revolution is happening when the products coming out are entirely built around AI. What does the TikTok of fashion look like?” wonders Verheijke.

“There is so much opportunity now to marry media, social, gaming, and shopping. The whole categorization of companies between retail, marketplace, and media is going to get upended, and a lot of the parts of that disruption machine are powered by AI.”

And as with distributed blockchain tech, AI will increase convenience by increasing efficiency across the entire value chain, continues Verheijke. “You can think of sourcing products, design, warehousing and logistics, quality control, authentication and inventory management.”

AI also has its role to play in the biggest unsolved problem in fashion ecommerce – product returns because of sizing issues. It’s estimated that between 30% and 50% of all purchases are returned. This cuts heavily into the retailer’s margins.

“AI, in combination with Augmented Reality certainly has a key role to play in solving this problem,” asserts Verheijke. “Lowering returns will indeed lower costs and environmental impact. It is also possible that better predictions about what people will buy could lead to lower waste.”

Sustainability advantages aside, AI is by no means perfect, relying on the input to form decisions which just like humans, might not always be the right ones. “There are certain issues that come from having AI and traditional computing work side-by-side, similar to the issues that come up around mixing self-driving and human-driven cars on the same roads.

“AI is much, much better under the right conditions, but lacks the capability for judgement,” Verheijke says. “It relies entirely on what you feed it, and like with any model, garbage in = garbage out.”

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One of the major plusses of AI in fashion ecommerce is personalization – the more data it has on you, the better it can search and recommend garments suited to your tastes. But as good as it can be, over-optimizing can be a challenge. “I have enjoyed various kinds of ‘crate-digging’ activities in my life: Discovering underrated sneakers, new and under-rated clothing brands, or great lesser known music,” muses Verheijke. “I have yet to find an AI powered discovery experience that successfully facilitates crate-digging and keeps the discovery experience fresh and enjoyable.”

Like browsing the aisles in a brick-and-mortar store, the discovery experience is vital for helping an online store keep its audience engaged and coming back to purchase more. Are there other parts of the fashion shopping experience that AI can further revolutionize? “There are two that come to mind: the first is the breakdown of relational databases, and the other is design,” notes Ox Street’s Verheijke.

How an AI product database works for an ecommerce platform like Ox Street is through a relational database where product attributes like an SKU, brand, color, high or low cut, are recorded. “Those attributes are still human-defined. What AI is uniquely able to do, is find attributes that are a lot more important, but that doesn’t have to make any sense to a human,” he elaborates. “So instead of setting up the database relations yourself, you dump all your data into one big ‘data lake’ and let the AI take it from there.”

When it comes to design, Verheijke predicts that affordable, ‘fast’ fashion houses will begin to replace their designers with AI. “They rely on identifying new fashion trends quickly, copying the designs almost but not quite, and bringing them to market super quickly. AI will be able to excel at those tasks soon,” nods Verheijke.

But the real surprise comes later, he says, when AI ceases to merely copy designs and instead has assimilated enough information to step into actual couture. “Later, we will also see AI entering the ‘real’ fashion design space, and becoming a real force in determining the direction of designs.”

The post AI is blurring the lines between in-store retail and ecommerce appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Technology is rewriting operating models across every sector of the economy, but nowhere will this be more tangible than in retail. As consumers, we see how our changing behaviors and preferences are reshaping the entire retail landscape. The pandemic’s disruption in particular has turned the sector upside down, bringing with it unparalleled tech innovations. 

Therefore, technology should be a strategic imperative for retailers if they intend to remain relevant and profitable. The retail experience of the future will be propelled by both physical innovations and advanced analytics to meet changing consumer expectations while allowing retailers to reset their operating and revenue models.

A report by the Harvard Business Review indicated that today, e-commerce is well established and digital retailing is now highly profitable. “As it evolves, digital retailing is quickly morphing into something so different that it requires a new name: omnichannel retailing. The name reflects the fact that retailers will be able to interact with customers through countless channels — websites, physical stores, kiosks, direct mail and catalogs, call centers, social media, mobile devices, gaming consoles, televisions, networked appliances, home services, and more”.

There are a handful of trends that may have emerged out of necessity, but experts reckon they will continue to shape the retail industry in 2021 and well into the future.

Virtual fitting rooms

Gartner predicted the rise of augmented reality to 100 million consumers by 2020, and was proven correct. In 2020, the customer conversion rate for AR engaged users increased by 90%. The potential of augmented reality in the retail space cannot be ignored in 2021.

Virtual fitting rooms utilizing augmented reality technology is one of the most intriguing innovations in the retail industry. Since the “try-before-you-buy” approach is difficult during a public health crisis, augmented reality is in the unique position to help customers make choices on what to purchase by virtually ‘trying them on’.

Where many other retailers saw losses in the face of the pandemic, Sephora saw great gains with its use of augmented reality technology in 2020. By using virtual fitting rooms, customers could ‘try on’ their products like jewelry and cosmetics with their smartphones. Other retailers such as Kendra Scott and Etsy are also utilizing virtual fitting room technology. 

Staff-free and cashier-less stores

Given how social distancing is still relevant for protecting public health in 2021, cashier-less and staff-free stores are an important retail trend to consider. In fact, many customers have, since last year, shown more interest in stores with contactless or self-checkout options.

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To achieve the contact-free goal, RFID tags, computer vision systems, machine learning, IoT devices, and facial recognition can be utilized. Technologies like these were harnessed in Amazon’s Just Walk Out system, powered by their Amazon Go Grocery model. In particular, the project took advantage of computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning. Amazon’s IoT network in the store tracks what consumers place into their cart. When the customer leaves the store, the store will automatically charge the credit card that the customer has on file.

There are also ways to reduce cross-contact in stores by customers scanning barcodes and QR codes for prices and to make payment. The codes can be scanned by consumers’ smartphones to gain additional information about items without having to touch them to inspect them.

Voice Commerce

Artificial intelligence and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) have continued to advance in 2021. With Google Assistant, Alexa, and Siri as the main frontrunners of the consumer voice assistant market, various improvements have been made by each to better serve customers. 

With the United States expected to have more than 77 million homes with smart home devices in 2025, the voice commerce trend is proving to have serious potential for the retail industry. IoT devices in consumers’ homes, such as smart mirrors and smart displays can help deliver product content in non-intrusive and helpful ways.

Voice commands can help customers find products or even make purchases. Walmart’s Voice Ordering service is a perfect example of this technology in action. By asking smart speakers to add products to a cart, they can place orders entirely by voice. Those items can then be made available for pickup by Walmart’s workers.

The post How retail tech will shape the way we future-shop appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

As accessible as digital banking and other tech-driven disruptions have made the Indonesian marketplace, a lack of understanding and resistance to all these new-fangled technological upgrades still throws off one of the largest segments in developing territories – the traditional cottage industry, known as warungs in Indonesia, tiny hawker-like stalls or outlets selling anything from meals to souvenir trinkets.

In an economy as large and as spread out as the Indonesian archipelago, consisting of thousands of small to large islands, traditional retailers are the preferred choice for many low and middle-income households, and can make up as much as 70-80% of Indonesia’s economy.

“They are not only a central pillar of their communities and Indonesian life, but also incredibly cost-efficient,” says Nipun Mehra, the founder and CEO of Ula, a mobile app that allows Indonesian warungs to purchase stock online, helps them source for better financing, and moreover aids with their inventory management and logistical support like last-mile deliveries. “They [the warungs] are small enterprises, mostly family-run within self-owned premises, making their operational costs extremely efficient – but their cash flow constraints and inventory, as well as delivery issues, limit their full potential.”

Those “issues” can pile up for small retailers, causing their operational necessities to become time-consuming and inefficient. Mehra gave some examples of how warung traders could face hurdles to replenish their supply chains: they likely have to travel to meet suppliers or wholesalers in person, often having to shut down business for the day and putting themselves at infection risks in crowded areas. Goods pricing can also be opaque, needing to haggle with multiple suppliers for a better deal.

“If they get deliveries to their stores, they are often unreliable. They have limited visibility with regards to when the products are going to arrive and they don’t always arrive on time. Sometimes, they also receive damaged goods,” Mehra informed Tech Wire Asia. “Finally, retailers don’t have access to traditional banking systems and rely almost exclusively on cash, limiting their working capital and ability to manage their cash flow.”

Just as digital payments and micropayments have taken off across the archipelago, an app like Ula looks to address pain points that are specific to the conundrum faced by Indonesian warungs. “Digital adoption is accelerating across retailers, and at Ula, we believe there is a real opportunity to revolutionize traditional trade via technology-enabled platforms that combine the cost efficiencies and neighborhood relationships of traditional retail with best practices and technology of modern retail,” Mehra opines.

Alan Wong, Ula’s other co-founder and chief technology officer, believes that an end-to-end digital solution like the Ula app is able to support and enable traditional retailers like warungs to get started on their digital transformation journey.  “A holistic solution like Ula (which besides a centralized e-commerce platform, provides additional support including doorstep delivery and financing options) is able to streamline the supply chain network, making the entire process more efficient and hassle-free for traditional retailers. This allows retailers to be more productive with their time and focus on growing their business, instead of trying to alleviate their many pain points.”

“Most traditional retailers are not used to using apps in their day to day lives and don’t feel comfortable using them for even essential purposes such as stocking up their stores,” muses Wong. “The key to unlock this is through simple and approachable solutions that add real value to and build trust with end-users.”

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Additionally, many traditional Indonesian retailers reside in areas with limited mobile connectivity, and use entry-level smartphones that have low computing power and storage capacity. “As such, mobile apps designed for traditional retailers must be optimized to minimize mobile plan costs, be compact to be reliably downloadable in areas with limited connectivity, and lightweight enough to provide a smooth shopping experience without taking up lots of storage on users’ phones,” the CTO elaborated. “For instance, our Ula app is packaged at 4.28MB as compared to our peers’ apps which are usually around 13.4MB.”

The digitalization of these Indonesian small businesses has been helped along by the pandemic, and now “most of them are now embracing technology and innovation to grow their business, and they’re seeing the benefits both from a business and safety perspective first-hand,” said Mehra. “For example, online delivery service has allowed these retailers to avoid crowded areas such as wholesale markets while ensuring access to goods.”

Wong agreed, adding that the future of Indonesian warungs means to have the right tools to build and grow their business easily from the palm of their hands. “Moving forward, typically manual tasks, from sourcing, ordering, payments to delivery of inventory, will be done digitally through their smartphones,” he pointed out. “Digitalization will improve the lives and livelihoods of traditional retailers by freeing up their time so that they can concentrate on growing their business.”

The post How Indonesian neighborhood retailers can accelerate into the digital economy appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

One of the takeaways of the novel coronavirus pandemic is that airborne infections have the potential to be highly contagious. Whether the virus is spread through touching money is still unclear, but one thing is certain: Cash is a hotbed for germs. 

This concern has caused individuals all over the world to become hyper aware of how unsanitary and bacteria-laden physical currency can actually be as a result of having gone through many bearers and bearing conditions.

Even here in Asia where the acceptance and usage of physical denominations is still most popular, there has been a noticeable shift in demand for contactless payment solutions in the past year. A new global consumer survey by Mastercard found that 68 percent of shoppers in Asia Pacific would rather buy from stores offering a contactless payment option like tapping or waving their card, as opposed to touching an exposed PIN keypad or pen.

While in Australia it is far more common to tap or wave to pay for items, Less than one in 10 transactions Down Under are with non-contactless methods. Singapore has seen contactless payments grow by nearly sixty percent in the past year, according to the latest polls done by card providers.

The COVID-19 crisis has only accelerated usage of cashless methods, with Mastercard EVP of Product & Innovation for Asia Pacific, Sandeep Malhotra telling Tech Wire Asia that the usage of contactless payment options has shot up 2.5 times compared to non-contactless transactions in Asia Pacific from February to March this year alone.

The combination of the health crisis and the inevitable shift towards contact-free payments has seen a widespread adoption in New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Malaysia. Several other Asian countries are seeing faster adoption of the payment system including China, Japan, Indonesia, and Vietnam. India has experienced a meteoric surge in contactless payments in recent months.

“Social distancing is the new norm in many countries, and it’s all about minimizing the payment touchpoints, whether it’s from the consumer’s standpoint or from the retailers,” says Mastercard’s Sandeep. 

“It’s fast, it’s convenient, it’s secure, as well as promoting cleanliness. 80 percent of retailers would prefer a cleaner way to receive payment, so that’s the number one benefit.”

Sandeep says adopting contactless solutions gives retailers a cleaner way to receive payments, while consumers benefit from additional ways to make payments using methods other than cash.

According to Sandeep, once a country begins implementing cashless payment methods, the trend is that the adoption rates tick upwards.

Choice, security, and the convenience offered by contactless solutions are very attractive to users, and the better hygiene benefits mean that consumers might never have to take their cards out of their wallets again.

“Giving consumers an ability to go online, and an ability to accept contactless payments in a way that contactless becomes the norm” is the intention behind the contactless push for Mastercard.

Mastercard is working with regulators and industry partners in every nation to ensure transaction limits are sufficient for buying essential items throughout the pandemic’s duration. 

Raising transaction limits will also help smaller businesses, according to Sandeep, as “creating sufficiently high limits so they [the retailers] can receive commissions in a higher amount while minimizing touchpoints.”

He continued, “We’re working with governments & industry partners in multiple markets – the latest initiative is in Australia, we’re going to the Philippines in July, and then other markets like Hong Kong & others beyond Asia Pacific.”

For now, cash is still king in Asia: 85 percent of transactions are still performed using traditional hard money. However, recent indications are immensely optimistic for more cashless methods very, very soon – much of it driven by the heightened awareness brought on by the pandemic.

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“I wouldn’t be surprised if contactless payments became the widely accepted payment option of choice in certain parts of Asia within the next three to six months,” Sandeep concluded.

The post Mastercard EVP: COVID-19 is spurring contactless payments in Asia appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.