What is the no.1 reason you purchase online? Here is what Linkedin said!
Prathibha Ryali
Product Marketing Leader| Strategy and Go-to-Market Expert| B2B Tech value propositioning and messaging| Hybrid Cloud/B2B Tech|18 years
When I posed this question on Linked just a few hours ago.. most of my business contacts who I can safely say are the target segment for e-tailers (in terms of purchasing power, tech savviness, time-crunched people) ranked pricing and convenience as the most common factor. This was wasn’t a surprise to me since I rank discounts the highest for online experience. The moment I feel it is a very expensive product I prefer going to the offline store and in person to make a purchase.
Interestingly of the many overlooked trends that can help both the customer and the retailer drive all 3 pieces of these critical elements would be the Weather Prediction. Yes- think of it. Seasonal spikes are not new in Retail. So are the situational stocking decisions, occasion led marketing boosts, offers and discounts. Almost the entire engine is working tirelessly from sourcing to stocking to the point of sale to meet that one hot moment where the customer decides to purchase totally based on a situational need. A wedding, a school uniform, holiday season. Monsoon collection, winter-wear, summer-wear, vacation-wear, night-wear.
AND Accurate weather prediction helps you to
- Stock the right inventory – stock-outs can drive competitive sales. Think of how much money Amazon made for the same brands that stocked out on Flipkart big billion day sales back in 2014?
- Route sourcing and fulfilment- PayTM launched a marketing campaign overnight during demonetisation to capture heat of the moment. How soon can you route your trucks to ensure that the inventory reaches on time? Rainfall prediction, traffic management, monsoon routing?
- Competitive pricing- Every winter I try to identify the right moment to buy cheap winterwear leaving the season and be bang ready for my next season. And every winter I get it too soon or too late, too pricey and ridiculously cheap quality. How I wish retailer listened to weather predictions and stock as my body responds to the weather.. are you listening Amazons of the world?
Don’t believe what you hear? Watch how Retailers are reaping benefits by accurate Weather predictions from the world largest and most accurate Private Weather Data provider – The Weather Company- here and here.
Want more- watch my session at the booth in India Retail Congress tomorrow @JW Marriott, Aerocity New Delhi, IBM Booth!
Come and see how you can get ahead of competition!!
How relevant is weather as a factor in a country like India where variations are less spiky than say the US? Our winters and monsoons tend to last for months rather than have short sudden spikes like snowstorms.
Transform your business value through RPA, Process Mining, Chatbots, AI, ML, IoT, Cloud & Analytics
7 年Missed a lot of your Articles /posts Prathibha Ryali. All are informative and thought provoking articles. Lot of Gyaan for me. Thank you and keep posting.
Product, Content and Digital Marketing | ex IBM | Philips | Motorola
7 年Hi Pratibha, are we also able to link consumer sentiment with weather predictions, for example, simplistic web experience (better website look and feel, color and content), competitive pricing etc. in summers (when the heat may lead to more annoyed customers)?