Supermal Karawaci, one of the largest mall entertainment center in Western Jakarta, has launched an interactive mobile application that would allow retailers to offer personalized content and engage with customers better.
The 125,000-square-meter retail destination in Banten Province, West of Jakarta has over 1,000 retail stores and outlets, three cinemas and the largest Timezone arcade in Southeast Asia.
The app, which was built on the shopper engagement platform of Singaporean technology firm Sprooki, is integrated with Supermal Karawaci’s touchpoints and mobile apps. Using location and contextual data, retailers would be able to offer individualized content such as vouchers, special offers, event alerts and store information.
The system allows social sign-in and content sharing on platforms, including Facebook, which has more than 76 million users in Indonesia as of end 2016 and projected to grow to 86.4 million by end of 2017, according to eMarketer. The service will also be available in both English and Bahasa.
Pipih Tjandra, Supermal Karawaci Marketing and Leasing General Manager, said the Sprooki platform would help keep the shopping hub at the cutting edge of technology, which customers had come to expect.
“Supermal Karawaci works every day to be in tune with what today’s consumers want and expect through innovative marketing strategies. By implementing the Sprooki platform, our mall will be one of the first shopping precincts in Indonesia to incorporate a data-driven mobile platform to improve shopper experience, helping our tenants to increase in-store traffic and sales,” he said in a news release.
Pablo Amante, Sprooki’s Head of Marketing, said in an email interview that the Indonesian market is ready to start adopting location-based and engagement technologies to help retailers and business to engage their shoppers, making the Indonesian retail industry much more competitive.
The latest report from eMarketer shows that the number of smartphone users in Indonesia will rise from 55 million in 2015 to 92 million in 2019 and would be the third largest smartphone market in the Asia-Pacific.
According to Lee Kang, the Vice Chairman of the Indonesian Cellular Phone Association (APSI), number of smartphone users in Indonesia has been growing between 30 and 50 percent each year and this growth momentum will remain intact due to the availability of affordable 4G smartphones on the Indonesian market and further development of Indonesia’s 4G network.
“Based on these figures, retailers, shopping malls, and all companies focused on engaging their customers through mobile will see in our software a powerful tool to optimize their sales and marketing strategies, based on real data about their customers’ behavior,” Amante said.
Cloud-based platform
The Sprooki software is a cloud-based platform that analyzes physical and digital shopper behavior detected inside and outside stores. The platform is an analytics and contextual engine that algorithmically analyzes digital and physical data and predicts what shoppers are most likely to respond to, offering shoppers most relevant products at the best moments and locations.
“Mall’s retailers benefit most from Sprooki platform, which gives them the possibility of engaging mobile shoppers in context and personalized ways; driving footfall to their stores; rewarding their top customers; making data and insights actionable through integrated reporting and predictive recommendations, and all these by using only one platform, saving time and efforts, so retailers and malls can focus on their marketing and sales strategies,” Amante explained.
The software can be integrated either in mobile apps or websites. In these environments, consumers are always able to opt out or not sign in. The challenge, however, is to provide highly targeted and relevant content in a way that shoppers appreciate the added value of having access to these offers, campaigns or rewards.
“When our customers provide to its shoppers with contextual and personalized offers, general response by consumers is very positive, as the shopping experience is different for each one and it’s relevant according to their likes and what they are looking for,” Amante added.
While this is the first implementation of Sprooki technology in Indonesia, its customers are already spread across Southeast Asia.
Amante said some of its customers include the 313@somerset iconic mall at Orchard Road in Singapore where the company implemented Sprooki Campaigns module, which allows shoppers to access to exclusive offers and coupons through vouchers. At Far East Organization /Shop Far East Asia (Singapore), it has also implemented Sprooki Rewards, a module that allows the mall to offer a card-less loyalty program to its shoppers. In Vietnam, the technology allows location-based features and beacon technology to work both outside and inside the Crescent Mall to collect strategic data, providing a unique experience to shoppers.
At this stage, Supermal Karawaci shoppers are exploring this new way of access to exclusive offers, and the response has been more than positive, with a high rate of voucher downloads since its launch last December 15.
“Sprooki is delighted to enable Supermal Karawaci with the most advanced technology for engaging with customers and understanding their behavior. Our mobile platform will give the precinct’s retail tenants an effective way to drive frequency of visits and increase sales conversions,” said Sprooki CEO and Co-founder Michael Gethen in a media statement during the launch.
Retail challenges ahead
Sprooki is confident that location-based, data-driven mobile services are the present and the future for the retail industry.
“After the struggles that retailers have suffered in the last years due to the e-commerce and online shops, the game is again on for big retailers and shopping malls that want to bring shoppers back to the physical stores. And the only way to make this happen is by providing a new shopping experience, based on offering what the digital world already offers (personalization, analytics, related purchases, recommendations, rewards, etc.),” Amante said.
Shoppers nowadays also expect more from their brands in terms of product offerings, customer services, efficiency, and engagement. That is the reason why features such as ‘click and collect’, digital voucher redemption, scan receipts, faster and easier payment methods are raising, in order to meet consumers’ expectations.
Taking a look at the region and the challenges that retailers are facing in Southeast Asia, Sprooki sees a lot of opportunities.
“Retailers nowadays have a big gap in terms of what they know about their shoppers, and how they behave in their shopping journey. Even the most advanced retailers that work already with big data haven’t found an effective and sustainable way to manage all these data without the need of investing a lot of money and time,” Amante said.
Sprooki today is currently based in Singapore, and has offices in Hong Kong and Australia, with local contacts in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Vietnam.