How Personalising Customer Journeys Can Help D2Cs Clock Up To 15x Business Growth

The Indian shopper’s growing appetite and penchant for online shopping have led to structural changes in the retail sector — as is evidenced by the growth of India’s ecommerce industry. A close look at statistics shows that the ecommerce market is estimated to reach $400 Bn by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 19%.  This unabated growth is being driven by the D2C sector, which is pegged to $300 Bn by 2030 and accounts for 70% of the ecommerce industry’s total market share. D2C brands have an earmarked style and approach, much of what has led to their rise in recent years. The formula is simple: reach customers through your own website, leverage all user touchpoints and scale your offline footprint through brick-and-mortar retail. Briefly put, be where the customer is. 

Riding this formula, brands like Mamaearth, Licious and boAt have scripted their D2C success stories. But it is not a cakewalk for the new-age D2C brands, especially as they face stiff competition from deep-pocketed players. 

For starters, ecommerce marketplaces like Amazon and Flipkart are still the preferred choice for online shoppers due to product variety, fast and free deliveries, hassle-free purchases and satisfactory post-purchase experience. Given their widespread popularity and reliability, many D2C brands leverage marketplaces as their primary channel for selling products online. 

On the other hand, discovering new brands and their independent websites/apps remains a challenge for retail consumers unless those companies have done some big-bang marketing to grab eyeballs. More importantly, can they provide the same level of gratification as their storied competitors to earn long-term customer loyalty?  

According to Umair Mohammed, founder and CEO of the martech platform Wigzo, customer engagement is key to achieving growth. “Retaining an existing customer is seven times less costly than acquiring a new one. So brands need to opt for the right customer-centric approach.”

Set up in 2014, Delhi-based Wigzo is on a mission to empower early and growth stage D2C brands as it provides personalised customer journeys through data analytics and marketing automation for gaining good traction. 

The startup claims to have worked with more than 1K ecommerce brands, including many acclaimed D2C brands like Forest Essentials, GIVA, W for Woman and Libas. The company claims that its marketing solutions have enabled many brands to increase their gross merchandise value (GMV) by 20-26%.

How Wigzo’s Tech Stack Improves Conversions, Boosts Sales

Ask any industry expert what hinders ecommerce conversion and most will point to high rates of shopping cart abandonment. According to Statista, nearly 80% orders were abandoned, much higher than the industry average of 69.57%, based on Baymard Institute’s 2019 research. Although brands can never completely eliminate this risk, some timely strategy and process optimisation can certainly lower the abandonment rate and generate more revenue. 

This is where Wigzo’s suite of solutions comes in handy.

The startup leverages the power of multichannel engagement and helps brands reach their target audience on popular communication platforms like SMS, WhatsApp, email and FB messenger. It helps them send behavioural nudges to retarget customers and enhance customer engagement across the purchase journey. Using its offerings, brands can increase the customer lifetime value as well as the average order value, Wigzo claimed. Further, it said that brands can expect to grow their business up to 15x. 

The startup leverages the power of mobile-friendly communication channels such as SMS, WhatsApp and FB Messenger to retarget customers and bring them back to the shopping cart to complete their purchases. Using its offerings, brands can grow their business up to 15x, claims Wigzo.

Here is a case in point. During December 2020, silver jewellery brand GIVA struggled to cope with a high cart abandonment rate (read fewer conversions) and low customer engagement and retention on its site. The startup decided to seek Wigzo’s services to improve its overall business efficiency.

Wigzo’s AI-based customer segmentation helped GIVA bucket customers based on how recently the customers visited its website, their frequency and monetary value. This information helped the jewellery brand create hyper-personalised messaging campaigns. To address cart abandonments, GIVA leveraged Wigzo’s customer mapping feature to track real-time customer behaviour and send automated emails to customers who added products to the cart but did not buy them. Wigzo claimed that this helped the brand reduce cart abandonments and recover lost sales. 

Improving the website conversion rate and engaging with the website visitors in real-time proved to be fruitful for the brand. With the help of Wigzo’s personalised onsite and push notifications, GIVA was able to engage with website visitors in real-time. Further, it was able to send personalised product recommendations and information about the new product launches and offers, in turn, driving conversions. 

“Today, ecommerce companies are inundated with data. The information flow is massive and complicated. But this data will be useless unless ecommerce store owners utilise it to coordinate their operations,” said Mohammed.

With the help of Wigzo’s tech stack, GIVA bolstered its overall online sales by 55%, experienced a 5% increase in conversions through onsite notifications and a 3% growth in conversions through email marketing. Its newsletter subscribers also grew by a whopping 775%.

Personalisation Is The Way Forward

In a tech-driven world where people’s lives and livelihoods are evolving fast, most consumers are willing to experiment and switch brands more frequently. Given this shift in customer mindset, brands can no longer bank on unwavering loyalty in a fiercely competitive ecommerce space. But there is a bright spot. Selling to people through dedicated apps and websites means D2C brands will have full control of customer data and can easily forge a one-on-one relationship with them. 

Also, personalisation across various touch points, including SMS, email, WhatsApp, social media and app/website, will ensure a unique shopping experience. A report by Deloitte pointed out that hyper-personalised marketing, using AI and deep data analytics helps brands maximise revenue, reduce costs and elevate customer experience. 

According to YouGov, 80% of frequent shoppers only shop with brands that provide a personalised experience. USA-based consulting firm Invesp pointed out that 56% of online shoppers are more likely to return to a website that recommends products. 

“Compared to generic marketing, personalised and targeted campaigns can create as much as 760% increase in revenue,” Wigzo’s founder said.

He is also confident that Wigzo can be a growth driver for India’s D2C segment. “D2C is in the midst of tremendous expansion. It is quite likely that this pattern will continue in the years to come. And we aim to be part of this retail revolution,” he added. 

As India’s D2C sector eyes significant growth in the next few years, it will be interesting to see how enablers like Wigzo empower brands by building customer engagement and offering premium customer experience.