– By Sankarshan Mukherjee
Logistics is peppered with back-bending processes such as sorting, order picking and forward delivery allocation, etc. Besides this, from marketing to the final delivery, D2C brands and hyperlocal vendors have to combat, overcome and streamline hundreds of steps. Manually these tasks would be overwhelming and leave the companies bleeding through thousands of errors. Tech-sport, especially during the festive season, is crucial for seamless operations. Here’s how –
1. Enhanced marketing: E-commerce has brought the world to the consumer’s doorstep. No product, no matter where in the world it is manufactured, is out of its reach. Another aspect of e-commerce and Q-commerce is hyperlocal. With D2C brands and hyperlocal gaining traction, thanks to increased connectivity, tech support is crucial for its growth. Tech-powered tools help businesses prune their consumer and zero down on an audience that is right for their product. This is especially key for the festive season as the customers witness an influx of marketing with all the brands fighting for their attention. To effectively understand the nuances of e-commerce and Q-commerce to allot an online marketing budget is what makes or breaks an online campaign. Measuring these metrics and analyzing the same to determine a budget for maximum ROI is only possible with tech support.
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2. Personalized shopping experience: Advanced analytics not only shares purchases and other crucial insights with the business but also makes it possible for them to give the consumer. Helping companies maintain the recall factor efficiently tech support builds customer loyalty. Quick reconciliation, grievance solutions, personalized recommendations and in-time delivery help in binding the customer to your business.
3. Supply chain management: One of the major bottlenecks for logistics during festivities is supply chain management. End-to-end visibility is important for last-mile delivery and for keeping the supply chain robust and agile. Advanced analysis of consumer purchase patterns, availability, route mapping, traffic conditions, rider availability, and product sales based on a particular demographic is what helps companies scale up operations, especially during festivities. Important strategic decisions about micro-warehousing, dark store set-up, sorting facilities, manpower, rider tie-ups based on pin codes and demand and supply, etc. are only possible with tech support. Such tasks would be monumental if done manually and riddled with errors.
4. Demand and Supply: Projecting and predicting a trajectory for inventory fulfillment, tech-support and tech-powered tools help predict demand and supply based on past purchase patterns, order tracking, order cancellation and probably future buying patterns. In addition to this, end-to-end visibility helps details stay ahead of the curve by giving them real-time insights about order cancellations. This crucial information in time helps them adjust their inventory quantity accordingly optimizing cost and time.
5. Improved CRM: Retaining customers is not an easy task, especially during the chaos of festivities. AI-powered chatbots effectively increase customer engagement and retention by solving customer issues seamlessly. These chatbots eliminate the need for other customer inquiries, such as emails and phone calls. They also help keep the customer informed about new products, services, offers, events, etc, on a personalized basis. Personalized promotional messages targeted to customers significantly increase customer retention.
Tech is the key that unlocks many opportunities for hyperlocal businesses and D2C brands. Helping them scale operations without heavy investments in the logistics arm, tech enables brands to reach their targeted audience to meet consumer demands during the festive season.
(Sankarshan Mukherjee is the Director – Operations at CABT Logistics)