By Manu
Sharma
In the face of the global $1.2 trillion e-commerce industry, retail brands are in need of a way to evolve a
new physical shopping experience Due to beacons, technology is changing
the way customers shop. In India, Interaction
One, a Bangalore-based start-up focused on innovation and
building memorable mobile experiences, is set to transform the retail and
lifestyle industry with the launch of Mobmerry that is using beacons to window shop
your city.
Mobmerry, the app hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS), cloud platform helps connects
retailers to consumers through product discovery, real-time notifications of
new products, deals, and discounts in the consumers’ immediate area. Interaction One will be the
first company to deploy over 1000 beacons across Bangalore, making it one of
the largest beacon deployments in India. This will make Bangalore the first
city to be lit up and connected virtually.
Speaking to the media, Krishna Prasad, CEO and Co-founder,
Interaction One says, “We are a technology startup and are backing on beacons
to transform retail in India. The convergence of the physical and digital world is considered to
be the future of retail. In the same way that e-commerce brands use
mouse tracking, heat mapping, engagement analysis and social media to assess
shopping habits, physical stores are beginning to replicate such analysis with
beacons. Thanks to your influx of smartphone, you
could become a walking hotspot for advertisements shortly.”
In fact, Beacon technology, which is used by
retailers to ping promotional messages to customers’ smartphones, is being
incorporated into shopping malls. The beacons are used to ping shoppers
with promotions and discounts and help retailers get a grasp on who’s shopping
and how often, and improve customer experience.
According to a report published by SAP, The Internet of Things
(IoT) will generate US $329 billion of revenue in the retail sector by 2018.
Retail is expected to be one of the biggest sectors benefitting from the rise
of IoT. The future of the retail sector is in Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)
applications i.e. beacons. The app is available free for android and iOS platforms.
“Mobmerry has managed the initial funds
through bootstrap of $0.5 million from the parent company but as we move on, we
would require VC funding as plan to Pan-Bangalore with an investment of $3-4
million over the next two years and besides also expand Pan-India with $20
million investment during the same period,” remarks Prasad.
“We are already in talks with several
major retailers like JC Penny, Macy’s and Target Corporation in India,” adds
Prasad.
For merchants, beacon technology will prove invaluable. Beacons
provide businesses with large amounts of available data such as how long
consumers spend at certain locations, busiest days of the week, and number of
people who walk into the location per day. This information can help merchants
make tweaks and changes based on the data collected to make their business more
efficient.
With 30 odd stores onboarded in Indiranagar, Bangalore, such as
Aviraté, Celio, Guess, Jack & Jones, Kazo, Lee, Vans, Vero Moda, Wrangler
to name a few. Mobmerry is on its way to providing technology and revolutionising
the retail industry in India.
Beacon technology has been provided by Kontakt.io, a Polish
hardware company funded in 2013.Trevor
Longino, Head of Marketing and PR at Kontakt.io said, “As a company, we are constantly
looking for ways in which our beacons can make a difference. We are glad that
with such a large deployment we will be able to bring local businesses into the
Internet of Things era and by that taking the whole local beacon market to the
next level.”
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