#CrackingTheClickonomics: Experiences and advice from brand leaders

In the ever-evolving realm of digital commerce, the path to success is both intricate and dynamic. To navigate this landscape effectively, one can draw invaluable insights from those who have not only trodden the path but have also excelled in it.

At an exclusive session on the ‘Digital Commerce Megaverse’ at the Internet Commerce Summit (ICS) MENA 2024 we brought together distinguished brand leaders who have mastered the art of managing e-commerce businesses to achieve exponential growth to discuss the dynamics of doing business in this new era. The conversation was stirred by:

• Karl Nader – Partner & Managing Director, AlixPartners
• Ronny Froehlich, Co-Founder, GoldenScent
• Halima Jumani, Chief Executive Officer, Kibsons E-commerce
• Saeed Alsuwaidi, Chief Executive Officer, Memoire Jewellery
• Mahmoud Elfeky, Associate Vice President Retail – The Middle East, LENSKART
• Rajat Asthana, Chief Operating Officer, EROS Group
• Mukta Purain, Founder, MissPalettable
• Deborah Henning, Founder & Creative Director, Deborah Henning
• Anuvrat Gaurav, Regional Country Director, SellAnyCar.com
• Lin Chong Ran, Solution Head of E-commerce and Retail, HUAWEI CLOUD
• Leena Khalil, Chief Executive Officer, Mumzworld
• Vikram Manjeshwar, Chief Executive Officer of E-commerce platforms, Ghassan Aboud Group
• Sanele Simmons II, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Mall For Women

Here’s a brief about the key aspects of the discussion.

Leena Khalil, CEO, Mumzworld opened the discussion by talking about the changing customer journeys and how it is impacting business on a daily basis. It is important to track the evolution of the market in terms of customer expectations, also because at present the dynamics of the market is changing alongside the rising competition.

Halima Jumani, CEO, Kibsons E-commerce added that it is always a “see-saw ride.” On one side the retail ecosystem must adjust with inflation, economic conditions and other such macro ideals. On the other hand, they have to balance the customer expectations and not allow the cost to add on to their cart value. So, it is a constant trial and error to keep the balance going.

Vikram Manjeshwar, CEO of e-commerce platforms, Ghassan Aboud Group touched upon the factor of reliability and how the company is constantly trying new strategies to make the customer facing approaches more accessible. He assured that breaking their entire customer base into smaller pockets and then serving these smaller zones through separate teams helps create personalised appeal.

Mukta Purain, Founder, MissPalettable talked about the factor of affordability and highlighted that the brand works on the concept of “making clean beauty accessible.” To do this, they are always working towards curating the right mix of products and that helps build credibility and customer connect.

While the balancing act and building the right forward-looking approach is fine, Deborah Henning, Founder & Creative Director, Deborah Henning mentioned that one key aspects for an entrepreneur who is also a creator is to balance the creation and their passion with the practicalities and commercial viability. It is important to strike a balance and create something that the market will respond to, and here the role of data for customer understanding comes to the forefront.

Saeed Alsuwaidi, CEO, Memoire Jewellery pointed out the challenges for the jewellery industry and how it is not an easy task to sell jewellery online that requires a lot of special techniques to make it viable for the customer. He mentioned how creating a designer-led approach helped them differentiate and create the right product catalogue for the customer over the years.

Coming from the accessories category, Mahmoud Elfeky, Associate Vice President Retail – The Middle East, LENSKART too mentioned that technology plays a big role in making processes customer-centric and today Lenskart is employing the most advanced techniques like augmented reality to help customers visualise styles they are investing in before they actually buy. Personalisation piggybacking on the potential of technology helps brands to create a differentiated approach and a product proposition that sets them apart from their competition.

Ronny Froehlich, Co-Founder, Golden Scent pointed out to a few metrics that they always consider and compare when choosing the right brands for their online platform. Operating with more than 20,000 SKUs requires them to always count in the conversion rates for brands to know what sells and what doesn’t. While through the right campaigns and processes the brand promises to give prominence and visibility to the entire catalogue, it is equally important to weigh in customer satisfaction to understand what to put under the spotlight as compared to the rest.

Rajat Asthana, COO, EROS Group highlighted the growing power of e-commerce and mentioned that the online business for the electronics industry stands at 18% of the total retail market share today in the Middle East as compared to 36% globally. Even though the pace of growth for electronics will not skyrocket online, given how strong the region is in terms of its brick-and mortar retail arena, the idea of digital will always coexist and technology will help connect the dots between the two worlds.

Anuvrat Gaurav, Regional Country Director, SellAnyCar.com underlined the trust factor in his conversation and mentioned that they simplify the process of selling used cars through the idea of trust and over the years they have been able to hold on to customer expectations owing to delivering meticulously to keep up with the trust. This is what has today brought down the concept of selling cars into a under 30-minutes proposition as compared to before.

Sanele Simmons II, Co-Founder & CEO, Mall For Women explained that there is no one size fits all strategy when selling online. What starts with customer understanding diversifies gets more exhaustive with channel diversification. This is where a good technology framework helps to build the right approach. Moreover, it is also necessary to leverage social media platforms for active customer listening and understanding. This helps to sharpen the marketing tools and make approaches more customer ready.

Lin Chong Ran, Solution Head of E-commerce and Retail, HUAWEI CLOUD summed up the challenges and thoughts of the retail leaders by highlighting that in order to successfully do business online, one needs the right partners and technology support and with data and privacy factors becoming a challenge everyday it is important to get onboard the right team who understands government regulations and helps build the right approach towards customer understanding riding on data.