India Retail e-Marketing Study 2014

Highlights

1. Although Customer Acquisition still remains the primary marketing goal for retail marketers this year as was last year, Customer Retention sees a huge drop of 13% from 22% to 9% this year. Brand Awareness, on the other hand, has grown in importance as a marketing agenda.
2. A massive 29% of our respondents are thinking ahead and are creating online presence with their existing offline presence. 14% of retailers know that how the ‘look and feelʼ concept is prevalent when it comes to retail and therefore they are also stepping into brick and mortar store space.
3. Expansion plans for retailers are pretty much the same in 2014 as they were last year. 46% of our respondents want to increase their offline presence and 33% aiming to expand in the online domain.
4. Retail marketers today are focusing on Business Expansion/Brand Franchising and New Product Lines/Creating a private label or sub-brand the most amongst all the parameters like last year as well, with a slight increase in more of them doing so. But the biggest change comes in Business model transformation with 29% voting for it as compared to only 11% last year.
5. The reliance on heavy usage of technology for marketing has only increased. A significant 12% more voting to do so. But retail marketers who have been using only some technology also see a major drop, with only 34% opting for this option as compared to 44% last year.
6. Marketers who have been using offline till last year are changing trends and opting more for online channels. Whereas 46% wanted to do more offline last year, only 30% said they are doing so this time. Also, marketers opting for only online have increased from 3% to 8% this year.
7. Marketers choosing email channel to be a part of their marketing plans sees a rise and more than half of them at 53% said they favour it. But those considering it to be the core marketing function are now less in number from 19% last year to 14% this year.
8. 67% respondents said that mobile devices are important for their marketing plans. 21% said that they use it, however it’s not focused and 12% havenʼt yet updated their marketing activities according to mobile platform.
9. Shopping Cart Abandonment is an important issue for all retailers still only 11% of the retailers have implemented the Cart Abandonment Program, while 57% of the retailers donʼt have any such program and 16% of the retailers said that they plan to use this in the near future.