An e-commerce initiative that benefits both sellers and buyers- What does the Mall of Asia promise?
Since its inception, the Indian e-commerce market has been on a constant upward growth trajectory, anticipated to reach 200 billion USD by 2026 from 48.5 billion USD in 2018. Much of this growth can be attributed to the ever-increasing smartphone and internet penetration, which has made the overall shopping journey of end consumers convenient and hassle-free than ever.
However, the market has started experiencing a slew of impediments in the last couple of years, mostly in the form of challenges such as product counterfeiting, heavy operational cost incurred to vendors and retailers, delay in deliveries, etc. – killing the fundamental objective of a fair marketplace and also causing damage to the long-standing reputation of brands.
This is exactly the problem that the Digital Mall of Asia, trying to open its e-commerce services to various cities in the continent by January 2020, is looking to solve. Here are what its offerings are-
Gaining more traffic
While a physical store attracts footfall from a 5 km radius, retailers operating on the DMA platform will be enabled to target the entire city with the same outlet. Since only 50 brands shops on each floor will have exclusive rights to sell on a unique platform, each store will be able to get more traffic than earlier. DMA will also help in cutting down the high competition levels as each tower will only have one brand shopper to sell its products and services while also eliminating artificial hyper-competitiveness.
No commissions, only rent
The platform is designed to run on a zero-commission model, enabling retailers to secure space on the platform in their desired city, and only pay a fixed monthly rent for operations, rather than paying heavy commissions to e-commerce players, which usually falls between 5% and 35%. This will create a direct, positive impact on the profitability and revenue earned by retailers.
Affordable and safe shopping journey for end customers
Given that, retailers will be able to sell products at the cheapest price points possible, making the overall shopping journey even more affordable and welcoming for the end customers. The platform will ensure the highest level of safety and security for its users by leveraging tech advances such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). It will also eliminate the issue of phony goods by allowing customers to thoroughly check the product and then making the final payment, only when fully satisfied.
In addition to offering the aforementioned benefits to retailers and end customers, the unique platform will make sure that the customer data remains in the hands of customers, not anyone else – thus taking the overall shopping experience for users to an all-new level.
