When I got a job here, I considered myself very lucky. The company makes products that are known in almost every home in India – from soaps, haircare, and personal grooming to home cleaning. It’s a great place to work because it is very well established and has systems in place for everything. Almost 95% of our sales come from partnerships in brick-and-mortar stores, but the online market has been disrupting that for some time now.
We sell online through multiple marketplaces and eCommerce sites, but a few years ago, we decided to set up our own eCommerce site. It wasn’t easy because most of my management is from the physical retail background, and I basically had to push the idea really hard.
One of the driving factors in the decision was the fact that when we sell through other sites, we don’t receive data of customers. In this day and age, we need to be able to communicate on a regular basis, or we’ll lose our market share. It’s not a big concern for us yet as we are still household names, and our customers trust us blindly.
However, with so many digital-first brands entering the market with new and exciting products and branding, I wanted to make sure that our brands don’t face trouble in the future. I could see that the customer data was a big concern, so I emphasized the point to my management when I pitched to start our own live shopping team. Unfortunately, I was only allowed to take one person onboard, and that also, it was only part-time as he also works in the social media team. But I persisted.
Once we got permission, I contacted a few live shopping companies and went through multiple demos until I found one that checked all the boxes I’m looking for. We set up a few trials, signed on an influencer, and finally ran our first live selling show. It failed to draw attention, but the team at the live commerce brand told me to try again, with a more curated list and better promotion. And this time, it worked!
It’s been a year since then, and I’ve gotten permission to build a full-fledged team. Our ROI on the live selling experiment is through the roof, and with more concrete returns than social media. It’s the best thing I’ve done for the company, and for my own career.
