The joy of shopping and how to recapture it online Nimisha Jain
Transcriber: Leslie Gauthier
Reviewer: Joanna Pietrulewicz
Growing up, one of my fondest memories
was of going to a local market
with my mom every month
in the small town in India where we lived.
We would spend the morning
walking through an intricate maze
of small stores and street vendors,
stopping at her favorite spots
where everyone knew her,
discovering what fruits were in season
and what kitchenware was in stock.
She would spend hours
examining things from all angles,
quizzing sellers on their quality
and where they came from.
They would show her
the latest tools and gadgets,
picking the ones
that they knew she would like.
And we always walked back
happy and satisfied,
our arms overflowing
with dozens of shopping bags
having bought so much more
than what we originally intended.
A decade later,
as a college student
in the bustling city of Delhi,
my friends and I would spend
a similar few hours every month
on “Fashion Street,”
a euphemism for the row of small stores
with the latest clothes at great prices.
We would spend hours
rummaging through piles of clothes,
trying on dozens of trinkets,
getting advice from each other
on what looked good
and what was on trend.
We would then combine
everything we had bought
to negotiate a big discount.
Each of us had different roles.
One was great
at putting the look together.
Another one was better
at negotiating the discount.
And a third was always the timekeeper
to make sure that we got back
to school on time.
Shopping is so much more
than what you buy.
It’s a treasure hunt
to discover something new,
a personalized recommendation
from someone you trust.
It’s a negotiation to get that great deal
and a time spent catching up
with friends and family.
It’s social, it’s interactive,
it’s conversational.
Over the last two decades,
I have been researching consumers
in emerging markets around the world,
digging beneath the surface
to truly understand who they are,
how they live
and what they want when they go shopping.
Shopping, like everything else,
has moved online.
Shopping online is great.
It’s convenient –
at the click of a button,
delivered to your doorstep.
It has everything.
It has great prices.
But it’s also static and impersonal.
You sit alone in front
of a computer or a mobile phone
scrolling through hundreds of choices
identified by an algorithm,
delivered by a machine.
When you do have a query,
you interact with another
machine or a bot –
rarely an actual human being.
What puzzles me about this
is when you speak
to a successful salesperson,
they will always tell you
that the secret to closing a sale
is the conversation.
People want to buy from other people.
So why do we forget
this most crucial ingredient
when we shop online?
This impersonal, anonymous experience
is leaving many of us less satisfied.
Returns are at an all-time high,
and we’re left feeling –
did I buy too much?
Did I buy too little?
Does it really look good on me?
Did I even need this?
And for the one billion consumers
who are new to the internet
in emerging markets,
shopping online can be overwhelming.
They are unsure whether
they’ll get what they can see,
unsure whether they can trust the seller.
What if their money
gets lost in cyberspace?
The question is:
can we create authentic, real,
human conversation at scale?
Can we create online marketplaces
that are convenient and abundant
and human?
The good news is that the answer is yes.
Companies in emerging
markets around the world,
in China, India and Southeast Asia,
are doing just this,
using a model that I call
conversational commerce.
It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?
But let me give you a few examples.
First: Meesho,
an Indian company where you can build
a trusted and authentic relationship
with a seller online.
The best part about shopping with my mom
was that the sellers knew who she was
and she knew that she could trust them.
They would scroll through the hundreds
of choices in the store
and pick and make personalized
recommendations just for her,
knowing what she would like
and what would work for her.
It’s hard to imagine such a thing
happening online on that scale,
but that’s exactly what Meesho is doing.
On Meesho, you can shop
over and over and over again,
but instead of interacting
with a stranger or a bot,
you interact with the same person:
a representative of Meesho
who is a real human being
that you interact with via social media.
Over time, she gets to know you better.
She knows your likes,
your dislikes,
what you buy and when you buy it.
And you learn to trust her.
For example, she will message my sister
right before Diwali
with a new range of hand-loomed saris.
She knows my sister loves saris –
I mean, she has two
cupboards full of them –
but she also knows that my sister
always buys a sari right before Diwali
for the Indian festive season.
And she also knows
the kind of saris she would like.
So instead of sending her
hundreds of choices,
she picks and chooses
the colors and styles
that she knows my sister would like.
And then she answers
her relentless questions.
How does the silk feel?
How does the fabric fall?
Will this color look nice on me?
And so many more.
It truly is a hybrid model,
combining the convenience
and scale of a large company
with the trusted personal relationship
that you would expect
from the shop around the corner.
My next example is LazLive.
On LazLive in Thailand,
you can watch real sellers
describing products to you
via a live video stream.
Now, I love handbags.
And when I am in a store,
I like to examine a handbag
from all angles before I buy it.
I need to feel the texture on my skin,
hang it on my shoulder
and see how it looks,
see how long the strap is,
open it up and look at the pockets inside
to make sure that there is enough space
for all the millions of things
I need to put into my handbag.
But when I try and buy a handbag online,
I just see a few pictures:
the basic shape and color and size.
But that’s not enough, is it?
To solve this problem,
LazLive has developed a platform
where actual sellers –
real people can share
information about clothes,
handbags, gadgets,
cosmetics –
describing the products to you,
showing you what they are
from the outside and the inside,
explaining what they like
and what they don’t like.
You can ask them questions
and get instant responses
so that you are much more comfortable
with what you buy before you buy it.
Over time,
you can watch more videos
from the same seller
and they start to feel more like a friend
than a faceless machine.
And they help you understand
what you’re going to buy,
stay abreast of the latest trends
and often discover things
that you didn’t even know existed.
And finally, my favorite example:
Pinduoduo,
one of the fastest-growing
Chinese platforms,
where you can actually shop
with your friends online.
You remember the fun I had
shopping with my friends
on Fashion Street,
rummaging through stores,
finding that perfect sandal,
negotiating that great deal?
Well, on Pinduoduo,
you can do just that.
It’s lonely to shop online,
and I miss hanging out with my friends.
But on Pinduoduo,
when I find a product,
I can either buy it myself
at the regular price
or I can share it with my friends
via social media,
discuss it with them,
get their advice,
and if we all choose to buy it together,
we get a great deal.
These deals last only for a short time,
just like in the real world.
And there are lotteries
and games and flash sales
to keep all the excitement going.
It’s a fascinating model,
really helping you rediscover
the joy and connection
of shopping with your friends
and family in the bazaars of yore.
What’s important to note
is that these are not stray experiments.
In markets like China, India
and Southeast Asia,
over 500 million consumers
engage in conversational commerce,
and these models are growing much faster
than the traditional, more static
e-commerce platforms.
Conversational commerce emerged
to solve the needs
of first-time online shoppers,
but my research shows
that it is equally compelling
for more experienced shoppers,
not just in emerging markets
but around the world.
In fact, when we tested
conversational commerce
with consumers in the US,
they found it more compelling
for the same reasons as consumers in Asia.
Consumers who engage
in conversational commerce
spend 40 percent more
with higher satisfaction
and lower returns.
I strongly believe
that in the not-so-distant future,
conversational commerce
will become the norm,
revolutionizing shopping around the world,
and traditional e-commerce platforms
like Amazon will need to adapt
or risk becoming irrelevant.
For brands,
this is a crucial next step
and an unprecedented opportunity,
moving on from mass marketing
in the 20th century
and analytics-based hyperpersonalization
in the last two decades,
to building a truly authentic
and deep personal connection
with their consumers.
And for us shoppers,
it brings back the magic,
making online shopping
finally feel human again.
Thank you.