Conversational commerce revolution, redefining how India engages & transacts

Authored By Rimjhim Ray, Founder, HeyoPhone

In a country where over 500 million people are on WhatsApp and engagement among consumers takes place predominantly through calls and messaging apps, new-age digital transformation is reshaping the scene for small and medium businesses (SMBs). This revolution is conversational commerce combination of personalized, real-time communication and AI-enabled tools that are allowing businesses to almost turn every interaction into an opportunity to convert and sell.

Conversation commerce has taken off in markets like India or Brazil which already has a high whatsapp penetration. Whatsapp has been the spearhead driving conversational Commerce, even while other tech giants try to sneak into the party. We have seen how conversational commerce has power over such transformations.

Why conversational commerce matters

In India, online retail reaches fewer than 10% of the seller markets, leaving a large white space to scale. The barrier for entry into ecommerce is high. Building your ecommerce stack is costly and out of reach for most producers or sellers. Large ecommerce or quick commerce giants have high entry barriers - you will need to have a certain brand traction, guarantee minimum order quantity and then too you will be squeezed for margins or hidden in a corner unless you pay high advertising fees. Worse still the ecommerce giants often unleash their private brands on you, wiping away your competitive advantage and forcing you to go into deep discounting.

Conversational commerce can level the playing field for small and medium manufacturers and sellers

AI puts the power back into the hands of the resource-strapped small business. AI can create your catalogues, generate creative campaigns, answer your customer queries, and help you identify your most likely buyers. Your team will not need to spend hours maintaining customer data in clunky CRMs. Combining the power of AI and data, communication apps turn your history of calls and messages into leads and deep customer insights.

Solving last mile delivery

You have solved your tech challenge with conversational Commerce - you even got your first order! ONDC - the government's grand scheme to connect the dots for ecommerce promises to bridge this gap. It actually brings a conversational commerce-platform empowered by applications to be useful in a way that even the smallest vendor can reach the widest audience.

Even when you struggle with taking your business online, your customers already are there. And with every generation this digital divide between tech-savvy customers and businesses still sticking to their antiquated business models will widen. 73% of genZ users prefer shopping online and over 60% do so atleast once per week. In an agile fast-paced world you either pivot or you die. On the bright side, conversation based commerce will make it easier for you to sell or attract bookings online. You just need to have the intent to shift to better customer experiences and higher revenues. As I often say, “Consumer behaviors are changing. In emerging economies like India, call and WhatsApp have become the de facto channels for customer engagement.

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and Adgully.com does not necessarily subscribe to it.