I started my career as a fashion designer before opting out to be a pro blogger. The initial periods of my designing career had many roadblocks, I create beautiful saris but connecting with the right customer was a bigger challenge. Later, I came to know even for customers hyper local discovery was not easy in big cities with many chaotic layers and vastness. What if there is an app that connects a potential buyer with local retailers. I have a gift coupon I can redeem from a chain of store. I keep a tab daily on newspapers or when I pass by one of their stores to see if any festive discount sales happening so that I can redeem it. What if there is an app that buzzes me off the festive discounts when I pass by the store locality. My wife liked this particular dress from Allen Solley but unfortunately her desired size was not available in that store. What if I could add the product to the wishlist and an app alerts me if it is available in any store nearby me. These and many more such instance is what Mobmerry wants to ease out. Mobmerry, a new hyper local discovery wants to connect such dots, make hyper local discovery easier and bring the local retail stores on the digital platform.Even restaurants can buzz out their new menu, food festivals etc when a foodie passes by. Based out of Bangalore, Interaction One, the startup behind the Mobmerry says, with footfalls nosediving in brick and motor stores, the convergence of digital with traditional retail format could help in not just bring in customers but also increase the conversion rates of sales as it targets the users who are more likely to buy based on their profile, previous buy patterns, wishlists and other parameters. https://youtu.be/53IjA7dNUvc Interaction One is currently testing out and fine tuning the app at Indira nagar, Bangalore, a urban shopping hub dotted with big brand stores, boutique designer studios, local retailers and a food-and-beverage hub. They already have some big brands associated like Aviraté, Celio, Guess, Jack & Jones, Kazo, Lee, Vans, Vero Moda, Wrangler etc. Mobmerry has also partnered with Virtuous Retail for its , VR Bengaluru on Whitefield main road. Mobmerry will deploy over 300 Beacons across the centre to enhance shopping experiences for VR Bengaluru’s patrons. Mobmerry supplies for free the beacons to the retailers. The beacons are developed by Kontakt.io, a Poland based company. Beacon is a small match box sized square device which the retailers would be placing in their stores and the beacons will alert out the the Mobmerry app users if there is an interesting deal that suits their profile and shopping pattern. Krishna Prasad, CEO and Co-founder, Interaction One says,
“Retailers can’t wait for customers to come to them. Consumer shopping habits have changed; you have to take your product to them. Stores and brands that deliver easy integrated ways between digital and physical are the ones that are going to succeed, this means having technology that has these tools and solutions. Mobmerry delivers the power of smart discovery of products using a taste and preferences algorithm for consumers and a platform for retailers to take the physical world to these connected consumers via Beacons (IOT).”Mobmerry plans to setup 1000 beacons in their three months first trial period and it would be interesting to see how the adoption rate would be and how the retailers lap it up. After the trial period, they plan to expand to other areas of Bangalore and then slowly to Mumbai, NCR and later spread out to other cities in India. So if you are around Indiranagar, Bangalore download the Mobmerry app and see if it changes your shopping experience.]]>