Omnichat, a pioneer of omnichannel chat commerce platforms in Apac, recently held the Future Commerce Summit: AI and Retail Tech.
During the event, global social media giant Meta, Hong Kong’s leading digital services operator 3 Hong Kong, 24-hour e-commerce platform Ztore and prominent beauty product retailing group Sa Sa explored the latest AI and retail technology trends in 2023. The summit also discussed how businesses can use WhatsApp conversational marketing to generate higher revenue.
Omnichat, a WhatsApp Business Solution Provider for Meta, unveiled its latest features including WhatsApp Catalog, Chat-to-Order and In-chat Payment. Alan Chan, founder and CEO of Omnichat, said: “Through importing the product catalogue into WhatsApp, merchants can feasibly build a personalised e-store where customers can use the Chat-to-Order function to place orders, select pickup locations as well as finish the in-chat payment. The one-stop shopping journey not only streamlines the customer’s purchasing process but also boosts instant revenue for merchants. With the integration of ChatGPT technology, Omni AI transforms into a digital assistant, enabling marketing or sales representatives to generate promotional messages with one click, which is efficient and convenient.”
Alvita Szeto, business director for Greater China of Meta, added: “More than 175 million messages are sent to business each day. In comparison to other communication platforms, over 60 per cent of Hong Kong people prioritise WhatsApp when contacting merchants, according to statistics from Kantar. By leveraging different advertising platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and ads that Click-to-WhatsApp – in tandem with incorporating elements like images, videos, and call-to-action prompts – merchants have the capability to generate increased levels of traffic and magnify the conversion rate. Additionally, WhatsApp Business Solution Provider can offer more metrics for businesses to evaluate the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns, leading to a higher return on investment.”
3 Hong Kong has leveraged WhatsApp and Omnichat to merge its physical store and online business, enabling an easy setup of marketing campaigns as well as sales conversion tracking. With the aim of achieving omnichannel integrations, they connect the traffic of online and offline platforms through coupon and game modules on WhatsApp. Harvey Wong, senior vice president of consumer sales of Hutchison Telecommunications (Hong Kong) stated: “WhatsApp allows us to bring in the highest returns with minimal resources. After using Omnichat, our conversion rate has more than doubled. We can easily collect data from each marketing campaign, analyse, optimise, and apply it to future promotions with enhanced effectiveness.”
Ztore and Neigbuy are e-commerce platforms that offer more than 10,000 products. Jodie Chan, customer service manager at Ztore, shared the effectiveness of using Omnichat: “In the past three months, we have received over 42,000 customer inquiries, more than 98 per cent of which came from WhatsApp. The automated chatbot of Omnichat has helped us handle one-quarter of these inquiries. This also reduces the workload for the after-sales customer service teams of the merchants that sell products on our platforms. Moreover, Ztore uses WhatsApp to send broadcast messages to customers with promotional offers. Customers can instantly click to purchase within the message, optimising the overall shopping experience and brand interaction. Within just two hours, we have already witnessed an increase in sales.”
Sa Sa takes a proactive approach to seamlessly integrating its offline and online operations, aiming to provide customers with a personalised shopping experience. Hong Li, director of e-commerce at Sa Sa adds: “Omnichannel should not only be applied at the social media level. We shall prioritise efforts to encompass both digital and physical touchpoints and expand the retail service scenarios to every channel. Improving operational efficiency throughout the customer lifecycle is also key.”
Spanning WhatsApp Business Platform, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram, Omnichat will continue to strive to empower merchants in achieving seamless online and offline inter-communications, boosting conversion rates and business performance.
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