Retail in Asia

In Trends

How to get online shoppers back into malls

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The e-commerce boom in mainland Chinese has propelled a new way of life in which customers can shop for just about anything at their fingertips, but it is an innovation also poses a threat to traditional retail stories.

Jason Chau, 33, a Hong Kong entrepreneur who relocated to Beijing two years ago as an app developer and startup entrepreneur, aims to bring online shoppers back to the high street and rediscover the pleasures of real window shopping.

Yue Guang app

His app “Yue Guang”, or “”Joyful shopping”, uses satellite navigation and Bluetooth technology to track and record users’ shopping habits. The information is shared with retail clients and in return shoppers can collect points from the stores for gifts and discounts.

SEE ALSO: Is online shopping the end of brick-and-mortar?  

Jason Chau chose to start in Beijing instead of Hong Kong because he thought that since mainland China was a much bigger market it would be easier to find someone who was willing to invest and cooperate with us.

Digital loyalty systems

About six months ago the company made the transition to business-to-business servicing – to provide tailor-made digital loyalty systems to their clients.

“We were able to identify a new market opportunity when we found that most shopping malls want to digitalise their customer service systems”, said Jason Chau.

But not every shopping mall owner wants to open a new department and spend half a million yuan developing their own app. So the startup provides a service where they design and operate the WeChat public accounts of shopping malls.

“We can also share with them access to the information of our existing 100,000 Yue Guang users, and help analyse the behaviour patterns of customers.”

Check out the Yue Guang app here.