Transform crisis into opportunities with 020 strategies
Under the threat from coronavirus pandemic, local catering and retail industries have entered into a severe winter. But when danger threatens, opportunity knocks. How can SMEs transform their business to open up a way out and overcome the disadvantages?
Some restaurants have added take-away services to stabilize the source of customers. The business of online food delivery platforms is also growing, and even local travel booking platforms and logistics platforms have jointly launched cross-district food delivery services, hoping to get a share of the pie. In the retail industry, the epidemic has accelerated consumers’ shopping habits from offline to online. Some online shopping platforms have recorded explosive growth in the past quarter, and absorbing new customers through the Internet.
O2O expands the market to overcome difficulties
The transformation of the catering, retail, and service industries is not a one-sided abandonment of traditional brick-and-mortar stores. On the other hand, merchants who can stand firm during the coronavirus pandemic tend to adopt O2O (Online-to-Offline) marketing strategy. The flexibility of online stores can make up for the shortcomings of physical stores.
The retail industry has gradually evolved from being “Product-centric” in the past to being “Consumer-centric”, focusing on shopping and user experience. Therefore, multi-channel business platforms partner with membership systems to launch O2O solutions, allowing merchants to learn customer preferences from data, thus introduce marketing strategies more accurately to attract and retain customers.
The advantage of O2O is that the brand identity established through physical store can be extended to the mobile phone via membership app. In the form of “PUSH TO BUY” through mobile phone, push message will be sent to customers at a preset time. Customers can order new products by one-click online shopping, which can attract and retain customers. Customers only need to register as a member to earn points and get discounts. Solution providers can establish online stores for merchants to manage and collect customer data, so as to send tailor-made promotional messages, monitor physical stores and their sales performance, thus formulate better sales strategies for the company.
Simple marketing tool with noIT expertise required
In the past, physical stores only focused on store sales. After the outbreak of coronavirus, online stores and membership-based mobile apps have become a key to overcome difficulties. In addition, email promotion program can also help SMEs to create their own promotional email at low cost. The program provides a variety of templates to choose from. It does not require IT or design expertise. It is simple and practical, allowing SMEs to maintain close contact with customers.
In order to cater the different business needs of SMEs, HKT provides various online shop creation tools for merchants. You can set up corporate web pages through online shop creation tools or web design software without programming knowledge. Online store solution service providers also offer one-stop services to SMEs, including online store building, mobile back-end management, payment system, membership management, event release and management, data analysis reports, social media promotion, etc.
Be prepared to maintain operational efficiency
During the coronavirus pandemic, private companies prefer arranging group shifts instead of working from home. In order to cope with sudden challenges and ensure seamless collaboration between employees in office and working at home, SMEs need to adopt flexible working models and equipped with suitable tools to get ready for work-from-home at any time.
bizMART by HKT is a one-stop online shopping platform that provides different brands of laptops, software and solutions, from website design, online shop building software to membership systems. With comprehensive product range and information in bizMART, SMEs can order IT tools for office use immediately. HKT Office-On-The-Go home office solution allows employees to use mobile apps to display the office number when receiving or making calls on their mobile phones anytime, anywhere, so as not to miss important calls from customers. In addition, office communication management can also be seamlessly moved to employees’ personal mobile phone platforms, and office calls can be managed remotely through its unified platform.
HKT Tips
Recently, most people in Hong Kong have reduced their outings and social contacts to prevent from infection. It is believed that merchants would also like to purchase the required software, hardware and application solutions in a one-stop manner, without having to contact different suppliers. bizMART responds to this market demand, provides services and products ranging from commercial broadband services, online store solutions, Office 365, cloud storage and backup services, email services, online store logistics solutions, computer products, and wireless portable conference call speakerphone system that have recently become popular for video/audio conferencing.
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