Watson: A miracle on the App Store

As a retailer, Watson was ranked second in the App Store's life category and continued to rank for more than two weeks on the line in just four days, and had to admit that it created a miracle in the App Store.

A year later, Watson's app downloads have exceeded 100,000. However, the retailer has not made a penny from the app. In fact, it does not have the ability to buy on app.

"We don't think that app brings a lot of business opportunities, it just allows us to reach different customer base." Said He Zanghui, Watson's information technology director. He said, although not ruled out later through the app profit, but at this stage, the customer's behavior still need a long time to nurture.

According to his understanding, few people will be on Taobao app list, people are more inclined to Taobao on the page list, because the mobile phone operation of the app is too complex, browsing experience is not good, and Watson's sales of health care, beauty products more emphasis on the product itself visual effects and purchase experience. "Since buying a product on app will affect the customer's buying experience, why bother our customers?" "So Watson did not choose to do it," he said. ”

However, Watson has also considered the design of some of the Games purchased on the app, such as consumers snapping up the goods on the app, the day can go to the physical store to buy the goods at the price. However, Watson has always come to its dazzling, renowned for its distinctive commodity characteristics, it attracts customers, relying on only one commodity, which hinders Watson's desire to deliver value to customers, "after all, we do not sell a package like McDonald's, people go to Watson won't say give me a cosmetics." He Zanghui joked.

In his view, for retailers such as Watson, app apps cannot be simply measured by business interests, but should be viewed in its full value.

In his view, the app itself makes up for the inadequacy of traditional marketing tools, so that Watson can communicate with customers more all-round. Prior to the advent of app, his Department of Information technology provided companies with the traditional means of texting, mailing and membership cards to keep in touch with customers and deliver marketing messages. "The traditional way is to push (push) customers, but apps don't give customers the feeling that they are free to browse the content they are interested in," he says. "In this process, the love of Watson's customers from the app to learn about" make themselves more beautiful "all the information, which actually complements the store is currently missing a major function.

In Watson's storefront, the main product is the display, but not in a small storefront, for every consumer to provide beauty care knowledge, and in the app, Watson can do it-consumers can easily access the knowledge of beauty care, Watson also completed its value extension.

In addition, He Zanghui that the app lets Watson know more about its consumers. "App for the retail industry, the biggest value is that it has a distinctive personality, will express the personal real demand." "he said. For example, Watson can learn from the customer in the app to own brand, other brand merchandise browsing record, browsing the merchandise cluster record and so on information, understands the customer real commodity to sue and the preference.

This is hard to do in traditional retail outlets. According to the traditional method, Watson can only learn from the purchase behavior that is the shopping ticket to understand the consumer's buying preferences, but consumers in the store's purchase behavior is often affected by commodity prices, discount promotions and other factors, these are not read the information is very valuable, Watson hopes to use this to purchase goods, the deployment of private brand products, can also be specific to consumers to take more targeted marketing activities.

Today, Watson's app is used by most users as the "latest offer" and "palm Shelf" features. "First look at the store, save time." "Tenkine in the community," said the user with the id "like water." Watson's internal assessment found that the simplicity of the set-up, the lack of text, speed and personalization were the reasons why Watson's app was popular.

However, Watson also faces some challenges in app operations, and the biggest problem is how to extend its value to apps in the future. At present, Watson in the app has completed the display of goods, promotional information and the transfer of beauty knowledge, but its ultimate expectation is that customers from the line to the store, so far there is no effective way to do this.

Another confusion is that there is still a lack of a value system for measuring and tracking apps. Download is a simple number, can not explain too many problems, even the number of active, there is no uniform standards, He Zanghui will be based on the server's busy level to determine the activity of the app.

However, he believes that, in the long run, the mobile internet has a long-term value for the retail industry.