RETAIL TECHNOLOGY
Connecting
online shoppers
with offline stores
In the era of the digital revolution where bricks-and-
mortar shopping is affected by e-commerce and new
purchase habits from millennials and Generation X.
Bruno Zysman, founder and CEO, GoToMalls.com,
shares with Muneerah Bee on how the platform is
bringing shoppers back to malls and stores.
T
he retail industry is constantly
reinventing itself to stay
competitive to drive customers
to their stores. One way to
achieve this is to focus on providing
customer experience and timely
information through a convenient
channel. Developed by Singapore-based
tech firm Dominopos and founded in
July 2016, online-to-offline (O2O)
platform GoToMalls aims to do that by
connecting online shoppers with offline
malls’ stores.
Its geo-located and profile-based
search engine of malls and stores helps
the retail industry to stay competitive
and to bring shoppers back to their
stores, according to Bruno Zysman,
founder and CEO, GoToMalls.com. “In
addition to being a nationwide directory
for malls, stores, events and deals,
GoToMalls offers features such as rating
and review, click-and-collect redemption
for deals, notifications for exclusive
credit cards discounts, as well as a
chatbot to help shoppers find products at
the nearest store instantly,” he explained.
The GoToMalls blog also provides
shoppers with lifestyle articles about the
latest trends.
The platform made its first foray
into Indonesia and recently entered
the Singapore market. “As at end of
last year, GoToMalls had 410 malls,
28,000 stores and 28 million visitors.
We listed 15,000 promotions and 5,200
events, seen 40 million times,” Zysman
shared. He added that shoe retailer
Everbest Group has been working closely
with GoToMalls for almost two years.
“We are assisting them to grow their
sales, especially in emerging cities in
Indonesia through targeting the right
online audience to shop at their offline
stores. Thousands of sales were recorded,
specifically in cities such as Balikpapan
and Manado, since Everbest started
using GoToMalls’ digital coupon.”
The app currently lists 115 malls
and 9,000 stores in Singapore. Zysman
noted that retail in the city-state is also
going through a digital transformation.
“By deploying GoToMalls in Singapore,
we expect to help the retail industry
“By deploying GoToMalls in Singapore,
we expect to help the retail
industry get shoppers back
to their shelves and offer
them our stunning features.”
— Bruno Zysman,
Founder and CEO, GoToMalls.com
GoToMalls also carries out in-mall branding
placements to increase brand awareness in
selected malls.
get shoppers back to their shelves and
offer them our stunning features which
have been successful in Indonesia while
promising new features enh anced by
technology such as chatbot, artificial
intelligence (AI) and virtual reality
(VR) which will enlarge the sales scope
approach and add new user experiences
in the shopping journey.”
Sharing his thoughts on future
technology innovations for retail and
the customer experience in South-east
Asia, Zysman opined that the region is
definitely innovating in the retail space.
“There are a lot of start-ups coming up
with new ideas, but implementations
rarely go over the first trials of few
stores because of the difficulties to
scale up. Beside cashless payment and
other fintech innovation, which reduce
the checkout time and give a fast and
convenient way for shoppers to pay,
other innovations such as shopper’s face
recognition, augmented reality (AR)
and AI are improving the in-store user’s
experience.”
He added that the opening of
Alibaba bricks-and-mortar shopping
mall in Hangzhou, China shows how
the next generation of omni-channel
retailing transformation could soon drive
the South-east Asian retail industry to a
more competitive and dynamic space. ra
Retail Asia August 2018
23