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Pulkit Ahuja, CEO & Founder at Proxgy has created a visual E-commerce platform for retailers. It is important for the IT MSMEs to make use of various digitising techs. Pulkit talks about his work in this interaction.
What is the role of IoT, AI and NLP to provide a whole new business experience?
Pulkit - Retail commerce has always been a game of great service. customers have favoured retailers that stock products as per the taste of their patrons, know their patrons’ likes & dislikes, listen to & understand their requirements and give them full attention. Thus, in earlier days, it took years of experience for good salespeople to hone their skills and were in great demand.
Today, new technologies like AI, Analytics et al are enabling an unparalleled experience for all shoppers. From the moment a shopper steps into the retail space, where a face detection camera using IoT & AI can alert the sales person about the incoming customer (along with historical profile), to recommending products based on pattern analysis to recording customer interaction back into the database (using NLP) for future updates, a great shopping experience is being democratized for all customers.
This relentless technological advancement that has been witnessed across other industries as well has made erstwhile manual processes efficient, simple and seamless. With the dawn of new-age digital innovations such as IoT, AI, AR, VR, Data Analytics, and NLP, the B2C E-commerce space is set for a revolutionary transformation. As a next gen visual commerce startup, Proxgy is providing a veritable platform for tomorrow by redefining the E-commerce experience for customers around the country. Proxgy’s experiential discovery platform offers assisted commerce capabilities to users to connect and access any physical place, destination, store, showroom, and property around them or halfway across the world in a live and interactive way.
Proxgy assigns users human proxies on demand at any place of their need, these proxy could be showroom sales executives, travel agents, real estate agents, sellers, gig workers or anyone with subject matter expertise. This is empowering users to conduct a variety of functions like shopping, virtual travel, entertainment, etc in a streamlined and hassle-free manner. By using a network of on-site proprietary technology along with human interactions to give on-demand, immersive real-time experience through a user-friendly application on your device, Proxgy is unraveling the next frontier in the B2C E-commerce vista.
What is the role of technology in resolving mundane human tasks?
Pulkit - Technology can play a very important role in freeing up humankind for higher order activities that provide intellectual & creative fulfilment. Today the advancements in robotics & artificial intelligence can automate almost all mundane tasks, but this should be done with restraint. In present circumstances, we do not enough higher order tasks for all hands on the planet. We should first aim for gainful employment for the maximum number of people and focus on automating activities that present safety & security challenges. Then we should focus on such activities that prevent deterioration of our environment, like remote assistance that prevents unnecessary travels and thus saves on greenhouse gas emissions.
Needless to say, technology has ostensibly transformed mundane human tasks by injecting a fresh lease of innovation, efficacy, and value-creation. With the retail industry embracing innovation like never before, customers nowadays wish to be educated, entertained, and engaged during their shopping experience. By blending the best of IoT, AI, and Data Analytics with AR and VR, new-age pioneers like Proxgy have successfully married e-commerce and visual commerce while adding a layer of personalisation to initiate the next level of shopping.
With customers using shopping as a retail therapy that can relax and comfort their senses, adoption of sensorial technologies that can enhance the overall user experience becomes paramount. For users, Proxgy is an amalgamation of Zoom call, Yellow Pages, and Uber functionalities that enables them to discover, connect, communicate, and transact with any seller, agent, or gig worker directly on-demand. For sellers, Proxgy provides a host of lead generation and live selling abilities, which permits them to cater to virtual footfall by selling from any location in the world.
What's the significance of visual commerce in coming years?
Pulkit - The online cataloguing services like Amazon, Flipkart et al can go to a limited extent. These services are good when the merchandise is generic. When it comes to exploring the product with respect to specific features, compatibility or alternatives, the crowd sourced Q&As fall short of reliability & comprehensive information. This is the basic reason why such platforms do a good job of selling things like books, grocery etc but fall short for items like furniture, fashion & autos. The long tail categories need a carefully crafted sales process. This gap can be digitised only by a technology that supports immersive experience and live interactions, something like Proxgy.
Visual commerce is evidently the next summit in the retail industry to which all stakeholders must ascend. With customers now having the opportunity to actually imagine the product they want to buy with visual commerce, the overall experience becomes more personalized and clearer. The novel visualization and live connect functions further help in delivering a superior, satisfying browsing and shopping experience to customers which is extremely valuable for a brand, especially in the new normal. Visual commerce allows customers unbridled access to a richer, more therapeutic shopping experience by actually showcasing the product before them that they seek to procure in real-time.
Therefore, numerous companies are seizing the opportunity to jump onto the visual commerce bandwagon and communicate more effectively with passionate customers and avail the benefits of this once-in-a-lifetime prospect i.e. optimizing visual commerce to influence buying decisions. According to experts, Visual commerce would pave the way for a more resourceful, efficient, and cost-effective marketing strategy in the coming years. Thus, it’s no surprise then that visual commerce has gained such a significant traction in the industry due to its innovative concept and enormous potential to usher a profound change in the way consumers shop for goods. At the same time, it has also managed to successfully pique the attention of high-end brands while positioning a stronghold on consumers.
What are the challenges in expanding a visual commerce platform?
Pulkit - The biggest challenge in expanding the reach of visual commerce platforms is data bandwidth. By design, video format is taxing on the bandwidth. While much of India may have internet access, less than a quarter have speeds good enough to support visual commerce. The next challenge is a reliable visual commerce service at present. Proxgy is addressing this challenge by creating an ecosystem of reliable Proxgies at key locations that engage with shoppers on demand and facilitate the high value-high touch sales on the fly.
How can you convince conventional resellers to come onboard a visual commerce platform?
Pulkit - In the ongoing waves of digitisation and E-commerce, a lot of conventional retailers are missing out to the aggregators and marketplaces. Their customers are moving online for convenience & safety. Even though the internet is full of horrifying stories of shoppers getting ripped off by fake products and shoddy customer service, they do not have many options since their reliable local sellers lack the financial resources / motivation to go online. They are comprehensively convinced about moving to visual commerce once they are introduced to Proxgy. This powerful platform allows them to serve their clients remotely, while still maintaining the same level of great customer experience & reliable service. All of this with zero financial load.