In this new series with speakers at Ragtrader Live 2019, CIO Shane Lenton discusses one of many forward-thinking digital strategies at Cue. To hear more ways it is dominating the game, grab your tickets to Ragtrader Live here.
China is a powerful market for retailers. How is Cue moving into this space?
We’ve created a broad unified commerce strategy across a variety of channels to connect us with local and international Chinese consumers.
Our key communication channels include social media, payment platforms, our localised Chinese website and email marketing. Within these platforms, we share targeted, localised communications to create a convenient experience for every user.
We also use Key Opinion Leaders (KOL’s) to create organic content for our Chinese audience. We have also created a targeted segmentation for our Chinese consumers on our CRM platform to ensure we deliver relevant and exciting communications to this audience.
What mobile payment options do you offer?
Cue offers Chinese consumers a variety of payment options including WeChat Pay and Alipay. Each of these options are available across every store in Australia and our localised Chinese website.
What response have you seen to this?
Since launching Alipay and WeChat Pay we have seen a steady increase in usage, not only in locations that have a high volume of Chinese tourists, students and expats but across all locations.
Not only have we seen an increase in the volume of transactions, the transaction value is also higher than other payment types.
We have seen an amazing response when we offer incentives such as coupons and other discounts.
As an example, when we recently ran a promotion via the Alipay app we had over 24,000 coupons downloaded and many of these potential customers who were targeted via the app chose to download the coupons prior to travelling to Australia.
What opportunities do you see with Chinese consumers?
China’s large population, both domestically and via cross border, is an amazing opportunity for us. Not only because Chinese tourists are the largest volume of international visitors to Australia each year, they also have a strong interest of international brands.
With a focus on our design, fabric and manufacturing quality, as well as the Australian made factor, we believe we are well placed to appeal to Chinese consumers.
Whilst there is an opportunity for it to be very lucrative, it is a very competitive environment and we are taking a measured approach in our strategy.
There are lots of challenges including high cost of acquisition, operating costs, sizing and seasonality to name a few. However, there are also low risk and cost effective options to target potential customers, such as offering preferred payment options, as well as utilising social media, KOL partnerships, marketplaces and e-commerce platforms.
We have put a focus on providing the best possible shopping experience both online and instore.
Our initiatives include the addition of size 4 across our range, offering preferred payment options and where possible localising our communication.
What are your key performing brands/categories with your Chinese customers?
We have seen success across our brands with Chinese customers and dresses are the top performing category, this corresponds with established Cue customers top performers.