Why are Time, Place and Occasion the 3 New Pillars for Total Product Offering in Online to Offline Commerce?

It’s all about context (museums provide perspectives to context to the past as well as the future and so I used the image of the museum for this post) today when consumers are inundated with a myriad of products and services, when merchants struggle to match their product offerings to the tastes and preferences of consumers.

With mobile technologies, our daily lifestyles are both helped by and yet at times crippled by the lack of recommendations for products which are relevant at certain times of the day or week, around certain places we are located or preparing for certain special occasions like birthdays or end of year get-together with family and friends. Search on PC and Mobile helps with the first layer guide and then we, as consumers have to sieve through the second layer of pages of content from wikis, blog sites or lifestyle guides. Alternatively, we could draw inspirations from either mobile food and lifestyle apps or from our circle of friends from our Facebook or Instagram communities. Practically though, when it comes down to the decision point, you may end up asking your spouse or close friends (WOM, word-of-mouth) due to the urgency of the moment or lack of relevancy in the content you read to your context, tastes and preferences.

To get to the context for today’s mobile lifestyle consumers, merchants have to match the time, place and occasion parameters of the consumers with product offerings relevant to consumers’ tastes and preferences. And this will be an iterative testing, gathering and learning process.

With regards to time, merchants could think about the time of the day (breakfast, lunch, tea-time, dinner, supper?) or time in the week (weekdays, weekends?) or time in the year (school time, family holiday time?) and customize their product offerings in their communications to the right target segments.

With regards to place, merchants could think about the differences between customizing and offering their products in the central business districts, offices, industrial parks vis-à-vis the suburban residential neighbourhoods.

With regards to occasion, merchants could think about the nuances in product offerings to different cultures, festivals, or special moments for families and friends.

Again these are nothing new. Many merchants are trying to reach out to consumers from their brick and mortar stores or online presence and both traditional and digital marketing. However to capture today’s time-starved consumers’ mindshare, a merchant’s total product experience will need to go from today’s noisy practices of mass-communicating their product offerings and drive to more effective and targeted capture of consumers’ mindshare, by appealing to their lifestyle daily habits through testing constantly and providing hybrid curation of content and recommendations which strikes a chord with the consumers’ context in time, place, occasion.

What are your perspectives in the use of time, place and occasion to target today's and tomorrow's consumers?

Talk more in 2015. Happy new year!

Nelson Wee sending greetings from Singapore

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Photo credit: h.koppdelaney / Foter / CC BY-ND

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Top 5 Reasons why Grab Easy Uber Hailo Taxi bookings are picking up in Singapore

Online Cab Aggregators around the World - Top 30 Players from Valoriser Consultants

Take a look at the above slideshare for the top 30 online cab aggregators around the world according to Valoriser Consultants, online mobile taxi booking apps have taken the world by storm by solving a basic demand and supply problem between passengers and taxis. Indeed, of late, since late last year (2013), regional and global 3rd party taxi booking mobile O2O apps (GrabTaxi, EasyTaxi, UberTaxi and soon Hailo) have been jostling amongst the incumbent taxi providers' booking services (e.g. ComfortDelgro, SMRT) and been the rage in the Singapore taxi booking scene. It's not that taxi booking through phone calls to the call centres of the incumbent taxi service providers or via their respective apps have not been available. It's just that the supply, availability and fulfilment of booking jobs have not met with the growing demand.

Here are my view of the 5 reasons why Grab Easy Uber Hailo Taxis are trending in the busy and sleepless Singapore city.

1. Singapore is a regional hub in Southeast Asia

• Growing of people including PMETs who need to get quickly from point A to point B
• Singapore is among the top 3 cities in the world with the least hours of sleep (not really something to be proud of ... but really lots of things are going on around here and constantly in minds of people living here)

2. Viable Market with an active daily 1,000,000 taxi riderships base

• Anecdotally about 15% are through bookings today.
• Singapore consumers are used to mobile commerce - more than 15% of ecommerce (think Groupon like daily deals) are purchased via the mobile smartphones with credit card payment.

3. Inconvenient payment - non-acceptance of Visa credit cards

• With the option of paying taxi fares via Visa credit card on ComfortDelgro and TransCab taxis being withdrawn in July 2013 after these two largest taxi operators refused to waive an administrative fee imposed on passengers, so entered EasyTaxi and UberTaxi with the consumer proposition offering frictionless payment.

4. Underserved taxi booking

• Current taxi service providers (ComfortDelgro, SMRT and so on) have been unable to fulfill all their daily incoming bookings and demand due to a number of reasons - changing shift windows, varying strategies, convenience and maximising yield, costs etc.

5. Disgruntled supply base about 30,000 taxis and more than 40,000 drivers

• A growing number of taxi drivers here are exploring alternatives, i.e. more than 1 3rd party taxi booking app these days - disintermediation and choice.
• Taxi drivers are looking for easy non-fuss solutions which benefit their livelihood - bigger app screens, intuitive user experience, quicker acknowledgment of bookings, convenient payment and acknowledgement receipts, choice of solutions and so on.
• Just hop into a taxi and start a conversation with your friendly taxi driver, and you will learn lots!

So, here are my top 5 reasons why Grab Easy Uber Hailo (virtual fleet) Taxis are picking up in Singapore. The market is really heating up in the taxi booking scene - first with GrabTaxi and EasyTaxi earlier this year and now with UberTaxi since June '14 and Hailo soon to join in the fray. To add, there is also a fifth local player, MoobiTaxi who works with ComfortDelgro and SMRT taxis.

• What will the future hold for taxi booking market space?
• Will we see another taxi service provider to increase the current 30,000 physical taxi fleet?
• Will another international player like GetTaxi enter the Singapore market?

Let's look forward to better user experiences for both the taxi drivers and taxi passengers which I am sure we will see lots more innovation in this daily consumer lifestyle habit.

Can you connect with the above reasons from your experiences in Singapore on the taxi booking scene? Love to hear from you ...


Nelson Wee

Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/nelsonwee

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5 ways to enjoy World Cup 2014 in Singapore | Nelson Wee | Singapore

The #WorldCup2014 is well underway, and drawing a fanatical following as viewership numbers show. No surprises there - I wrote previously on 3 reasons why the World Cup is a social magic magnet.

In this post, I would like to bring to you 5 Ways to enjoy World Cup 2014 in Singapore.

(1) 5 Places for World Cup Screening

Are you in the look out for excellent views and bustling atmosphere to revel in the last stages of the World Cup 2014? Fret no more ... 

Go on to read more on where to go: http://pickatsg.tumblr.com/post/88561517176/5-places-for-worldcup-screening

(2) 5 Foods from #WorldCup Hot Favourites
While you are basking in the World Cup revelry, why not explore the rich variety of tastes in the cuisines from the countries of the World Cup hot favourite teams? (disclaimer: this post was done earlier and one of the countries is already out - alas!) 

Go on to read more on where to go: http://pickatsg.tumblr.com/post/88655742821/5-foods-from-worldcup-hot-favourites

(3) 5 Popular #WorldCup Cuisines
In Singapore, the following cuisines in this post are pretty popular. You probably can't go wrong in Singapore who is ranked #2 in Asia in terms of spending in dining out!

Go on to read more on where to go: http://www.pickat.com.sg/5-popular-worldcup-cuisines/

(4) 5 Yum Cha Places While Your Other Half Is Watching #Worldcup
If you are not really into the World Cup, hey not to worry too. Here's a post offering 5 places in Singapore to choose from to have yum cha with your friends while your other half is engrossed into the World Cup.

Go on to read more on where to go: http://pickatsg.tumblr.com/post/89945815266/5-yum-cha-places-while-your-other-half-is-watching

(5) 5 Places Where Chefs from #WorldCup Countries Eat

If you have ever wondered where do chefs like to eat, well here's a post which brings you 5 places where chefs hailing from countries participating in the World Cup like to eat at in Singapore - a culinary paradise in Southeast Asia~

Go on to read more on where to go: http://www.pickat.com.sg/5-places-where-chefs-from-worldcup-countries-eat/

Well there you go, a quick listing of 5 ways (of 5 places each *wink*) on how you could enjoy the world cup in Singapore. A disclaimer here as well - I currently work in SK planet and my team has been working on bringing PickatSG food recommendations and O2O (online to offline commerce)  coupons app to the market. All the food places above have been curated and recommended by the PickatSG team. 

If you like to read more about PickatSG food app and how location-based services and online to offline commerce could impact our daily habits, here are 4 more posts to learn more:
(1) Welcome to a brand new PickatSG

(2) Get Great Deals with PickatSG’s Coupons!

(3) How can location-based social networks impact #dailyhabits and drive O2O commerce?

(4) How has location-based services (LBS) evolved into the #dailyhabits of consumers and business models for businesses?

Hope you have enjoyed this post and I (we) certainly hope to hear from you!


Talk soon~
Nelson Wee
Profile: Nelson Wee, Singapore
Blog: http://myovi.blogspot.com
Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.com/nelsonwee 
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/nelsonwee
Twitter: @nelsonwee
PickatSG Food O2O App: http://www.facebook.com/pickatsg

Photo credit: Digo_Souza / Foter / Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0)

How can location-based social networks impact #dailyhabits and drive O2O commerce?

How are location-based social networks impacting on the mobile internet users' daily habits today and drive O2O commerce? Different LBS players are positioning themselves to ingrain their users' interactions as daily habits, and to influence and facilitate online to offline (O2O) commerce. Flooded with choices of LBS services, consumers will connect and share location-based information if they make sense. Then we come back to basics when voice meets location-based tagged information.

In my last post "How has LBS evolved into the daily habits of consumers and business models for businesses", I compared how 3 leading LBS players in Southeast Asia, Singapore markets - Hungrygowhere, Burpple, Yelp have been positioning themselves in terms of social and commerce value propositions. Not surprisingly so, food appears to be the common thread amongst these 3 players' focus, given the vibrant dining out scene in Asia. The question "Is there a Yelp for Asia?" also brings up a slew of similar players focusing on the food market in Asia.

Take a look at the above table, if we were to take a step back and review how some of these LBS players play in engaging with consumers, and driving Online to Offline or O2O commerce.

(1) Drive Awareness

• Players like Hungrygowhere, Burpple and Yelp look to business listing, advertisements  and gathering food reviews to drive awareness to consumers on awesome eateries with delicious food dishes.
• Following on the footsteps of Yelp's Elite Program, Burpple has also rolled out its Tastemakers' program - featuring food reviews online from hand-picked community members.
• A global player to look at would be Foursquare who has announced that it will be spinning its classic check-in features into a new app called Swarm, while stripping down and focusing its main app on local recommendations instead.

(2) Search, Compare, Transact

• Given the vibrant food scene (eating out) mentioned earlier, online and mobile restaurant reservation booking appears to be garnering momentum, as restaurant businesses are realising that consumers are seeking convenience, flexibility and immediacy to gratify their food experiences.
• Besides Hungrygowhere who provide restaurant booking for consumers online or via mobile, Chope is another leading restaurant reservation booking player in Singapore (and also in Hong Kong), facilitating online booking to offline dining (i.e. O2O commerce).

(3) Loyalty

Echelon June 2013 Singapore - showcase of mobile apps and startups to daily habits of mobile Internet users by Nelson Wee from Nelson Wee

• In my post on "How has the ecosystem evolved with the daily habits of mobile internet users?", I listed examples a growing number of Mobile Loyalty players like wooz.in, chopink, zap who are facilitating the digitisation and mobility for the loyalty programs in offline businesses.
• In Singapore (and in Malaysia), Perx is a leading player tying food and retail offline loyalty programs to the consumers' mobile lifestyle.

Coming back to the consumers and their needs, my feeling is that consumers would only look towards having location-based information and connections if these make sense to them in the context of their life's moments. For instance,

• In Foursquare, these days for me, it is the gamification element in the social leaderboard with friends or the discovery where your friends are which attract. 
• In the LBS app harpoen, it is the serendipity on what others who have explored an area in your vicinity which attracts.

Finally, we go back to basics and come back to how good old voice is being featured in LBS services. Hearing a voice has been the most personal form of remote mobile communication. And so, no surprise that there are now many mobile social messaging apps having short audio files of chats transmitted walkie-talkie style. Location data is also now tagged onto the voice files to add more contextual relevance to the communication messages. Here are some real-life examples:

• With Talkbits, a MIM app, it is the voices left behind in a select city which provides local insights and knowledge to people who would like to know more about a neighbourhood or even learn the language as his aspiration is to get to that place one day.
• With Jabberly, people use their mobile to ask questions about a particular location and get answers quickly from those with boots on the ground.

Globally and perhaps particularly now in Asia, a number of location-based apps, communities and social networks are sprouting in the food scene - food being the typical question for the day and so very much a part in the daily habits of Asia's mobile internet users. From driving awareness to search, comparison, transactions and loyalty, a number of leading LBS players are positioning their offerings to provide value and entrench themselves into the decision-making processes of consumers - driving consumer traffic from online to offline businesses. And finally, it appears that good old voice could well provide opportunities in bridging users from mobile and online content to offline experiences.

Love to hear your thoughts on how location-based social networks impact on the daily habits of the mobile internet users.

Talk soon~
Nelson Wee
Profile: Nelson Wee, Singapore
Blog: http://myovi.blogspot.com
Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.com/nelsonwee 
Twitter: @nelsonwee
PickatSG Food App: http://www.facebook.com/pickatsg