Nitin Agarwal is Senior Director, Marketing at ShopClues.com. Passionate about consumer behaviour and brand promotions, he is an astute marketer who brings his combined expertise in technology, data analytics and marketing to his role at ShopClues.com. 

His key focus areas are branding, media planning, rolling out campaigns in offline and online channels etc. He helms activities directed at augmenting the e-commerce player’s customer engagement/retention and acquisition.

Prior to joining ShopClues.com, Nitin bootstrapped a health and nutrition start-up, Health Raga and was instrumental in setting up its e-commerce channel. He has over seven years of experience working in diverse industry sectors such as automotive, banking and e-commerce. He has been associated with some of the most renowned organisations in the world including Gulf Oil Corporation Limited, Ashok Leyland and Genpact.  

Nitin has an MBA from the prestigious XLRI, Jamshedpur and a B.Tech degree in Computer Science from JIIT, Noida. 

In this exclusive interview with Ratnika Swami for India Digital Review, Nitin talks about ShopClues’s strategies to engage with the consumers, staying ahead of the competition and the challenges faced in tapping into the digital medium. Excerpts: 

Q. How does the digital medium - Internet as well as mobile - figure in ShopClues’ plans to reach out to the Indian consumers?

ShopClues being an e-commerce company has always capitalised on the digital medium to the maximum. Digital was a medium of choice, and will continue to be one of our major media channels, as far as our advertising strategy goes. We look at digital as not just a medium for advertising but also as a revenue channel and that’s why we call it performance marketing.

Consumers are shifting from desktop web to mobile web and apps and we are riding this trend as well. ShopClues launched the Android app in 2013 and Windows app in 2014 and has received more than 2.5 million installs. By end of May 2015, we will be launching our iOS app as well. 

Q. And what marketing initiatives are you undertaking online to stay ahead of the already established players like Flipkart and Snapdeal? 

We have always believed in offering consumers superlative retail experiences which are based on deep insights in consumer shopping and mindsets. Sunday Flea Market was a similar endeavor to tap into “haat/mela” shopping concept which is very popular in different parts of India.

The Sunday Flea Market has seen tremendous response from the customers and gone on to become a flagship property in the merchandising scheme of ShopClues.com with over 2 million visits every Sunday.

Usually on weekends, most of the other e-tailers witness a 15-20% drop in traffic. For ShopClues, with the Sunday Flea Market, Sunday is the busiest day of the week when traffic surges up by 15%. Also, nearly 60% of the customers who buy during SFM, return to shop for non-deal products on our site. So SFM goes way beyond being just a customer-acquisition tool, and in fact strongly aids retention. With approximately 2 lac orders on a Sunday, SFM is one of the biggest marketing properties in the country.

Q. As a CMO, what are the main challenges you face, especially in being able to optimally tap into the digital medium? 

1. Customizing our offerings for the mobile medium.
2. Keeping pace with technology changes in the digital space.
3. Contesting for increasingly shorter attention spans of customers in the overexposed digital media.

Q. Could you please share in brief a couple of digital marketing campaigns ShopClues has done recently or plans to do next and what makes them different or noteworthy? 

We constantly experiment with new digital features and one of the star performers for us has been Google’s Gmail Sponsored promotions where we have driven performance at scale taking advantage of the precise targeting. 

Our mobile user acquisition campaigns on Facebook too have been a benchmark of success in terms of cost efficiency and scale. A/B testing of various target groups and ads has proved to be worthwhile there.

We also ran a 360 degree digital campaign for live Hangout with Chennai Super Kings team which was RSVPed by over a lakh people. 

Q. Is social media having any significant impact on how you market your products or services? 

Social platforms are most appropriate for impulse driven categories like Fashion & Home Decor and lets you meet the right audience at the right place and at the right time. Also, sponsored campaigns on Facebook and Twitter by their very nature allow very accurate interest and demographic targeting. 

Q. What kind of analytics or social media tools do you use?

We use Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics.  

Q. Three months ago, ShopClues.com raised $100 million from Tiger Global. As per several media reports, the company is reportedly on the look out to revamp its senior team and spend aggressively on advertising and marketing as the company plans to targets a five-fold jump in business by next year. Could you elaborate?

We are aiming at doubling our headcount by 2016. We are getting ready for scaling up the operations, and might have to look for people who have seen the kind of scale Indian e-commerce is set to achieve. We continue to be on the lookout for senior talent, and on finding the right fit for this position, we will surely consider it.

As for marketing and advertising on television, radio, print and digital platforms, we are looking at investing about 150 crores for the year 2015. 

Q. What percentage of your total marketing spend is on digital? How do you see that move in terms of growth and focus?

The digital spend continues to comprise a significant part of our marketing mix and grow for us 10-20% m-o-m. Even after venturing into offline marketing last year, we continue to initiate more user engagement initiatives on digital, as this is where our target audience is.  

Also, we ensure that we use the medium efficaciously to bring new consumers on our platform. For our merchant base, we are planning an extensive offline campaign which will be launched shortly in May 2015.