Google Smarter Digital City 2.0-Getting Ahead with Google
How Eats365 can help push Hong Kong toward a digital future
10 Oct 2018
Eats365 is always seeking to push the envelope of the tech we can offer to customers. Since Google is a pioneer in the technology sphere, we decided to attended the Smarter Digital City 2.0 event to try and glean what trends are set to hit Hong Kong's retail space in the coming years.
Hong Kong's Relationship with Tech
We were surprised to learn that in terms of being a smart city Hong Kong people, themselves, view Hong Kong to be lagging behind cities like Tokyo and Singapore while cities like Shanghai and Seoul are rapidly catching up. Where many cities rely on government-funded initiatives to boost the adoption of tech in a city, only [1]"14 percent of the public surveyed think the government is significantly investing in making Hong Kong a smarter city."
This statistic is surprising given that Hong Kong is well-equipped to begin its digital revolution. A staggering [2]"79% of Hong Kongers have smartphones, and 98 percent of them go online once per day." This statistic shows just how primed the Hong Kong market really is for businesses to take advantage of the opportunities that technology provides. Indeed, given the density of shops, be it F&B-related or otherwise, SMBs are more concerned with competing against companies a few doors down rather than going online. This is a long-term mistake, according to the boffins at Google.
Eats365's Solutions
With all this gloom and doom in mind, what exactly can Eats365 do to help? Well, there are a few things we are doing that is actively combating Hong Kong's reluctance to go online and digitize the future.
1. O2O
The average Hong Kong consumer no longer shops solely by visiting stores. If a shop has a digital gateway, be it a website or app, customers will visit that first to get a better idea of what a business has to offer. This then leads to interest in visiting a business' physical location and can lead to sales. Indeed, Google even says that [3]"to entice Hong Kong consumers, SMBs must be present where their customers are-offline and online." This refers to the concept of 020 as 020 is literally defined as "online to offline." Eats365's User App prepares restaurants for this new trend by allowing users to find any registered F&B business online. From there, customers can see food menus, line up in advance, book tables in advance and find out the location of businesses they are interested in. This strong online presence will undoubtedly lead to more sales and greater turnover. Let's not forget that [4]"for Hong Kong, online to offline (020)…is of a particular significance and is well suited to leverage the city's retail density…and world-leading smartphone penetration."
2. CRM
Data is becoming an increasingly important talking point when it comes to understanding customers. The more data a business has about their customers, the better they can follow trends and offer better products that are in-line with what is 'popular' and 'profitable'. Indeed, [5]"the foundation of smarter retail is a nuanced and continuously updated understanding of the customer and their needs." To further bolster this case, a speaker at the Smarter Digital City event, Jelly Zhou, a managing director for HKTVMall, spoke of how having customer data helped her company improve customer experience and become more efficient.
Eats365's POS system provides a detailed CRM (customer relationship management) system that lets F&B businesses keep track of important customer information like spending habits, popularly ordered dishes, frequency of visits and more. This is the sort of data that can be regularly reviewed to provide a better experience for customers and improve the satisfaction rating of your business. Simply by analysing data, your business can [6]"deliver value by engaging consumers at the right time and right place with offers and an experience tailored to them."
3. Partnering with Tech Pioneers
To ensure that the tech we offer is cutting-edge, we work with pioneers of both hardware and software providers from around the globe. This ensures that we can pick and choose from the cream of the crop while increasing versatility, usability and convenience of our products for our customers. It also ensures we stay on top of the latest tech so that our POS system and its various modules are able to work in tandem to help F&B businesses of shapes, sizes and geographic locations.
