ChatGenie powers small businesses in the post-pandemic world with social commerce tools
The following is a guest post written by Ika Rodriguez from ChatGenie, an organization that enables businesses to sell inside the world’s biggest apps.
In 2020, Metro Manila declared its first full city lockdown. Like the rest of the world, the events of the COVID-19 pandemic were unprecedented and left many small businesses scrambling to adapt to the swiftly changing times. After transitioning their operations online, small businesses faced a considerable learning curve that came with digitalizing sales, especially for the average family-run small business. Giving the average entrepreneur the chance to have their own online store without any website or coding experience was the challenge.
It was during this lockdown that ChatGenie made its debut on the market. ChatGenie’s In-App Commerce Platform allows businesses of all sizes to easily create and manage online stores within their own social media pages and superapps. Entrepreneurs use ChatGenie to create their own digital storefronts within apps like Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Viber, and GCash, the Philippines’ largest mobile wallet. Aside from that, the ChatGenie Dashboard allows merchants to manage sales and marketing tasks from one screen and includes other features like a promo code generator, customer segment creator, and broadcast tool. While physical business spaces were closing down left and right, ChatGenie’s platform gave every business owner the chance to increase their conversion rates and online presence while transitioning from offline operations to online sales.
Since launching in March 2020, ChatGenie has powered over 5,000 businesses and enabled them to sell better inside the world’s biggest apps.
Our main goal is to equip small businesses with tools to transition from traditional brick-and-mortar sales to social commerce and maximize their opportunities amid the competitive landscape of e-commerce. Family-run businesses like Marikina Bakery can make the most out of social selling with the ChatGenie platform and optimized social media strategies like Facebook ads. For Marikina Bakery, the use of this platform resulted in an average customer conversion rate of 16.81%, in contrast to the industry standard rate of 4%.
Merging digital and offline worlds
After allowing entrepreneurs and small businesses to sell inside the world’s biggest apps with its In-App Commerce Platform, ChatGenie is now going full circle by merging the best of digital and offline worlds with In-Store Commerce Use Cases as part of our partnership with Strive Community. As lockdowns lifted and customers began to resume shopping in stores, using the platform for In-Store Commerce enables customers to create pre-orders, pay for transactions, and pick up orders themselves, merging online selling with offline events. Customers can also simply scan the store’s unique QR code and make their orders in store. Soon, customers will be able to scan QR codes to obtain vouchers within the store in the same way they can apply vouchers on online marketplace apps.
Globe Telecom has been one of ChatGenie’s longtime partners in enabling small businesses to grow with innovation. A newly introduced use case was first tried at the first G Music Fest held post-lockdown; it enabled small businesses, particularly food merchants, to give customers a chance to order and pay online, skip the lines, and pick up their orders from their booths. To convince customers to go cashless, they offered exclusive promos for In-App Commerce users. Apart from enabling merchants to hop into digitalization, selling through the platform supports small businesses in streamlining their workflows, from order taking to fulfillment.
Reducing frictions for small businesses selling online
ChatGenie continues to work to fulfill its goal to empower Filipino entrepreneurs to sell smarter online. In addition to our In-Store Commerce Use Cases, and through our partnership with Strive Community, we’re bringing additional value to micro-enterprises engaging in social commerce in the Philippines with three new features: a service booking bundle, a point-of-sale feature with pay links, and a GCash Store Launcher Shopify App.
ChatGenie is focused on doubling down on efforts to bridge the gap between the digital economy and traditional in-store commerce. The journey towards building the next generation of e-commerce doesn’t end here.
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