Massmart's Bolstered Technology Capability Improves Ecommerce Experience

• Massmart’s bolstered tech capability powers an improved experience for online shoppers

Following Massmart’s 100% acquisition by Walmart, the company now has gained improved access to technical capabilities focused on enhancing the customer shopping experience across its Makro, Builders, and Game websites.

Following Massmart’s 100% acquisition by Walmart, the company now has gained improved access to technical capabilities focused on enhancing the customer shopping experience across its Makro, Builders, and Game websites. The latest move in Massmart’s eCommerce strategy has involved shifting the Makro website onto a new micro-services based platform which has delivered new features, improved system performance, and faster development turnaround time.

This advanced Makro website platform was deployed using enhanced analytics and testing capabilities during the month of May. Commenting on the improvements, Anna Siabanis, Makro eCommerce (Tech) Product Executive at Massmart says “One of the key successes of moving onto this new platform has been our ability to test website enhancements with targeted subsets of our customer base in a live environment, giving us real-time feedback on the way customers respond to our changes, and allowing us to adjust accordingly. We gradually increased the number of customers accessing the new platform throughout the month and in that time, the rate at which customers transacted on the site improved by more than 30% and orders grew by an estimated 40%”. This growth is largely attributed to user experience improvements such as:

1. Smarter search engine logic that serves customers with more relevant results and options when searching for products on the site.
   
   
2. Revamped listing and product display pages to assist customers in making the best decisions about product variants, pack sizes, and promotions. This includes the addition of unit pricing for bulk purchases.
   
   
3. A new recommendation engine that ensures customers are aware of all their options and complementary products when making purchasing decisions.
   
   
4. A more accurate view of stock availability on the website.
   
   
5. Faster page load time making it quicker for customers to navigate the website.

“Our Tech capabilities form the backbone of Massmart’s eCommerce strategy, which aims to ensure that Massmart is one of the country’s leading destinations for online retail,” Siabanis explains.

“This includes 40 local (Tech) Product Management professionals who co-ordinate almost 300 full-time Massmart technologists specialising in UX design and research, software engineering/development, architecture, product operations and product analytics, based in Walmart’s Tech Development Centre in Bangalore, India.”

Source : Walmart

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