How Technology Can Help Ecommerce During Inflation?

Naman Vijay Apr 04, 2023

We have all ordered something from Swiggy or Zomato for a 50-60 per cent discount. In the early days, this discount would actually knock off 100-120 rupees from your food bill. However, as inflation hit, a plethora of charges dwindled this discount to a meagre 10-20 rupees.

In the beginning, food delivery apps used to offer massive discounts and free delivery to attract a customer to their platform. But, the high rate of inflation soon shut down slow-growing platforms like FoodPanda. Popular platforms like Swiggy and Zomato used their established customer base to generate other streams of revenue.

While these companies have seen a drop in the number of customers, they have managed to survive and overcome the decay of inflation. This has been done through the pervasive and profound use of technology in their supply chain. Every ecommerce brand can replicate this strategy irrespective of their product and category.

4 Ideal Ways to Use Technology to Battle Ecommerce Inflation

Technology is a boon only when used in the right manner. Here are four ways that ecommerce companies can battle inflation with the help of technology.

1. Smart Stock Acquisition

Inventory costs can fluctuate based on the costs of raw materials. As a result, you may have to increase product prices from time to time or suffer a loss to keep your prices the same. This issue can be solved by the use of analytical technology on the trends in raw material pricing.

The software can be used to track raw material prices in the market. This will allow you to acquire your raw material and inventory at an ideal rate. Along with this, you can use inventory forecasting techniques to predict sales. This will allow you to acquire the correct inventory quantities and avoid having to house unsold inventory for too long.

2. Intelligent Shipping

In an ecommerce ledger, the shipping cost is the most variable element. The volatile fuel prices, changing norms, etc., affect the shipping costs adversely. Studies have shown that higher shipping costs can lead to an increase in the drop rate and cart abandonment percentage.

With the help of advanced shipping software, you can implement AI/ML algorithms to your advantage. This software allows you to automate your carrier selection and shipping process with multiple carriers. You can set financial as well as other parameters to ensure the ideal choice of carrier is made.

Some of this software will allow you to compare rates from various carriers for every shipment. This will allow you to optimise your shipping operations for costs as well as efficiency to ensure that you get maximum ROI.

3. Customer Loyalty Program

One of the most effective ways to increase the customer retention rate is a customer loyalty program. You can build a customer loyalty program in your backend or use a third-party service provider. This loyalty program will allow users to create an account that tracks their spending and purchases and rewards them accordingly.

Myntra Insider is an excellent example where the platform provides special perks to customers who have spent a specific amount within the specified time frame.

4. Effective Captial Expenditure

Capital is king in a competitive economy. But even if you have more capital than your competitors, suboptimal use can still leave you behind. This is where technology comes into play. As inflation continues to increase, the value of your capital will gradually decrease.

With the help of technology, you can analyse your platform as well as the customer journey. This will allow you to identify issues in your supply chain and customer experience. You can then invest your capital toward mitigating the factors that are draining your platform of its customers.

How to Choose Technologies To Fight Ecommerce Inflation?

The right use of technology is always fruitful. It can be either used to detect the inefficiencies in your system or resolve them.

If you want to analyse your business to understand where it can perform better, AI/ML is the way to go. The use of these algorithms on your customer data will allow you to extract these insights within moments with minimal physical effort. These insights can become a key to improving the overall efficiency and revenue of your business.

On the other hand, if you want to solve these issues, you can choose the API platform. While this may not be a standalone technology, it is a way to incorporate every sort of technology on your platform. It essentially means you can call a service from a technology platform on the market through a programmable interface for your benefit.

These technologies, when used in combination, will allow you to fight ecommerce inflation without compromising the customer experience or the quality of the product or service.

Technology has nurtured the e-commerce sector every step of the way. From enabling easier access to the internet to easy automation to serve the growing customer base, technology has been the solution to the problems of the ecommerce sector. With the inflation storm headed for the sector, technology is one of the best shelters the ecommerce industry can opt for.