Isidoro Pérez, CEO Be it to beat the dreaded Monday blues, kill time at the airport, café, or even at home, or perhaps due to our disposition to simply hoard things, we are thankful for our easy access to online shopping. Ever since digital technologies have enabled us to access online stores at our fingertips, we often find ourselves scrolling through our favourite brands and products on e-commerce sites, either out of habit or genuine need. But, every time we look for a new product online, we might not end up buying it. Now imagine, while passing by the physical store in a downtown market, your phone chimes with a notification saying, “We have exactly what you are looking for, with more colour and size options.” It can’t get any better than this, isn’t it?
So, how is this unique idea made possible? Through phygital (physical plus digital) technology—an out-of-the-box concept that refers to the presence of the same person in both the physical and digital stores. Harnessing the power of phygital, Seeketing—founded in 2011—unifies digital and physical behaviours of a potential customer with a unique identifier to maximise business possibilities for retailers. “Our phygital technology is not an expense for retailers but a way to generate increased income,” says Isidoro Pérez, CEO.
Modern customers demand a consistent and personalised purchase experience across different channels: physical, web, and mobile. In such a complete multichannel environment, retailers are faced with the difficulty of closely assessing the shopping experience across all the channels. Seeketing provides a coherent and integrated solution based on mobile technology, which allows the tracking of visitors either online or at the store. This facilitates the understanding of the full shopper funnel while also offering the capability to push targeted communications to clients when visiting the store. It is not necessary for visitors to install an app on their devices, thereby overcoming barriers of beacon-based solutions.
Seeketing’s proprietary technology consists of Seeketing nodes—plug and play hardware— and SDK for HTML5/iOS/Android, dashboard and webservices. “Seeketing nodes is the only technology capable to detect massively, anonymously and legally (GDPR compliant) 90 percent of the smartphones in any indoor or outdoor area. Our technology allows the integration of retail communication with mobile marketing campaigns and retail physical operations,” adds Pérez. Seeketing detects and tracks visitors (user by user) either online or at the store with a unique phygital ID.
Our phygital technology is not an expense for retailers but a way to generate increased income
With this ID, it is possible to optimise multiple processes related to the operational management of stores and malls. For instance:
• Tracking visitor’s behaviour at malls and stores for retail mix optimisation
• Tracking email campaigns performance to drive traffic to malls/ stores throughloyalty programs
• Sending SMS/WhatsApp notification to visitors when they are visiting the location to increase sales/ drive traffic with proximity marketing
• Linking the user’s online and offline behaviour for improving promotion policies and cross-selling with omnichannel optimization
“Phygital technology holds immense value in the post- COVID retail landscape. Phygital segmentation and proximity marketing helps retailers increase the knowledge of customers, identify purchase patterns and consequently generate higher revenue” states Carlos Coll, Founding Partner/Director of Operations at Seeketing.
In terms of retail analytics, Seeketing nodes outperform the results and effectiveness of other technologies like iBeacon Bluetooth and Wi-Fi tracking or Social Wi-Fi. iBeacons currently provide valid information only for App active users with Bluetooth active (max 0.1 percent of the total visitors), and Wi-Fi tracking currently provides valid information for Wi-Fi connected users (max 2 percent of the total visitors). Whereas, Seeketing collects and offers reliable information from unconnected users (up to 90 percent of the total visitors).Unlike camera-based technologies on the market, Seeketing’s technology provides information about returning visitors, profiling, journeys or flows between areas, and more. “We provide retailers with an opportunity to work on real pilot projects that demonstrate Seeketing ROI and performance—one of the best ways to distinguish between other solutions on the market and Seeketing” says Coll.
With its novel technology, Seeketing has helped a multitude of retailers optimise marketing strategies and reap higher profits. As a testament, Pérez recalls an instance where one of their clients, a hardware retail chains ought to increase customer visits and sales. To achieve the same, Seeketing installed one Seeketing node at each of their stores. In two weeks, Seeketing integrated with the client’s CRM and web page to launch a new automatic loyalty program based on phygital behaviour. As a result, the number of customer visits rose to 3500 in the first two months, 34.5 percent of customers who received messages visited the store, and a whopping € 30,000 revenue was generated in the first month of proximity campaigning.
With innovation at its core, Seeketing is open to working with new partners—solution providers, IT integrators, retail analytics and consultants, loyalty programs, marketing agencies, business intelligence providers and apps/web developers—worldwide. Presently operating in 14 countries across Europe, Latam and the Middle East, the company is focused on expanding its footprint into Asia and North America in the next two years.
