The Central Asia Retail Week e-commerce and retail forum concluded last week in Tashkent. The event’s programme included a marketing session that gathered expert opinions from well-known companies in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
The session ‘MARKETING of the new time’ gathered top marketers, including:
- Artyom Pesterev (Bi1).
- Kseniya Kochergina, (Umai Group, Kyrgyzstan)
- Shavkat Rasulov (Baraka Market)
- Urmatbek Beishenaliev (Ishonch)
- Yaroslav Gomenyuk (Balton Trading Asia)
The experts discussed trends in loyalty programmes, the effectiveness of BIG DATA in assessing customer preferences, and the possibilities of media collaborations of retail chains.
Ksenia Kochergina demonstrated an example of a collaboration between the Kyrgyz Umai Group and a local clothing brand. The results of the coverage of this media company impressed all the guests and speakers of the session.
Special attention was paid to the confrontation between marketplaces and traditional networks. According to Yaroslav Gomenyuk, the traditional network is still the leader in the fight for the customer, because it provides a quality customer experience.
The general conclusion of marketers was that loyalty programmes for each of the country’s retail chains are quite expensive. Shavkat Rasulov noted that on average a chain gives 2% – 2.5% to the customer on loyalty programmes. But there is no more favourable alternative yet.
All the experts also noted that the cost of organising drawings to attract customer traffic is increasing more and more.
The session was moderated by Anna Lebedeva, Vice-President of the Association of Retail Market Experts. In the course of the session Anna emphasised the original and cost-effective idea of Uzbek retail chains to show live production of products in their sales areas, for example, the work of a bakery in the Korzinka chain
