eMAG: eCommerce success with an omnichannel approach

The retail and eCommerce industry is one of the most dynamic and competitive with trends changing quickly and disruptive new technologies like Gen AI providing opportunities for forward thinking brands to gain a competitive edge.

Despite the challenges, some eCommerce businesses remain popular with customers and grow their business year after year. eMAG is Romania‘s largest eCommerce platform by quite some margin. In fact, their 2022 revenue of 789 million USD was more than the combined total of the next four companies on the list.  

Their winning formula is to provide the products that people want to buy and a customer experience that keeps them coming back.

We talked to Product Owner Clara Ion who is responsible for all customer facing applications at eMAG to discuss challenges, trends, and what they are doing to maintain their status as the go-to retail platform for shoppers in Romania.

The main role of the Product Owner at eMAG is to be the voice of the customer and to ensure that the user experience reflects their needs and preferences.

With her extensive industry experience and background in mathematics, Clara is a fan of using data to guide her decisions. By analyzing transactional and browsing behavior alongside qualitative customer data, eMAG has created a user experience that combines personalization with an efficient and frictionless buying experience.

By tracking consumer habits eMAG have seen how customer preferences have evolved to prioritize competitively priced products that can be delivered quickly. This is no surprise given the trend for fast fashion and a generation of consumers used to instant gratification.

A key part of this process is ensuring that communication between eMAG and its customers is fast, reliable, and makes use of the channels that customers prefer to use for both marketing and transactional messages

As a leading omnichannel communication provider, eMAG looked to us to fulfil their SMS requirements, both for authentication messages and delivery updates. The solution that we provided was implemented with minimal development and a fast turnaround. Not only that, but eMAG soon saw a 50% reduction on their costs for SMS communication.

eMAG soon extended their use of SMS with two new sub accounts that are invoiced separately, giving them added flexibility and convenience.

When asked what advice she would offer other retail brands looking for a communication technology partner, Clara didn’t hesitate.

Our platform enables eCommerce and retail businesses like eMAG to create a user experience that attracts and retains customers. With one place to manage all communication including SMS, email, voice, messaging apps, and more, we enable brands to create conversational interactions on their customers’ preferred channels. With entry points as diverse as QR codes, digital ads, or links from emails and transactional messages we make conversational connections as simple as clicking a button.

But as Clara said, we are so much more than a messaging provider. With our easy chatbot building tool and our partnerships with cutting edge AI providers we enable our retail customers to benefit from AI safely, at scale, and with no risk of reputational damage.

Artificial intelligence will play an ever-greater role in the interactions between retail brands and their customers, but it is not a silver bullet for every use case. We believe that it needs to be used for the tasks that it excels at as part of a wider eco-system of people, data, and other tools, where the focus is always on creating a better experience for the end customer. We are dedicated to working with our customers and partners to co-create the ideal solution for their markets and unique use cases.