Matahari Department Store pushes aggressively into eCommerce

Matahari Department Store has appointed full-service eCommerce agency SmartOSC to support its eCommerce growth. SmartOSC's co-founder and CEO, Thai Son Nguyen, told Marketing Interactive that the agency is responsible for implementing a quick omni-channel minimum viable product, using the enterprise technologies including commerce experience platform, CRM and loyalty.

According to Nguyen, SmartOSC was appointed as it is experienced in implementing enterprise projects with a practical MVP approach for companies such as Ricoh, Courts Asia, Club21, LG Electronics and Nestle. Nguyen explained that many brands like Matahari currently faces include changing consumer behaviours due to COVID-19 and a fragmented customer experience, with manual in-store processes and disconnected online to offline experience. Many of them also have limited legacy IT systems that are "hard to scale and heavy to maintain", according to Nguyen, and thus, also missed online revenue opportunities.

Earlier this year, Matahari Department Store named former Courts CEO Terry O’ Connor (pictured) its new CEO, succeeding Richard Gibson, who stepped down effective 31 October 2019. O'Connor spent 26 years at Courts, during which the company undertook a strategic transformation journey towards solutions selling, omni-channel retailing as well as geographic expansion. 

In 2017, SmartOSC worked with Courts to rebuild and grow its online business in Southeast Asia. Courts previously said it aims to "radically reshape" its eCommerce business and move towards an integrated shopping experience both in-store and online. As a result, Courts obtained a 41% increase in online revenue, a 92% increase in page views and 52% increase in mobile transactions.