Indian e-commerce firms are investing a major chunk of the funds they have raised on innovation labs to find ways to drive down costs and improve customer experience.
Delhi-based fashion portal Jabong.com has set up a lab to focus on enhancing customer experiences. Praveen Sinha, co-founder, Jabong, said the company is hiring another 100 engineers and techies for its innovation lab this year. The current headcount is 25.
“We are getting the best talent on board for our technology team, which will help us provide a strong and seamless shopping experience to customers. This technology lab will be used to further improve our back-end systems with a focus on meeting long-term IT (needs),” he added.
Online furniture portal UrbanLadder has set up a centre in Bangalore, called UL Labs. Earlier, Myntra had acquired San Francisco-based tech firm Fitiquette, which has gradually been converted into an innovation lab.
Fitiquette had developed virtual fitting rooms, a technology that has changed the way consumers try out apparel and their sizes online. Sizing and fitting have been the biggest challenge for these companies as over 70 per cent of consumers abandoned the cart over sizing issues, say industry experts.
With e-commerce evolving into mobile commerce, online outfits are focusing on improving their mobile content, navigation and interfaces to make purchases more convenient and engaging on the mobile apps.
Rajiv Srivatsa, COO and co-founder of UrbanLadder.com, said UL Labs works with several digital start-ups across the world to come up with pioneering solutions in various aspects of furniture buying.
Reality app“Technology will truly be the backbone for exceptional customer experience. Our recent product from UL Labs is our augmented reality app for sofas, called Living Spaces. Since launch we have seen a lot of interest in usage of this app and it has helped several customers make their purchase decision,” Srivatsa said.
UL Labs is also working on creating a robot that will help delivery boys carry furniture into apartments through a staircase. Its first product was a wardrobe configurator app that helped customers visualise different colours and finishes for wardrobes, explore several internal configurations and dimensions, and check pricing relevant to the configuration.
It helps minimise the pain of going to a store and instead allows customers customise their wardrobes from the comfort of their home.