Two weeks ago, Jacadi China launched the Jacadi WeChat Mini Program.
How did this project come about during these strange times?
Thomas Le Grand, China Retail Director, and Sisley Song, China Social Marketing Manager, give us an inside look.
How did the idea for this programme come about?
Although our JACADI Paris brand has had a presence in China since 2003, it only recently developed its first digital points of contact to enhance its customer relations.
This extraordinary health situation and the confinement have led to people spending twice as much time online – nine to ten hours a day – which gave us an opportunity to test a first online channel on the leading Chinese social network (WeChat – one billion users), using simple and inexpensive solutions available in the Chinese digital ecosystem.
How did these special circumstances speed up the process?
It all started with a general trend observed in China since autumn 2019: a rise in social/e-commerce, especially in C2C, but not exclusively. It increased considerably since the Chinese New Year across the entire retail sector with the reopening of stores along with stricter confinement measures.
More specifically, our store teams naturally began talking to their personal contacts and loyal customers via social media networks to sell products as traffic had slowed to almost a standstill. Our customers and contacts were quick to share the product files and “ship from store”, a very flexible and personalised way to shop in which the sales pitch and payment happen in real time via the WeChat app.
After this first step, we were able to create a mini site – in three weeks based on a product file the Jacadi teams provided – that connects customers to their nearest store: the Jacadi WeChat Mini Program (B2C social/e-commerce solution this time). Of the 16 JACADI Paris stores in China, 11 have already joined the programme.
What have you learned from this experience?
What we’re going through is unprecedented. It has created opportunities and is forcing us to be flexible. This project was already something we needed to do, and our teams were able to be creative and adapt to the new constraints. This will let us create an initial qualified and managed database of customers. And we’ll be learning fast again.
