Zithara’s data platform helping retailers battle customer churn

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and reward programs are two key tools that merchants rely on to convert leads into customers. Startups working in the fintech, consumer-tech, and martech spaces are supporting the retail industry in India to become future-ready by tapping into the potential of technology.

Founded in 2021, Hyderabad-based Zithara Technologies Private Limited has been assisting retailers in the battle of customer retention. Speaking to Bizz Buzz in an exclusive interview, Co-founder and CEO Varun Kashyap outlines the crucial role played by Zithara’s customer engagement and data platform in building long-term merchant-customer relationship

Did the pandemic open up business opportunities for startups like Zithara?

My present venture and previous startup experience, from which I exited, gave me the chance to work closely with retailers, from the last six years. The problems that were there before 2020 are not the same now. The quantum of problem, amplitude and the prospective of it have completely changed. If someone would have asked me to build Zithara in 2019, I would have not done it because I knew the retailers then. But today’s retailers understand the value of technology; they are there to question you, basically scouting for the right product and persistent until they get it.

What is the gap that Zithara fills in with its tech in the retail industry?

During the pandemic, retailers faced a lull in customer engagement as many businesses had shut down. Later when they opened again they did not have the customer data to reconnect with them. Lot of these retailers could have reached out to their customers to make online deliveries. Neither did these customers have the route to reach out to the seller. That is when we thought of giving retailers a tool to do business and engage with customers seamlessly. There is always the right time to launch a product in the market. As similar these products may sound but even retailers are not aware of how fragmented their data is. This customer data can be brought together to make substantial use of which in-turn adds to their topline.

Could you tell us about Zithara’s customer engagement platform…

We are the first company to bring customer engagement through UPI, wherein transaction is processed over Zithara UPI QR code and also used to enable customer engagement via different channels such as WhatsApp, SMS and so on. As soon as a customer makes a payment through Zithara’s QR code, the retailer can enable cash back, and loyalty points. The Customer Engagement Platform also facilitates referrals, and feedbacks. The journey of a retailer and a customer starts from the time a customer enters the store, with collection of the person’s detail, who becomes a customer when a purchase is made or a lead in the absence of a purchase. There is also a journey after the purchase is made, that is related to delivery, feedback and other such communication which takes place through our channel. We work with over 1,000 medium-sized retailers from across Hyderabad, Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, among other cities.

What is Zithara’s customer data platform about?

Our second product, Software-as-a-Service, for retailers is Customer Data Platform (CDP). These are for medium to large enterprises. Retail brands like Q-Mart, PMJ Jewellers use our CDP. In today’s world the customer’s data is very fragmented. The platform brings customer data from all sources onto one, we analyse the data for them and give insights. We connect that fragmented data making it able for the retailer to give personalised communication to the customer based on that customer’s holistic activity. The platform is easy to use, once it’s logged into from the retailers system even a person with basic knowledge of computer can work on it. All of these data are saved at the retailers end, we only analyse them for the retailer to understand and communicate with the customer better.

How has your offering impacted business of merchants?

After using our product, the retention rate of a customer, on an average, has gone up by 16 per cent. As the frequency of the customer increases the average bill goes up by seven to eight per cent. Most of the retailers lose revenue because of data leakage. Generally, there is 30 per cent of revenue loss which we have brought down to zero as our product plugs data leakage now. Because of these factors, the retailer is able to see a month-on-month revenue growth of 10-20 per cent.

Is there any new offering in pipeline?

We are working on Generative-Artificial Intelligence where all the marketing content will be taken care by AI. Advertisements can be run on multiple platforms through our product. We will be introducing this in the first quarter of the next financial year. Going ahead, some breakthroughs the retail industry will witness are that AI will make personalisation at a scale possible and this is going to change the way the industry is driven. The sector will also witness emergence of new mediums to interact and engage with customers.

What is the revenue model in place?

The retailer gives us a monthly, quarterly or yearly subscription fee for using our SaaS platform. It starts from Rs 19,000 a month and goes up to Rs 80,000, depending on the size of the customer data that is present with the retailer.

How unique is your platform?

We have three to four competitors in India, but the market is large to accommodate 10 to 15 new players in the same segment. Some players are good in the online space whereas some at offline. We are great in catering to merchants in the brick and motor space. There are two kinds of retailers, the online first and the offline first. Online ones are more into D2C whereas the offline ones are those who have some presence on the web too. We cater to retailers who are offline first and then online. There is a major problem to solve for these retailers who started traditional as their technology problem is much bigger. So we saw a huge opportunity with the huge problem that lies in this segment.

Any plans of expansion in terms of new cities, employee base or that of raising investment?

Currently we have 16 employees with Zithara working on technology, marketing and sales. We will be expanding our sales team, post which, we will be around 25 by end of this year. Next financial year we are looking at doubling our larger retailer base. Our revenue target for the next fiscal is to close books at EBITDA positive. We recently raised Rs 60 lakh from six angel investors. By end of this financial year we are looking to raise Rs 4 crore, half of this investment will be utilised for brand building and sales. Though our major market is India we have also entered and onboarded retailers from Sri Lanka, Philippines and other South-East Asian countries. We were not explicitly working on it but by chance it happened so. Our primary focus will be India wherein we will be expanding our retailer base by December 2024.