Lotus’s Thailand’s success and growth were recognised at the Retail Asia Awards

The firm reinvented their customer experience with marketing and brand transformation.

With the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic, many retail companies found themselves in a challenging landscape, as many customers were either staying in their homes due to government lockdowns or shifting towards online consumption with the growth of e-commerce. Lotus’s Thailand saw this as an opportunity rather than a challenge, reinventing customer experience and launching the largest marketing collaboration ever in Thailand, winning them the Marketing Initiative of the Year - Thailand Award and the Brand Transformation of the Year - Thailand Award at the Retail Asia Awards 2022. 

The awards programme recognises major breakthroughs, innovations, and key players in the retail industry of Asia, and Lotus's Thailand set themselves apart from their competition with the largest marketing collaboration ever in Thailand to help Thais save in crisis and their reinvention of the customer-first experience and personalisation with the Lotus’s SMART App. 

Lotus’s x Partnerships 

After Thailand’s longest COVID lockdown, like many countries, the economy was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic last year, with the country’s GDP falling by over 6% in 2021 and many workers losing their jobs, reduced number of working hours and reduced pay, forcing them to seek alternative livelihoods and satisfy basic needs. As a leading retailer in Thailand, Lotus’s commitment has always been to help customers save by providing great quality products at affordable prices. The economic impact of the pandemic made the mission more important than ever. Instead of offering flash promotions, Lotus’s focused on a sustained campaign that ran over a period of 9 weeks, focusing on core items that are necessary for everyday living. 

To materialise the concept, Lotus’s formed strategic alliances and partnerships with over 60 brands in order to bring the biggest discounts ever on essential goods. Lotus’s commitment to bringing the best products for the lowest prices to the Thai people, and through the use of social media marketing, specifically Facebook’s relationship status, the company was able to announce the biggest collaborations ever for Thais, by 40 CEOs who partnered up in the initiative. 

With just Facebook as the main platform, “In a relationship with Lotus’s” became a success, generating widespread awareness about the campaign and sparking numerous conversations. These efforts resulted in a 20% increase in sales uplift, 240M total impressions, and +1,300% higher engagement compared to previous campaigns’ average.

Lotus’s SMART App and customer-first experience 

In 2022, Lotus’s planned to leap forward to all customer touchpoints; providing the most seamless online-to-offline retail experience that coincides with the changing customer behaviours from the COVID-19 pandemic. Lotus’s unveiled the Lotus’s Smart App, the one-stop mobile application that combines “My Lotus’s”, the new rewards programme, and acts as an online shopping platform. 

Lotus’s Smart App aims to uplift user experiences with Smart features backed by artificial intelligence and big data that will deliver a one-to-one level of personalisation and generate customisable base interest privileges and discounts that will fit customers’ shopping behaviours. In addition, “My Lotus’s”, the new rewards programme that has been built to tackle customer pain points, offers key highlights of personalised value that goes beyond price through a simpler and instant point collection system and redemption, offering more than 200 personalised deals and privileges custom-generated by the AI with discounts included. 

With more than 2,300 hypermarkets, supermarkets, and mini-supermarkets as distribution centres and delivery starting points, Lotus’s online shopping provided customers with utmost efficiency and convenience, especially with the current time of uncertainties and risks from the pandemic. Through strong partnerships with delivery platforms, Lotus’s offers one-hour express delivery from the moment the customer confirms their order up until the products reach their doorsteps. 

My Lotus’s members also enjoy the benefits of earning Lotus’s coins from every purchase made at Lotus’s stores and online. The coins can be redeemed as an instant discount or other privileges, thanks to the collaboration with various brands and partners.  

The platform saw a growth of 150% in members with 10 million active users in Thailand, along with reaching over 85% of the total population by the first week with only 5% cost and time used.

The 17th Retail Asia Awards is presented by Retail Asia. To view the full list of winners, click here. If you want to join the 2023 awards programme and be acclaimed for your company's outstanding retail initiatives, please contact Jane Patiag at [email protected].