How Boldfit Got Customer Data Despite Amazon, Flipkart's No Sharing Policy

Boldfit is a Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) health and fitness e-commerce brand recognized for its innovative approach in the wellness market. Beginning with the successful launch of yoga mats, Boldfit has expanded its product range to include nutritional and wellness supplements like proteins, multivitamins, immunity boosters, and detox tablets. Boldfit's products cater to a wide consumer base, ranging from fitness enthusiasts to general health-conscious individuals. The brand primarily targets users aged 18-45 across various income groups in India, including upper-middle, high, and lower-middle income segments, focusing on Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities.

The Hurdle

Despite its success, Boldfit faced a significant challenge: most of its sales were through third-party e-commerce platforms like Amazon and Flipkart, which don't share crucial customer data such as phone numbers and emails with sellers. Like most D2C firms, Boldfit relies on marketplaces for initial discovery till the time their e-store marketing efforts ramp up. Offlate, marketplaces have stopped sharing the most critical data points like buyer phone numbers, with their merchants. Needless to say, direct customer data is needed to ensure personalized marketing efforts and long-term customer relationship development.

The QR Code Strategy

Boldfit partnered with QuickReply.ai to address this problem and adopted a QR code scan tactic. This strategy involved placing QR codes in product packaging, incentivizing customers to scan them in exchange for valuable information like a continuous feed of health guides. This served a dual purpose - a) retain top of mind recall with authentic, expert-led content and b) grab their phone numbers to build more first-party data.

Upon scanning, customers were directed to WhatsApp, where Boldfit, using QuickReply.ai's WhatsApp marketing workflows - engaged them in personalized journeys, capturing their phone numbers, names, and additional details such as email addresses and purchase platforms.

Impact and Results

Boldfit's collaboration with QuickReply.ai hit the mark with its QR code strategy. Here's the lowdown on the results they achieved:

1. Striking Gold with Data: Boldfit scooped up 6,709 phone numbers, plus names and emails. That's a goldmine of customer data right there.
2. Getting the Inside Scoop on Sales Platforms: They smartly figured out where their customers were shopping - Amazon, Flipkart, you name it. This insight is crucial for tailoring their marketing strategies.
3. Carving Out Their Marketing Path: Boldfit used this to reduce their reliance on big e-commerce platforms. Now, they've got their direct line to their customers – that's a big win.
4. Customer Chats Speak Louder: Direct chats with customers opened up a treasure trove of feedback, which is valuable for tweaking products and services.
5. Nailing the Marketing Game: Armed with all this data, Boldfit can now get granular with segmenting customers and personalizing their outreach using QuickReply.ai’s drip workflows for WhatsApp.

Conclusion

Boldfit's QR code strategy represents a significant leap in overcoming the data-sharing limitations of third-party e-commerce platforms. By innovatively integrating QuickReply.ai's QR code scanners, Boldfit enhanced its direct marketing capabilities and laid the foundation for a more robust, data-driven customer relationship model.

In a future increasingly leaning towards a cookieless digital environment, strategies like Boldfit's are pivotal. They enable brands to build a repository of first-party data, which is invaluable for sustained marketing success. As D2C brands navigate the evolving e-commerce landscape, Boldfit's case stands as a testament to the power of WhatsApp in customer data acquisition and the growing importance of business messaging in direct, personalized customer engagement.