The online shopper is very often a completely different entity, distinctly different from her offline counterpart. For brands to woo this entity requires not just understanding of online customer behaviour, but also effective presentation and communication of product features - essentially make it as enticing as physical visual merchandising. Helping brands do this is ODN (Open Doors Now),  a company that deliver better customer conversions on e-commerce platforms through consumer research, data analysis, impactful rich-media content, design innovation, strategic consumer touch points, brand audit & listing content strategy. 

Narinder Mahajan, CEO and Co-Founder of ODN, says speaking about theeight year oldcompany’sgenesis, “When we started we were right in the middle of e-commerce growth and investments, but then the overall digital literacy was still low. So we felt the need for an e-enablement company that would help brands and sellers go online and use the online marketplace effectively. That’s how ODN was born and we chose content as one of the key offerings.

Addressing the challenge of content requirement 

Explaining how ODN rose to the common challenge that brands faced when it came to their content, Narinder says, “When a brand is launching a product range online, they need right content pieces to showcase it, whether for their website, social media, or any other platform. And they need to stand out as well. This is critical, as in the absence of the touch and feel factor provided by offline, they will need powerful imagery and visual communications to convince and induce the customer to buy the product. But brands do not understand or specialize in creation of digital content, because it requires technical knowledge as well as understanding of e-commerce consumer behaviour. It requires strategy, ideations and post production skill sets. Now the quantum of business is not so high that they can invest in in-house capability. They need to outsource it to someone who understands the dynamics of it and also delivers with quick turnaround time. That’s where we come in.”

Content is not just king, but the kingdom!

Elaborating on the critical need for right content for online brands, Narinder says, “In the last few years, particularly after COVID, the fight for consumer has become very fierce in the online space.  It has in fact become very expensive to acquire a customer today. To differentiate you have to present your products in the best possible manner.”

ODN in factrecently compiled a report on e-Commerce Content Analysis highlighting that approximately 67.54% of brands failed to meet minimum image standards, while 100% exhibited design and copy imperfections, underscoring a pervasive shortfall in content quality across the board. While 35.3% of the brands did not have any video on Amazon listing.

But Narinder also says that content is taking center stage now in the online space as brands realize the need to engage the customer and make them aware on product features in order to induce them to buy. 

He shares ODN’s own growth journey to reiterate this. “I’d say we are in the forefront of enabling this content drive. On an average we shoot about 400 videos a day and this kind of volume was never heard of in the past for online. But we have been able to build strong operations through the right technologies and processes in the back end to manage this kind of workflow.” 

Today the company is the authorized e-commerce growth partner for 500+ brands including Amazon, Flipkart, Reliance Brands, Nykaa, Myntra, ONDC, Tata Cliq, Fossil APAC, United Colors of Benetton, M&S, TTK Prestige, CRED, Noon, Fabindia, Zydus, Too Yum, Hindware, Landmark Group, Babyshop, Centrepoint, Group M, Hogarth. 

The company says that its 130-member strong firm processed 1+ million images in 2023, delivered 5000 creative products, and devised Shop-Now Content™ strategies for over 50+ online marketplaces in 80+ product categories across India and 11 countries in UAE, and APAC.

The online extension of store experience and VM 

The demand for content in the online space can be better understood when applying the offline analogy to the online space in terms of shopper experience. As Narinder explains, emphasising the role of right content in the online space, “The Home page is like the store windows and the landing page for a specific product is the store section. When you reach the ‘aisle’, the product information you see there is like the store sales staff who can explain and help the customer make a purchase decision. This is especially important for categories like electronics.” 

Being in the online space also means being able to harness data and analysing that to understand customer behaviour and conversion patterns. “This kind of data analysis also teaches us a lot in terms of what needs to be done to improve conversion rates,” says Narinder. He also informs that with digital becoming more important, the marketing teams in brands are also getting more involved with the content creation for e-commerce today.

Finally, summing up the company’s plans, Narinder says, “We want to build a global company specializing in content creation as well as content distribution and management. We make a lot of investments in technologies and since last year we have been investing heavily in Gen AI to automate things that were being done manually in the back end.”