Thomas spoke to The Drum as part of the Digital Transformation Festival, in which the full interview will be streamed on Tuesday 21 April at 4pm Singapore/9am GMT.
Prior to joining Pomelo as chief marketing officer last year, Thomas was the chief marketing officer at Alibaba-owned Lazada and Redmart. Alibaba has been one of the pioneers of live stream commerce and during his tenure with Lazada in Southeast Asia, he got a feel for how this channel could be used, launching Pomelo’s version last month.
“I had the chance to launch the livestream with Lazada back in Singapore last year. So I had a bit of experience on, I suppose, the live stream path and learning from Alibaba Group. When it comes to Pomelo, we really focused on different initiatives but one thing that always remains is how do you engage the customer more than just sending them products? Customers today only come to buy something or maybe there's a sale or a new collection. It's still limited in terms of how many purchases per year you will make, and how many times you will come to that website or app. So we had to look at different ways we could increase how often people are coming to our app, and I believe live stream was a good answer for many reasons,” explains Thomas.
He also adds that at the moment, it’s not a channel that’s overly used by fashion brands, particularly with the shoppable component, so it gives Pomelo a differentiation from competitors.
“One other aspect is that we haven't found too many players in this region within the fashion space actually doing it. Having the first-mover advantage in that space was a different point of consideration,” he says.
To listen to the whole interview, join in at The Digital Transformation Festival website, when it will be streamed on Tuesday 21 April at 4pm Singapore/9am GMT. You can also catch up on all the interviews so far from the festival, including Lazada chief marketing officer Michelle Yip and WPP CEO Mark Read on the Digital Transformation Website.
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