Retail tech leader interview: Anthony Ng Monica, CEO, Swogo
RTIH sits down with Anthony Ng Monica, head honcho at Swogo, to discuss the venture’s journey so far and what to expect from it in 2021.
RTIH: Tell us about Swogo
ANM: We power automated bundle recommendations for retailers to increase their margins and basket sizes online.
Our award winning technology drives millions for retail leaders like El Corte Inglés, John Lewis, Decathlon, Sephora, Media Markt and Argos in over 30 countries around the world.
RTIH: What was the inspiration behind setting the company up?
ANM: The e-commerce market has made prices transparent forcing retailers to compete on price to win business, and hurting their profitability.
A quick win to increase profitability is to cross-sell high margin products to go with each purchase. McDonald’s does a great job of this by selling meals, instead of just the burger.
Bundles have always been a popular strategy for retailers to cross-sell. However, online we noticed that retailers really struggled creating these bundles.
They either relied on manually associating one SKU with another, or tried to use recommendation engines that relied on customer behaviour to match items. These failed to understand the relationships between each product, leading to irrelevant and incompatible matches.
We set out to solve this problem, helping retailers increase their profitability, while automating their cross-sell with a focus on understanding their products to guarantee compatible and relevant bundle recommendations at scale.
RTIH: How have you fared in 2020?
ANM: When we heard about the coronavirus pandemic in Europe, like most people, we didn’t know what to expect. We had just opened a new office a month before, and we had to make the decision for our team to work remotely.
As more and more lockdowns were imposed, we saw sales shift online. Customers depended on this channel to get their goods and retailers depended on this channel to survive - their profit became paramount.
As a business, we realised that we needed to act. We invested heavily to cope with the demands of our partners, adding 24 new joiners in 2020.
Customer success is an area that we take very seriously. In 2019, 100% of our customers renewed with Swogo and we remained committed to helping them succeed throughout the crisis.
Overall, we’re really pleased with the way that our team pulled together to help our retail partners. Last month in November 2020, Swogo drove over 4.5 billion bundles for our partners and sales increased 187% compared to 2019.
RTIH: What has been your biggest challenge/setback since launching?
ANM: Our biggest challenge this year has been keeping up with our growth. We hired 24 new joiners in 2020, taking our team to 40.
As a result of the pandemic, onboarding has taken place largely remotely. It has certainly been challenging as we hadn’t done it before, however, we believe the additional flexibility is working well for our teams.
RTIH: What have been the biggest successes?
ANM: I believe the culture that we’ve created at Swogo is our biggest success. Looking after your team ultimately translates to success for your customers and business.
In addition to 100% of our customers renewing with us last year,. in 2020 we achieved 141% net revenue retention. I believe this really highlights the efforts of our team.
We’ve won several awards this year, such as Best Retail Platform and Best Bundling Technology which is a testament to this.
RTIH: What are the major challenges facing the online retail sector right now?
ANM: Online retailers are focused heavily on driving profitable growth.
With stores being closed, and their sales depending on the online channel, it’s no longer enough to boost their top line. In addition, the increased demand online has created long-term supply challenges.
We’ve been helping our retail partners with these challenges, including, prioritising higher margin items, swapping out alternative items should an item go out of stock, and bundling items from the same warehouse, to reduce their logistical costs and increase their profitability.
RTIH: What can we expect to see from Swogo in 2021?
ANM: We have big plans for 2021. We’ll be opening two new offices (locations to be announced soon), investing in our proprietary technology, Swogo Product Graph, and we have a couple of exciting data projects on the way.
We look forward to sharing more with you soon.