over the cloud to monitor sales, run promotions and manage inventory more efficiently.

Importantly, Octopus’ customizable solutions have been integrated with the Alibaba iStore system, including Customer Relationship Management (CRM) integration and payment integration. This seamless integration allows Asus to drive omnichannel sales and enhance the customer experience both in store and online.

“The retail space is transforming rapidly. We wanted a retail software solution that would integrate with Alibaba CRM and allow seamless promotions and inventory management across our network of stores in China. Partnering with Octopus will enable us to achieve that and deliver an enhanced shopping experience for our customers,” says Wu Rui, Project Director at Asus.

“We are proud to be selected by Asus to deliver our software solutions to drive their retail business forward,” said Ong Whee Shiong, Managing Director of Octopus. “Octopus’ smart retail technology will enable Asus to manage their store network across China to enhance their business productivity and drive store experiences that exceed their customers’ expectations. And this multi-city deployment is testament to our ability to serve leading retailers with store locations across APAC.”

Shopmatic, a Singapore-based firm providing e-commerce solutions to small businesses and individual entrepreneurs, announced its merger with Octopus, a Singapore-based company providing retail management solutions used by leading retailers to drive omni-channel sales and customer engagement.

Shopmatic & Octopus understand that retail businesses require a holistic offline and online digital ecosystem to scale their businesses and assist them in managing their customers, reducing operational costs and increasing revenue. While Shopmatic offers the entire ecosystem for establishing a successful business online, Octopus offers innovative, cloud-based retail management solutions to brick and mortar businesses, from small boutiques to large retail chains with several hundred stores.

The retailers that are succeeding today are incorporating modern omnichannel strategies into their operations, which include a cross channel customer experience across online & offline digital touch points, order management systems that provide accurate, real-time inventory & fulfillment intelligence and order visibility through highly scalable application programming interfaces (APIs) that connect to ERP and Financial Accounting platforms.

A report by IDC Retail Insights found the following insights from retailers using omnichannel marketing strategies:

• 15-35% increase in average transaction size
• 5-10% increase in loyal customers’ profitability
• 30% higher lifetime value than those who shop using only one channel

With this partnership, retail businesses will benefit from the gap that currently exists for them to go online as well as have strong offline touch points. This collaboration will also see both firms spread their wings into newer markets and leverage on each other’s geographical strengths, Shopmatic with their presence in India, Middle East, Singapore and Hong Kong and Octopus with their presence in China, Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and the US.

By disrupting the market with its most-holistic suite of services covering both the online and offline landscapes for businesses, the combined entity will acquire 500,000 customers, generate more than $1.4Bn of GMV and achieve $10M in revenue in 2019.

Anurag Avula, Co-Founder & CEO, Shopmatic said, “Our aim is to continue to cement our commitment to supporting SMEs and entrepreneurs in their online commerce journey, around the world. Through the Shopmatic platform, we have always wanted to democratise the process for any business to go online by making it easy, simple and cost-effective. We strongly believe that there needs to be an integrated consumer journey that allows brands to transparently enjoy the benefits of both offline and online journeys.”

He added, “Our merger with Octopus will enhance the offline-online synergy. Their strength and experience in cutting-edge Point of Sales (POS) suite of solutions which has benefitted a variety of businesses spanning the retail, F&B and ecommerce sectors will be of immense value to merchants across the Asia Pacific region. We see great synergies in the two companies and will be one of the few entities to offer a comprehensive omnichannel offering for SMEs & aspiring entrepreneurs.”

Ong Whee Shiong, Founder and Managing Director of Octopus said, “This is a big step for us. We have been one of the pioneers in creating retail management solutions and are growing phenomenally outside Singapore with our suite of solutions implemented across thousands of retail businesses globally. He added, “We understand that the digital age has brought about several challenges at businesses. It has become critical for retailers to implement an efficient omnichannel retail management system to enhance business productivity – this is where our partnership with Shopmatic will come into play. Together we cover markets spanning Asia Pacific, Middle East and the United States. We believe that online and offline need to coexist for the retail sector and through our integrated solutions, we will be able to provide our clients, and thus, their customers an enhanced, seamless shopping experience.”

As a global e-commerce enabler, Shopmatic has over 50,000 online businesses and is now enabling the entire offline and online ecosystem. Octopus offers a comprehensive retail management solution, allowing brick and mortar businesses to curate personalised experiences as per the shopping or dining behaviour of the customers. With Octopus, retailers can easily synchronise inventory, on-board customers through mobile platform, offer loyalty points and support customer promotions. The solution offers real-time visibility into sales, performance of staff, and inventory, enhancing the business efficiency.

With the combined entity, online businesses can enhance their e-commerce technology with Shopmatic’s solutions while tapping into the physical retail opportunity with Octopus’ easy-to-use POS solution. And similarly, offline businesses can power their stores with Octopus’ suite of retail management solutions and at the same time have Shopmatic’s handholding and support required to navigate the burgeoning world of online commerce. Retail businesses of all sizes, from aspiring entrepreneurs, hobbypreneurs, craftsperson, artisans to retail SMBs and retail chains can partner with Shopmatic and Octopus to power their successful e-commerce and retail journey.