Available from September 2019, Price Kaki is an app that crowdsources and compiles the prices of daily goods sold across multiple physical retail stores in Singapore. The app enables price comparison of groceries, household items and hawker food, across outlets, thus helping shoppers make informed decisions and get value for their money. Users are invited to contribute real-time updates on prices and promotions, with the most active rewarded with e-vouchers. Developed by Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE), the app is inspired by e-commerce price aggregators, and aims to bring the same level of transparency and consumer empowerment to offline shopping.

Fun fact: ‘kaki’ is local Singaporean lingo for ‘buddies’ 👯. Here are two reasons why we are telling our buddies (loyal readers!) about this:

💡Revolutionizing (Offline) Retail. E-commerce in Southeast Asia is expected to grow from USD 19 billion in 2018 to USD 53 billion in 2023. However, 93.5% of all retail sales will still happen in physical locations. This is a dichotomy that exists globally: e-commerce is outgrowing physical retail, yet offline still dominates. As a result, businesses pursuing further growth are focusing on revolutionizing brick-and-mortar, by integrating the best aspects (like price transparency) of online retail. Chinese innovators are pioneers of this strategy – see our trend C-COMMERCE – and Price Kaki is the latest Asian innovation in that vein. Are there expectations set online that you can unlock offline in your industry?

💡Crowdsourcing: Old but Gold. Sure, the concept of crowdsourcing has been around the block. We took a look at one side of it with PEER ARMIES in 2016, discussing how brands can empower networks of consumers to supercharge their own CX. Now, years later, we are still seeing great examples such as this one, and most recently Zalando enlisting homeowners as delivery points. Fresh evidence that you can use an ‘old’ concept and create new applications for it. Can you invite your customers to take part in the action to deliver a better experience for all? What tangible incentives will you offer them for improving your service?