Nykaa meets customers on Hangouts to mine insights for ‘men and kids’ fashion categories

The Covid crisis and the lockdown is making brands look for newer ways to go about their business. Last week, online fashion retailer Nykaa sent out emails to customers inviting them to take part in an online session to gather consumer insights. Before you let your imagination loose, let us tell you that it was an online session and not another inanimate online survey questionnaire. This time, it was a face to face meeting over Google Hangouts.

Nykaa started out as the destination for cosmetics in 2014. The platform later forayed into apparel by including undergarments as a section on its website in 2016. It is now planning to launch new categories for men and kids fashion. Nykaa currently runs 70 stores across cities and had plans to expand its offline footprint by adding 40 more outlets by the end of 2020.

Here's the full text of Nykaa’s email to customers:

Dear Nykaa Fashion customer,

As we grow, we want to take your inputs and expand as per your liking. We are exploring the idea of launching new categories for men and kids on our platform and we would like to connect with you to seek your inputs on the same.

We are conducting an 2 open house events (Google Hangout):

Monday, 22nd June 2020 at 4:00 PM to talk about your online shopping experience about the men in your life i.e. your spouse, fiancé, brother or anyone else.

Link for men’s online shopping discussion: meet.google.com/xxx-yyy-zzz

And on Tuesday 23rd June 2020 at 4:00 PM to talk about your online shopping experience for kids.

Link for kid’s online shopping discussion: meet.google.com/xxx-yyy-zzz

We need only 30 minutes of your time. You can either join at 4:00PM, 4:40PM or 5:15 PM. All participants who stay on for 30 minutes will be given a Nykaa Fashion voucher worth Rs.500/-.

Looking forward to a full house on both days

Customers who joined the session were welcomed by Monica Sharma from Nykaa’s customer insights department. The ensuing conversation between the interviewer (Sharma) and the customers, included questions about preferences, shopping experiences, need gaps, choosing for family members among a host of other topics. Each qualitative interview went on for around thirty minutes and efforts were made to dive deep into the customer's habits, choices and influences.

The Hangouts interviews with customers is not the only lockdown tweak that Nykaa has brought about. Nykaa had earlier tweaked the strategy for its fashion related content shifting focus to wellness, fitness and DIY beauty topics. As per the Nykaa team, the change in focus resulted in increased engagement across all Nykaa’s content platforms including social media,Nykaa Tv, emailers and the user generated community platform, Nykaa Network.