Myer is Australia’s leading department store, with over 60 stores across the country. They are widely regarded as a leader in Australian retail, aiming to deliver a world class shopping experience for all customers by bringing their love of shopping to life.
Over 1.4 million Chinese tourists visited Australia last year, spending on average $8000 a visit. Myer saw this as an opportunity to generate a new revenue stream, and partnered with ThoughtWorks to identify new ways to connect with this previously untapped segment.
We undertook an initial discovery to validate the business opportunity; analysing market size, shopping trends and consumer behaviours across hundreds of Chinese shoppers. The team used this data to storyboard a range of product ideas, before converging core functions to be released as a part of an initial minimum viable product (MVP). The team chose to build the platform on top of WeChat, China’s leading social network, which has an extensive API that allows building custom functionality.
Following five weeks of rapid development, Myer launched a digital engagement platform aiming to attract Chinese customers to shop in-store, just in time for Chinese New Year.