KDDI Corporation
Retailigence Corporation.
October 13, 2011
KDDI Corporation and Retailigence Corporation have made an agreement to conduct a series of demonstration experiments related to the establishment of the Online to Offline (O2O) Platform, beginning in late October 2011.
In recent years, as network environments have grown increasingly diverse and smart devices have become ever more widespread, information posted on the Internet has come to exert a growing influence on purchasing activity at brick-and-mortar stores, prompting consumers to adopt new shopping behaviors, such as the tendency to seek opinions and reviews online and in social media before making purchases. In an effort to support businesses in this market environment, KDDI and Retailigence have established the O2O Platform to connect online and offline purchasing activity, and the companies will collaborate to test the O2O Platform in a series of demonstration experiments aimed at providing services that help retailers increase sales.
In these demonstration experiments, Retailigence will provide web tools that connect potential customers with product information from brick-and-mortar stores, and KDDI will use these tools to provide cloud services for retailer, and the companies provide applications that search for nearby stores where shoppers can purchase the products they desire.
In the future, after studying the new functional capabilities arising from the results of the demonstration experiments, KDDI and Retailigence will continue to work together to explore the commercial potential of the O2O Platform as a tool that enables customers to use smartphones to enjoy shopping at brick-and-mortar stores.
Please refer to the attachment for further details.
