MarketingTech spoke with Alan Gabbay, CEO of commerce technology provider Udozi, on his mobile and social strategy, how his company differs from the rest and making sure the high street doesn’t die

The death of the high street has long been predicted. With 20 stores being shut per day in the UK, the rise of e-commerce and, more recently, m-commerce is largely seen as the stake through the high street’s heart.

Not so, according to Alan Gabbay. The effusive CEO of up-and-coming product search finder Udozi firmly believes the platforms complement each other, rather than compete.

“People love the high street,” Gabbay tells MarketingTech. “[High street retailers] have massive challenges, there’s no doubt about it, but I think if these retailers can embrace technologies like the mobile phone, we can still live with the high street and online. I think they cater to two different types of shoppers.”

The cynical reaction would be that you’d expect Gabbay to say that: he’s put a bet down and got his whole business riding on it.

Unlike Google’s shopping tool, Udozi focuses specifically on product search for the high street, and predominantly independent retailers, with around 160 signed up to date. “They really feel it, they really notice it,” Gabbay explains. “We don’t do any e-commerce on our site, we don’t show any online stock, it’s purely just the high street or physical stores.”

The indie retailers certainly seem enamoured with Udozi’s rounded solution, which offers search functionality, maps, and promotions. In particular, Udozi doesn’t discriminate by store size – as Gabbay explains, it’s a product search, not a retailer search.

“On Google search, with the AdWords and so forth, it’s very hard for an independent retailer to get his name up there. It’s a little twist, and they enjoy that.”

It’s certainly a bold strategy. Udozi formed in 2008, according to the company website, with the ripples of the UK recession beginning to materialise, but nowhere near the decimation of the high street we see today. To gain the trust of the retailers, Gabbay offered a free trial of his software.

“A lot of these retailers weren’t really there yet – at that time they weren’t multi-channel departments,” Gabbay notes. “The nice thing is we have a great relationship with these retailers, and they appreciate what we’re trying to do to try and get people back onto the high street.”

Taking advantage of the mobile and social shopper

Even though shops are closing, people still go to the high street. That, of course, is where mobile comes in. With recent research from IMRG Capgemini revealing that m-commerce figures went up by 136% last year in the UK, to say it’s an essential part of a company’s strategy is something of a truism.

Udozi only has an iOS app, but that’s going to change soon enough, with an Android app arriving in September and a look towards other OS in due course.

With around 40% of Udozi’s traffic coming through mobile today and that number only expected to go up, thoughts turn to whether the company would be seen in the future as mobile first – or mobile only.

“If we were able to start the company today, we’d have a team sit down and ask ‘do we want to just focus on mobile?’”, Gabbay says. “That would be a very interesting conversation and I’m sure the team will be split on which way to go.

“I think there’s no doubt about it, mobile is a key pointer. Saying that, there is nothing quite like the web, but we definitely see a push for mobile strategy internally.”

Increasing mobile penetration seems to be a no-brainer, but what about social? A recent report from Vision Critical revealed how Pinterest users were most likely to make a spontaneous purchase. Yet Udozi doesn’t have a Pinterest page, replying only on Facebook and Twitter.

“There’s definitely a great way to interact via the Pinterest business model,” Gabbay notes. “We love Twitter because it’s a great way to communicate with our customers in a quick and easy way, but these other platforms are also fantastic.”

Do you think the high street is going to live happily in tandem with e- and m-commerce?