New Delhi: Affle (India) Limited announced today that its Singapore subsidiary, Affle International Pte. Ltd. (“Affle International”), has acquired Shoffr, a Singapore-based online to offline (O2O) platform that converts online consumer engagements into in-store walk-ins and transactions. As part of the transaction effective 19 February 2019, Shoffr Pte. Ltd.’s business, brand name, intellectual property rights, business relationships, technical information, assets and employees have been transferred to Affle Group.
Shoffr enables online to offline consumer journeys by converting online engagements into in-store walk-ins and transactions. It reveals offline retail stores inventories online via API and programmatic links and provides catalog management, order management with measurable ROI to retail brands.
This acquisition will strengthen the Affle group’s Consumer & Enterprise platforms by providing an integrated consumer journeys and allow brands to transparently attribute the impact of digital advertising on in-store footfalls and transactions.
Commenting on this acquisition, Anuj Khanna Sohum, the Chairman, MD and CEO of Affle said, “We are excited to announce the acquisition of Shoffr, which is our third acquisition after the Vizury Commerce Business and Markt in the last 12 months. We welcome Shoffr’s team on-board. With increasing influence of smartphone-based engagements on the retail purchase decision, we believe that Shoffr complements our existing Omnichannel Platform to enhance the ROI for brands through both online and offline transactions.”
Sharing his thoughts about this development, Abhishek Dadoo, CEO & Founder of Shoffr Pte. Ltd., who has now joined Affle International as the Director, Omnichannel Platform, said, “We are glad to commence on this exciting journey together with the Affle group. Shoffr’s online to offline capability to drive in-store traffic is used by several retail brands in India & South East Asia and we look forward to growing Shoffr into an omni-channel platform by leveraging synergies with the Affle group. We believe that we will be able to see our vision for Shoffr, to deliver and measure end-to-end consumer journeys come to life.”
A recent report* by Frost & Sullivan India Pvt. Ltd. (“Frost & Sullivan”) states that e-commerce comprises one-tenth of the total global retail sales at USD 2.29 trillion. The report further states that the primary challenge for brands and retailers (both offline and online) is how to seek and target the right customer through digital avenues. With this acquisition, Affle will aim to leverage this market opportunity.
This acquisition comes after the Affle group’s acquisition of the Vizury Commerce Business in September 2018 and Affle Global Pte. Ltd.’s acquisition of the Markt in March 2018, which was consequently acquired by Affle International when it had acquired Affle Global Pte. Ltd.’s business effective July 1, 2018.
