Acquisition Strategies to Beat Seasonal Dips - Seif Hassan (Momox)
Feb 21, 2024
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Discover how e-commerce apps can combat seasonal dips in user activity with insights from Seif Hassan of Momox. Learn about incentivizing user actions, expansion strategies, AI experimentation, and industry predictions for 2024.
Seasonal fluctuations impact app acquisition strategies and require creative solutions like incentivizing users during slow periods.
Expansion into new markets helps e-commerce apps overcome seasonality barriers by diversifying inventory and tapping into different user demographics.
Deep dives
MoMox's Two-Sided Business Model
MoMox operates as an e-commerce company with two main aspects - the inbound part where they acquire items like books, CDs, and DVDs from users, and the outbound part where they sell these purchased items to customers. Safe Hassan, a senior performance manager at MoMox, oversees the acquisition of users with diverse demographics and backgrounds, aiming to secure a broad inventory for customers. His role involves managing the acquisition and retargeting strategies for the business.
Effects of Seasonality on MoMox's Business
Seasonality significantly impacts MoMox's operations, with distinct trends during different seasons. Summer months witness a decrease in item acquisition as people are less likely to sell items, resulting in a subsequent dip in sales. Conversely, the holiday season and winter months are bustling for MoMox, as more people are indoors, leading to increased selling and purchasing activities. Post-Christmas also sees a rise in people selling unwanted items, highlighting unique market dynamics during various periods.
Strategies to Counteract Seasonal Effects and Expand Markets
MoMox employs incentivization strategies such as offering sales bonuses and expanding into markets less affected by seasonality, aiming to maintain a steady flow of inventory for both buyers and sellers. Expanding into countries like Italy and Spain, and planning further EU expansions, allows MoMox to acquire diverse inventory, attract English book sellers, and mitigate seasonal impacts. Evaluating media channels and cultural norms in new markets enables strategic messaging adaptations for successful market penetration and growth.
Sometimes e-commerce apps will notice changes in user behavior that correlate to the time of year. What can app marketers do to incentivize their users to take action during these periods? Find out in this episode of Apptivate’s e-commerce series, featuring Seif Hassan, the Senior Performance Marketing Manager for the inbound unit at Momox.
Momox is a Berlin-based “recommerce” company that buys and resells used books and media. Previous to working at Momox, Seif led user acquisition efforts for apps across global markets, including Phiture, Quandoo, and Wego.com.
Questions Seif Answered in this Episode:
Tell us about Momox.
What’s your role at Momox?
How do you manage acquisition for both the inbound and outbound sides of your marketplace?
How do you incentivize people to sell their belongings on your app?
Where are you looking to expand?
How do you evaluate the media channels that you’re working with to support acquisition or retention as you expand to new countries?
Are you experimenting with AI?
Do you have any predictions for our industry in 2024?
Timestamp:
0:47 About Momox
1:37 Seif’s role at Momox
3:42 Marketplace seasonality
7:15 Incentivizing users with bonuses in their checkout cart
7:51 Expansion as a strategy to overcome seasonality barriers
11:52 Experimenting with tone of voice with AI
13:00 Looking ahead
Quotes:
(8:20-8:34) “Expansion is one of the ways in which we try to conquer this seasonality problem. It also helps with acquiring books in different languages and expanding our inventory, and therefore, our customer base.”
(11.48-12.16) “We have experimented with AI for some of the ad texts for the tone of voice that we are using in order to see how can we try a different communication approach, and AI comes in very handy, especially if you have limited capacity or limited resources to produce as many creatives as possible.”