See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based startup Uluru is best known for its cloudsourced platform using housewives called Shufti. The company launched a tablet-based member registration system called Kamimage, focused on helping retailers let their customers sign up for their loyalty program without paper. Uluru recently launched ‘Kamimage for Fashion‘, the member registration system specifically designed for fashion retailers.

See also:

• Japan’s crowdsourcing plaform Shufti raises $5.8 million

Recognizing high demand in fashion retailing industry

Kamimage was developed with the aim to supplant papers used for surveys and membership registrations with handwriting at stores. It only takes an hour minimum to digitalize the stylus-written information, like name and home address, on customized forms.

Receiving many feedbacks on digitalizing surveys and member-registration forms for Uluru’s outsourced business, the company developed the app to cut printing cost and time needed to digitalize customer information. It was first intended for events, show house exhibitions and in-home care scenes, but through its operation, they realized that a huge demand can be found in the apparel industry.

In the past, apparel stores had to ask their customers to scan URL or QR codes on shop cards to access shop web pages in order to register themselves. However, since the appearance of iPhone, Android and such, the process has become more complex – frequently resulted in warding off the customers without their ever reaching the registration process. Furthermore, it is not efficient to digitalize the paper documents even during free time, to say the least. So the newly-introduced platform be the solution for existing issues like these.

Corralling customers through use of hand-input at storefronts

With the ‘Kamiage for Fashion’ platform, the information handwritten on tablets can be digitalized in about an hour. It doesn’t only cut various costs like printing, space for storing paper forms, time and human resources for data input, but the data can also be used for immediate customer relationship management (CRM) analyses.

Additionally, it may utilize the camera on the tablet to link customer information with images of purchased items and receipts, while also linking and sharing customer information with the store’s e-commerce site or CRM system using the Uluru API (application program interface). While there are conventional services using OCR, Uluru leverages crowdsourced workforce from the Shufti platform to let the Kamimage service provide more accurate data input to differentiate from any “pursuing” rivals.

Retailers can start using ‘Kamimage for Fashion’ fairly easily. After registering e-mail address, password and other necessary information, just pay for monthly plans ranging from 5,000 to 30,000 yen ($42 to $252) with credit card and one’s ready to go. If no tablet device is yet available, an iPad rental for the stores from 2,500 yen per month is available.

Uluru’s first-year sales goal is 70 million yen (about 588,000). The company is also looking to develop a customer and transaction management system for storefronts, helping retailers integrate their customer information with direct-marketing systems and other services.

Translated by Sumi Yo via Mother First
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
Proofread by Masaru Ikeda