eCommerce, mCommerce and now dCommerce? Yes, Digital Commerce is not new but looks very different than it did a few years ago.
The world around us is changing rapidly. There were times when we considered augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI) as too futuristic. Now they are a part of our everyday life. Living in the digital era, we are moving in the direction of seamless, fast, immersive, and personalized experiences. With digital selling and shopping now the way of life, digital marketing has become a necessity.
eCommerce used to just be about selling online. Today the focus has shifted from transaction to improving fulfilment, customer service, and customer loyalty. To meet the higher shopper expectations, you must provide a unified experience throughout the customer journey and establish a trusted relationship with the customer. You have to offer what customers desire by implementing the right and latest tools, technologies, and processes from initial awareness, through engagement, conversion, transaction and repeat purchase. How do you achieve all that? Through Digital Commerce.
What is Digital Commerce?
Digital commerce (dCommerce) provides the ability to buy and sell goods and services using digital channels such as the internet, mobile networks, and commerce infrastructure without having to speak to or contact anyone. A digital commerce strategy includes content creation (e.g., blogs, product descriptions, and social media posts), research and development, promotions, analytics, marketing, social media presence, customer satisfaction, customer acquisition and retention, and customer service. In short, it is an individual experience for customers and an effective tool for sellers.
What is the driving force behind digital commerce?
Why do we need digital commerce? With the B2B and B2C markets experiencing the impact of digitalization, consumer behaviour is also experiencing a major shift. Therefore, the answer to the need for digital commerce is simple:
- Creating the best customer experience
A customer’s positive digital experience with a company’s app or website is crucial for word of mouth recommendations. They expect a consistent experience across all touchpoints. They also expect retailers to understand and remember their interactions across all digital channels and devices if they’re logged in. This helps keep customers engaged throughout the entire customer lifecycle (researching, buying, seeking support) when they are using multiple devices.
- Keeping up with the evolving competition
The competition is fierce. If you haven’t started mapping your customer journey, you need to now. Positive experiences with your brand breeds loyalty and increases the chances of getting customer recommendations. Any negative experience with your app or website will have your potential customers migrating to your competitors.
Let’s take a look at the 6 key digital commerce trends to watch out for in 2020
- Personalization
Customers love personalization. When you offer them anything personalized, it shows that you care about them and have taken an effort to understand their needs. Personalization can also give you insights into how to improve products and targeted marketing techniques. A marketing message tailored to the specific interests of customers is much more effective than any generic messaging.
Personalized content makes your customers feel like you are speaking directly to them. This can be can achieved by learning their buying patterns, collecting visitor data with customer relationship management (CRM) systems, and studying their online activity. Personalizing landing/product pages, search, product recommendation, and banners and offers, can also help to increase sales, engagement, loyalty, and customer satisfaction.
- Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)
Progressive web apps have been making headlines since their arrival and they are going to become more and more prevalent. In fact, Gartner predicts that by next year, PWAs will replace 50% of general-purpose and consumer-facing mobile apps. PWA will become the future of mCommerce due to the robust features and app-like experience on the web while eliminating the need to download anything. Instant access to services and push notifications, even offline, is what made PWAs one of the top digital commerce trends.
- Subscription Commerce
There are certain things customers buy on a regular basis which has brought about the rise of subscription offers. This is when a seller gives a discount if customers sign up to automatically receive goods on a recurring schedule. With the automatic renewal, the customer does not have to remember to buy goods or services and sellers benefit from repeat business and predictable revenue.
- Omnichannel Content and Commerce
Did you know half of your sales can be achieved with the content itself? Content commerce is simply well-crafted, personalized content that can steer the reader toward making a purchase. By blending content and commerce, consumers consume content during every step of the buying process. This helps consumers remain engaged and improves the customer experience. It is also important to remember omnichannel is key. You have to have the right content at the right place and time on every platform to help increase brand awareness and create a consistent customer experience across all channels.
- Enterprise Marketplace
This is a new business model that has taken the online retail world by storm. Breaking the stereotypical method of only selling products a company manufactures, the enterprise marketplace has opened the door to selling third-party products that are owned, managed, and serviced by someone else. It is also a good way to achieve a wide customer reach by creating wider ecosystems, developing new capabilities, and generating new sources of revenue.
- AI and AR
Technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Augmented Reality (AR) used to seem so far-fetched but are now becoming common place. Offering customers the taste of reality without having to travel saves them time, money, and resources. By mimicking real sounds, feelings, images, and, in some cases, smell, AR has been successful in establishing an emotional connection that triggers a need for the consumer to buy a specific product.
AI is also growing exponentially. Its ability to mimic the cognitive functions relied on by humans to problem-solve, learn new information, interpret events, support and automate decisions, and take action can make the shopping journey even more interesting. When combined, AI and AR create a shopping revolution which we can expect to see more of in 2020.
Wrapping up
As customers become more and more tech-savvy, digital commerce is a must. To meet the expectations of today’s new-age digital consumer, you need to make use of every digital medium, tool, and technology in the best possible way. With advanced personalization techniques, AI, and budget optimization your digital commerce venture will be more successful, especially if you utilize the right mCommerce app builder.
