e-Commerce and e-Marketing Trends

FountainBlue’s June 1 VIP roundtable was on the topic of ‘e-Commerce and eMarketing Trends and Predictions’. Thank you also to our gracious hosts at eBay. Below are notes from the conversation.

There has been so much transformational change in the world of e-Commerce and e-Marketing over the past couple of decades. Below are some trends and predictions on how these trends will progress and how they will impact each of us.

 

The E-commerce highlights from Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends report (May 31, 2018) shows the following:

• E-commerce sales reached upward of $450 billion, a 14 percent year-over-year increase reported in 2017.
• E-commerce represented a 13 percent share of all retail spend (both online and physical retail sales) in 2017. As e-commerce continues to grow, physical retail sales growth is trending toward deceleration, with less than 3 percent year-over-year growth.
• Mobile shopping is also on the rise, with mobile shopping app sessions growing 54 percent year over year. In fact, mobile shopping represented the fastest-growing app session, ahead of music/media/entertainment (up 43 percent year over year), business/finance (up 33 percent year over year), utilities/productivity (up 20 percent year over year) and news/magazines (also up 20 percent year over year).

Our participating executives agreed that the volume of information and data is mind-boggling. But the effective marketer and leader will categorize and leverage that information so that it’s sorted and actionable. 

• Urgent and immediate cases are quickly triaged and acted upon with special parties as necessary. This is especially true with suspected fraud and technology glitches.
  
• AI is leveraged to ensure the efficient handling of common, lower-level problems or questions or concerns.
  
• Algorithms and architecture will help ensure companies have scalable and robust infrastructure necessary to scale operations.
  

There is also agreement that today’s customers are very demanding. Doing the above also helps companies to better support their customers. With the data, we can better understand current and anticipated needs and more quickly address technical and process issues which interfere with our ability to give customers what they need. Consider these trends around customer needs.

• Customers are taking urgency to the next level, even asking for 10-minute delivery windows! Categorizing what you can practically deliver when will help companies better and more efficiently serve customers. Same day, two day and one-week deliveries will be much more regularly requested, so companies will have to find efficient ways to make it happen.
• Local ethnic and specialized goods will be requested. Creating a platform where multiple physical store fronts can leverage technology to deliver goods from these multiple stores to sites throughout the neighborhood would be a good win-win solution.

The big companies such as Amazon and Google are already successful in the market, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t opportunities ahead. Below is advice on how we as leaders can best take advantage of these trends.

• Adopt digital solutions from the top down, from the bottom up. Integrate it into your culture.
• Enhance physical stores, embracing technology solutions.
• Provide personalized solutions for customers.
• Respond to their needs of the customer real time.
• Design robust loyalty and rewards programs.
• Provide your high-impact customers with specialized perks, with special treatment and access.

Below are thoughts on the opportunities ahead for e-commerce and e-marketing solutions.

• Provide chatbots which are embedded into the shopping experience so you can quickly address questions and concerns. 
• Provide platforms which seamlessly address the customer from search to order to fulfillment.
• Consider separating the delivery from the e-commerce solution.
• Consider partnering with other companies to provide specialized services. As a retailer, you might want someone else to provide the mobile and web platform for delivery, as a technology company, you might want to have someone else distribute the goods for example.

The bottom line is that everything is trending toward e-commerce and forward-thinking leaders are responding to that trend.

 

Resources:

• E-commerce Highlights from Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends Report, June 2018 https://marketingindustrynews.com/2018/05/31/e-commerce-highlights-from-mary-meekers-internet-trends-report/
• How Sephora Built a Beauty Empire to Survive the Retail Apocalypse https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/sephora-teardown/?utm_source=CB+Insights+Newsletter&utm_campaign=11b0329991-Top_Research_Briefs_05_19_2018&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_9dc0513989-11b0329991-87496285

Advertisement