While modern customer is increasingly expecting to have the right product or service with just a few clicks, online brands are jostling to reach these millions of consumers who are just a click away.
To succeed, business leaders should maximize how they sell, be available anywhere, anytime, on any device. This is the secret of their success. Easily said than done!
When it comes to e-commerce, the scale of opportunity is huge, making it compulsory for businesses to build digital commerce solutions as an integral part of their business.
The old-school approach is fast evolving as businesses adopt the latest techniques to boost their profit margins. Easy-to-use e-commerce is dramatically transforming e-retail enabling companies to showcase brands, market products or services, improve operational efficiencies, implement strategies that will grow the business, and exceed customer expectations. Retailers, large and small have been rethinking the way they run their operations to improve their customer satisfaction and their bottom line.
Large to mid-sized retail organizations have begun to build an integrated, omnichannel platform to map their customer journey where a few leading businesses have already tied together customer data from multiple channels. The retail giants have benefited from the accuracy of its data.
Massive use of technology in a bid to stay ahead
Some of the key areas where companies are investing are:
Search - Machine-learning combined with big data is certainly making the whole process easier to find the shopping data of consumers, along with a great deal of automation and understanding Google’s algorithms you get cleverer responses from searches.
Digital marketing - Tech and marketing firms are rushing to add artificial intelligence to its tool box that allows businesses to automate basic customer service functions through chat bots. This has resulted in majority of global business-to-consumer interactions to be person-to-machine rather than person-to-person. This is due to the rapid rise of Robotic Process Automation or RPA.
Personalization - The next frontier is personalization, developers have been pressed to write software and algorithms that aim to deliver more relevant and targeted customer experience from the first click -to drive awareness, loyalty and sales. e-retailers want the power to customize the shopping experience on the fly based on behavior and click-through patterns, as well as real-time activity.
Payments - Blockchain and bitcoin are definitely buzzwords, but are quite intangible concepts in the marketplace for most, even though they show much promise. Secure payment systems such as digital currency, e-wallets will soon become part of the automated solution. Payment systems that are consistent across all platforms will be crucial which involves offering an omnichannel experience, presenting a seamless customer experience across mobile, online and in-store.
Delivery - The next big thing is programmatic commerce based on algorithms. This means the device, connected to the Internet of Things makes decisions for you. With this, consumer behavior, along with online commerce, is set to be transformed. Consumers expect a lot when it comes to immediate dispatch, Amazon Prime service has much to answer for this trend. Yet automated delivery setup requires massive levels of investment that many underestimate.
From global enterprises to fast growing start-ups, ambitious B2B and B2C companies around the world, the rules are the same. To win in e-commerce business you have to put essential technologies to work seamlessly, integrate technologies to drive e-commerce strategy than doing just pure play e-commerce.
