The Future of E-commerce Has Been Around For Decades
Pundits love to talk about the future of e-commerce. Where is e-commerce headed? What will it look like in 5 years? In 10 years? And of course, how should that part of the brand be managed? As much fun as it is to debate, the answer to this question has been around for decades.
As e-commerce technology develops, it will look increasingly like regular shopping. People have been shopping for hundreds of years in markets and shops and malls, and the act of shopping has evolved to one that most people are comfortable with. The best thing e-commerce can do is to try to take the regular shopping experience and move it online.
Think about your last shopping trip. You may have gone with someone else, likely browsed through several different stores to compare prices and styles, and no doubt asked the salesperson their advice and then tried a few things on.
Five years ago, this wasn’t possible online. But today, e-commerce brands are getting closer and closer to mimicking this experience. Online chat lets you talk to a salesperson in real-time. Augmented reality is getting close to letting you virtually try on items. The increasing integration of social networks and e-commerce is making online shopping more like the social outing it is in real life.
What does this mean for brands? The obvious answer is to make your e-commerce site as close to regular shopping as possible. Quickly adopt the new technologies that enable this.
But as iconic Canadian brands like The Bay and Banana Republic launch their ecommerce site, there are deeper implications for the way they run their business. Most retail companies have separate departments for online and offline operations. This will make it harder to keep these two experiences similar. Instead, why not make the category manager responsible for both online and offline at once? Any promotions or special offers can be better targeted and optimized with a fuller view of the different customer touch points. This might not be possible for the people in charge of store layout and website design as they require different skills and experience, but there is no reason that their offices can’t be right next to each other.
The bottom line is that viewing online and offline as separate entities will prevent you from harmonizing these two retail experiences. Once you view them as one and the same, you’ll be able to provide your customers with a better experience and strengthen their loyalty.
What do you think? Is your business system set up for this?
4 Comments
smithjones said
Ben, I totally agree with you. Excellent site, keep up the good work. I read a lot of blogs on a daily basis and for the most part, people lack substance but, I just wanted to make a quick comment to say I’m glad I found your blog. Thanks
Jordan Stevens said
Ben, I agree that consistency is key across all brand touch points. And I think it's important that in-store specialist become familiar with web technology. I would also say the web specialist should do the same. But, I certainly don't see the brick and mortar retail stores disappearing anytime soon.
Edward Cannell said
Interesting post. I can see this working for the larger stores that can afford the technology, but for small business owners they will have to approach their market differently.
A large retailer has a brand name that builds trust, but when you put all of the big retailers together the numbers don't add up to having a big impact on web marketing as a whole. And it's not a matter of the technology getting less expensive - it's a matter of small business owners finding a way to build trust as an unknown retailer.
I think the main obstacle for generating sales for the small retailer is that their web site does not provide a total solution for the consumer. Listing items and a Buy Now button doesn't meet this need.
A store that is a known brand may be all the solution necessary, but the unknown retailer has to do much more with their web site to build trust. This means much more information that acts as assistance in decision making. This would go a long way toward building trust.
Smaller retailers can market themselves as unique and be found by the values their web site expresses, and this too builds trust.
On the web any business has the option of push marketing or pull marketing. Social media shows how pull marketing can work while deep pockets and aggressive asdvertising shows how push marketing can work.
The small independant retailers would be wise to set themselves apart from the competition and market by attraction. It is a slower process but it has real benefits in that the cost outlay is smaller and the results are long term.
Unlike push marketing, where the product or site promotion stops when the ads stop running, pull marketing investment keeps working sometimes for years. In this way pull marketing builds upon itself.
Richard Sparks said
This is a great post. I love the idea of being able to virtually try on clothes from <a href="http://www.sparkstone.co.uk">Ecommerce</a> retailers. I think with the clothing industry this would be a great addition, however the growth of clothes stores online like ASOS shows that people are opening up to buying all of their clothing from what is effectively and online catalogue. There has been a massive increase in the purchase of electrical goods from online stores also. Brand loyalty is so important but the rise of price comparison sites is perhaps removing the factor of brand loyalty in favour of price.