The eCommerce landscape is changing rapidly and with it, customer expectations.
In regards to Scurri’s annual London Meet up, an eCommerce event for industry leaders and retailers who want to gain insights from experts to secure a competitive edge, we have spoken to
- Rory O’Connor, Founder and CEO of Scurri, and
- Chloë Thomas, a globally recognised eCommerce marketing problem solver, author of several books, keynote speaker, advisor and host of eCommerce MasterPlan.
Rory, what are the emerging trends in tech and which ones will help you stay ahead of the curve and compete in an ever more demanding market.
There are a lot of rapidly progressing trends in ecommerce and tech that retailers need to be on top of in order to anticipate, meet and exceed customer expectations. AI & Machine Learning is the biggest disruptive force in eCommerce today and that’s not going to go away. Brands that are embracing this are accelerating ahead of the competition at all stages of the customer lifecycle. Having great partnerships and implementing these technologies can be incredibly beneficial in terms of growth but also ensures you are prioritising your customers and their experience from the first interaction to the delivery experience and beyond.
Sustainability is, of course, a hot topic at the minute. The Top global brands treat sustainability as a principal issue and so should every growing retailer. Customers are more mindful than ever about the impact retail is having on the planet and demand a high level of responsibility and ethical behaviour from brands. In retail, much of this focus is in fact on the product itself, for example, using sustainable ingredients in cosmetics etc. however, delivery is often not considered. A new report forecasts that global parcel volumes will reach 200 billion parcels by 2025, which is great news for eCommerce growth but means that Delivery must be a factor when approaching sustainability and there are plenty of things retailers can do to make their delivery greener.
Chloë, can you share with our readers your tried and tested model for working out where a company/retailer should focus its marketing manpower and budgets for maximum bottom-line impact?
Sure, that would be my Customer MasterPlan model, it’s a simple way to relate marketing and service activity to the customer journey. Breaking it down to 5 Stages:
Turning the World into Visitors,- Turning Visitors into Enquirers,
- Turning Enquirers into First Time Buyers,
- Turning First Time Buyers into Repeat Purchasers,
- and then into Regular Buyers.
The first time you use it you map what you’re currently doing to each stage of the model, which usually flags some big gaps! Filling in those gaps quickly improves the overall performance of the business. After that it’s time to get the spreadsheets out and analyse the performance of each stage, then focus budgets and manpower on improving the weak links.
Chloë , can you share with us some new marketing ideas UK retailers should consider testing this Christmas, especially after British retailers experienced the & “worst September on Record”?
Web (or Browser) Push Notifications are certainly the marketing method I’m seeing some great results from, but which I’m amazed more retailers aren’t using. There’s so much control over whether your messages get seen or not, and such quick results it’s a no brainer. Especially if you can integrate it with you email marketing system and add Push into your automated marketing.
Which gives me my second tip – if you’re not sending marketing based on what a customer has done (signed up, bought, looked at etc) then you should be. This shouldn’t just be sending email either – the best (but not most expensive) platforms now enable you to sync the information across multiple marketing methods including advertising audiences on Google and Facebook. The results from using different marketing methods together provide a great return on investment.
Gain insights and lessons learned from eCommerce influencers on the emerging trends that you need to adapt to be successful online.
