#e commerce future

“My dream is to fly, over the rainbow so high, my dream is to fly over the rainbow sooo high “ This could just be the song ringing in every marketer’s mind and what every e-commerce company aspires today – Rise to new highs by making everything available to its consumers at the click of a button.  The e-commerce business which generated $231 billion in sales for U.S. retailers last year, is expected to increase 13% to $262 billion this year, according to forecasts by market research firm Forrester. The growth of e-commerce, which already accounts for about 8% of total retail sales in the U.S., is expected to outpace sales growth at bricks-and-mortar stores over the next five years, reaching $370 billion in sales by 2017. By that time, e-commerce is expected to account for a full tenth of all retail sales in the U.S. Wow isn't this amazing! Think of the potential this market has.

And what's driving the growth? The first is increasing usage of smart phones and tablets, which are boosting the amount of time consumers, spend online. More than half of U.S. online consumers now have smart phones, and they're using them to research purchases, find stores and to find the best prices available and more often than not completing a transaction directly on the device. Tablet owners also spend their leisure moments (weekends, evening prime-time hours) shopping online.

The second factor contributing to growth is traditional retailers' increased investments in their online sales divisions. Specifically, large retailers are building out omnichannel retail experiences, allowing store associates to "save a sale" by ordering out-of-stock merchandise through online back ends, and letting online shoppers pick up goods in-store.

Typically, early shoppers begin with "low-consideration" goods like MP3's and movies, moving up the ladder to "high-touch, high-consideration" items like furniture and appliances over time. Meanwhile, e-commerce sales in western Europe are expected to grow at an even faster rate than the U.S. in the next five years, from €112 billion in 2012 to €191 billion by 2017, representing a compound annual growth rate of 11% (versus 9% in the U.S.). In the UK, online retail already accounts for 13% of the total economy, and is expected to increase its share to 15% in 2017.

 Even though the e-commerce market potential is so high, the functionality or the approach of all these sites don’t vary much right (Not referring to business models here like deals, subscription based etc)?

Do you agree? Shopping websites today don’t give you a personal touch (not literally ;) - as in give every customer a personalized feeling and they throw up suggestions to you based on your browsing history or based on a few categories you have actually made purchases in the past right? This approach doesn't give me the feeling of exclusivity but all it does is makes my life easier as I have an online store that caters to all my needs. A feeling of convenience - That’s about it.

      What about personalization? What about suggesting a customer on the site that we know you need these X, Y, Z things by knowing his interests? Wouldn't it help him make purchase decisions easier through our understanding of his needs? Thought provoking it is right?

 Behold the power of interest based e-commerce marketing.

                       When your customers are on your site help them make purchase decisions by providing them all they need to make it easier to walk them through their buying cycle. Provide them with products which they would exactly need based on their interests and build a relationship with them gaining their trust. Your customers would come back to you for more as you give them products they like and you help them make their decisions by the knowledge you possess about  them .Interest based marketing - the future which would pave way for We-commerce which is shopping together with your customers.

 Using interest based marketing you can create a space in the mind of your customers which is a more personalized and contextually relevant experience which would ensure they come back to you for more.

  Let’s take an example of what news syndication sites like getprismatic.com does. It allows you create news feeds based on what your interests are and the next time you get to their site it shows you all the news based on the categories you have defined based on your interests .So the approach it follows becomes more like a personalized newspaper based on your interest’s right?

Another example would be of Facebook after it changed its famous edge ranker algorithm to the algorithm with its new features Story bumping and last actor which again is about providing a user a personalized newspaper feeling. Using Story Bumping, the content that appears more relevant due to engagement is going to be pushed up to the top of users’ News Feeds. And in terms of Last Actor, the more people engage with your content, the more they will see that engagement in their News Feeds. You get the drift now right? Facebook also is moving towards how it can make the newsfeed which appears on a user’s wall more personalized and making it contextually relevant.

This is the new face of e-commerce,where companies should don the customers hat and help them make their purchase decisions by making their shopping experience more personalized by knowing each of their buyer’s persona – In Hubspot’s words.

Now that we know what we – commerce is, how do we implement it?

Understanding what the likes and dislikes of your audience may be the hardest of things for any marketer right? Our likes and dislikes keep varying every single minute making it really hard for somebody to actually assess what exactly are your interests, nevertheless if we at least get a tag clod of interests for each of our consumers then I am sure we have won half our battle. Agree?

1)      One of the approaches you could try would be using the Google analytics reports, under which I discovered a tab called Interest under the audience tab with options overview, affinity categories and other categories.(I haven’t tried this out as yet )

These reports let you see not only how many of your users visit over a date range, but also who those users are, and how their behavior varies by attribute (e.g., male vs. female).

              This data is also available in custom reports, and you can use it as the basis for segmentation, which lets you evaluate how your users' behavior varies by demographics and interests; for example, do males interested in automobiles convert more frequently or read specific types of content more than females who are interested in athletic apparel.

More information - http://online-behavior.com/analytics/demographics

2) Another approach would be synchronizing with the user’s likes from his social sphere. Since Facebook dominates the social login mode with 79% source (http://www.insidefacebook.com/2013/07/18/study-facebook-dominates-social-login-ecosystem-for-now/) , a user’s likes can be mapped from it to the user’s profile which would give us an insight into his behavior.

I definitely agree that most of the pages we all like on Facebook are on an impulse or a few brands may be running a discount so you might just like it for the sake of it, but mapping your likes would give a marketer at least a few pointers based on the user right.

3) The other approach would be to have a small form which would have a options which the user could just click, highlighting his likes and his hobbies and a few more probing questions which would give us an insight into the consumers mindset.

                  A small questionnaire or something like the above could also do the trick for you at the time of the checkout when the user has made his purchase and he could fill out about 5 questions which could be on the lines of – What decor products have you been wanting to buy since a long time for your living room? What is the fashion you predict would hit the stores 3 months from now? If you find the best of products you prefer from us would budget be a constraint for you? (These are just random examples, which would just give you thought pointers).

By doing these you are building a relationship with your consumers , profiling his/her likes and then walking them through the buying cycle based on each of their needs and wants which would ensure the consumer trusts you on knowing his choices and would be loyal to your company. 

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