The ecommerce industry has experienced a tremendous amount of growth in the past decade. Having jumped from 3.5% of all retail sales in 2008 to nearly 11.9% in 2018, this growth – in combination with a (still) relatively low market share – represents a huge opportunity for more innovative ecommerce companies looking to overtake their traditional counterparts.
However, in order to latch on to the ‘growth train’, these same ecommerce companies (and therefore, ecommerce managers) are going to have to put their best foot forward. In other words, they’ll need to be sure that they are providing a first-rate online customer experience. And the best way to do this is to start listening to the voice of the customer. After all, your customers can be your best resource in terms of understanding what you’re doing wrong (or right!) on your website or mobile app. So allow me to introduce you to online feedback…
https://mopinion.com/online-feedback-ecommerce-managers/
More shopping on mobile amplifies a persistent problem for online retailers. Growing cart abandonment. Research from Barilliance, an eCommerce personalization tools developer, illuminates the challenge.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultalbot/2018/06/27/why-cart-abandonment-rates-arent-falling/
Consumers’ lives are getting faster and more connected. In this piece, Melanie Jensen, e-commerce manager, Aptos, tells RetailTechNews that to make sure retailers are reaching shoppers at every touchpoint, they need to ensure that they are optimised for life on the go. Nearly a third of online shopping across all retail sectors now occurs on a mobile device, which makes it clear that this is a platform that cannot be ignored.
Mobile apps evolved to make our lives faster, easier, and more convenient. It’s time that retailer’s apps followed these rules. All too often, retailers try to offer fun or ‘cool’ experiences, such as making digital outfits or virtually trying on cosmetics. However, if these extras are difficult to use or time-consuming, customers will quickly lose interest – and retailers could lose a sale.
To make sure that your mobile offering is up to scratch, here are five key things to consider when building your app:
https://www.retailtechnews.com/2018/07/23/what-to-consider-when-building-your-mobile-app/
Would you like to gather real time feedback from your online visitors as they shop? Perhaps you are doing this already but struggle to manage the data and pick out the important trends? If so, tune in to our upcoming webinar where we will be joined by special guests Stephan Brandenburg & Iris Rabenberg of major retail company, De Bijenkorf (part of Selfridges Group). These two will share some interesting details of how they gather and get the most out of their online customer feedback data.
https://mopinion.com/webinar-how-selfridges-group-utilises-online-customer-feedback/
What man wouldn’t want to wear a pink bunny onesie?
You know! The kind 9-year-old Ralphie got from his aunt in ‘A Christmas Story,’ and then — mortified — had to don for the family.
Kohl’s sells them in its men’s section, along with Chewbacca, Elf, gorilla and shark onesies, and other white elephant specials.
Making shopping fun and an experience instead of a chore is part of brick-and-mortar retail’s answer to the rise of online shopping, said Barbara Kahn, professor of marketing, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
http://thecourier.com/breaking-news/2017/11/21/stores-adapt-to-online-shopping-challenge/
Rapidly developing smart retail will see three major trends in 2019, including an emphasis on the human side of business, according to CC Liu, secretary general of Asia AIoT Alliance.
Liu stressed that tech development originates from human nature, with all tech designs aimed at providing consumers with greater convenience. Accordingly designers must grasp users' situations well to provide better services. He continued that Amazon unmanned stores, for instance, allow consumers to take things from the store without having to pay at the counter.
The second trend is creating more convenient UI (user interface) and more friendly UX (user experience) to facilitate purchases, Liu said, adding that based on consumer psychology, consuming is quite an impulsive behavior and therefore how to shorten the transaction process will be crucial for further upgrades in smart retail operations.
The third trend is that smart retail will entail AI as the core. Liu said that AI is not almighty but serve as a helper to decision making. AI can be utilized to analyze big data to provide references for managers in handling distribution, pricing, marketing and new product development, while also further predicting market trends and facilitating customized services, according to Liu.
https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20181112PD214.html/
Finding ways to create and maintain a relationship with your customers is the number one priority to many companies. Some companies are good at this while some are not. Technology really helped in this area but in most cases, it’s not the only answer.
Take apps, for example. They can be quite a double-edged sword. Starbucks, for instance, has a Breakfast on Us promotion where you get stickers each time you buy something from them and once you fill it out you get something for free. This works well for people who go to the store. But Starbucks also promotes their app – like crazy. And this is a problem because people who want to buy through the app often forget about the card and get no additional value. When they realize this, they get mad. And, their experience is ruined.
https://www.paymentsjournal.com/retail-mobile-apps-they-can-affect-the-entire-user-experience/
If you’ve been paying attention to the application of artificial intelligence in retail, you may feel like the buzz around the topic has gone from zero to “arrived” in less than a year. In retail time, even at the speed of the modern consumer, that is incredibly fast.
Some of the hype has come from activity around specific use-cases for the application of AI in retail. While companies like Baidu profess over 100 AI capabilities, in retail it appears that use-cases are centering on four main areas:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nikkibaird/2018/08/13/retail-has-three-big-ai-dilemmas/
For many retailers, improving the customer experience involves simplifying e-commerce to rely on fewer clicks and supplementing text search for the ever-potent, AI-powered visual search feature.
Whether it be for navigating outfit inspiration, as seen on platforms such as Pinterest and ShopStyle or creating hyper-personalized recommendations, witnessed in Spotify and Netflix, the bottom line is through these technologies, retailers further empower their shoppers and guide purchases.
In a similar mission, the winner of Digiday’s Best Retail Technology award, Syte, aims to provide a cutting-edge visual AI search, which offers the necessary immersive experience and improved user journey shoppers crave — all beginning with the shopper’s chosen image.
https://wwd.com/business-news/technology/visual-search-1202880164/v/
Mobile e-commerce used to be considered a “cherry on top” for desktop online retail. As smart mobile devices became more widespread and accessible, people began incorporating them into the e-commerce journey—but primarily to search and browse products rather than conduct transactions. This was due in part to the challenges associated with using mobile browsers of the past when it came to complex, multi-step interactions like checking out.
https://www.mobileappdaily.com/mobile-readiness-key-to-ecommerce-websites/
