Digital Commerce Trends for 2014
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The document summarizes key digital commerce trends for 2014 according to Frankly Partners. It identifies three main trends: 1) Improving customer experience through visual commerce, streamlined checkouts and returns, and excellent mobile experiences. 2) Harnessing data and analytics to personalize experiences, manage data from multiple sources, and optimize multi-screen/multi-channel experiences. 3) Re-thinking leadership to make data-driven decisions, align objectives across teams, and maintain a customer-centric service attitude focused on continual improvement.
![Digital Commerce Trends for 2014
Frankly Partners
Re-thinking leadership
DATA DRIVEN DECISIONS
ALIGN OBJECTIVES
SERVICE ATTITUDE
Experienced intuition often guides
strategy, but in order to find the correct
path, leadership needs to be rethought: Switch from asking what do
we think about this, to asking what do
we know about this. And from
analyzing what has happened to
analyzing why it happened.
In theory this should be the easy one.
However, everyday reality proves
different: Make sure that such factors
as e-com, marketing, sourcing and IT
teams’ and individuals’ objectives and
KPI’s are rooted in your business
objectives. For example, too often
sourcing puts emphasis on price, not
on demand. Too often marketing
managers aim to provide traffic and
conversions, but forget to focus on
profitability.
“In the world of internet customer
service, it’s important to remember
that your competitor is only one mouse
click away.”
Initially this makes your learning curve
steeper, and moreover, it leads you
toward a mindset of constantly
improving your service, rather than
waiting for a ready-made service that is
outdated already when it launches.
Frankly, data driven decision-making is
not (only) about having team of
analysts and fancy tools. It is about
asking the right questions.
Good leaders make sure their people
understand how their everyday work
contributes to the larger vision.
Moreover, they understand that
excellence is achieved through clearcut objectives and continuous
improvements.
Digital commerce, especially on a large
scale, often requires intensive
technology and platform integrations.
Avoid the mistake of letting integration
[im-]possibilities or tech-centric
approaches to lead the way.
The customer is the key element:
design and implement your technology
investments to serve your clients, not
your internal stakeholders. Also
consider helping your organization’s
non-tech oriented leaders understand
more about technology.
Quote: Douglas Warner](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/digitalcommercefor2014-140109085949-phpapp02/85/Digital-Commerce-Trends-for-2014-6-320.jpg)
Digital Commerce Trends for 2014
- 1. 2014 Digital Commerce Trends for 2014 Executive summary
- 2. Digital Commerce Trends for 2014 Frankly Partners About trends About Frankly Partners Digital commerce comes in different shapes and colors. Brands and retailers are in different situations digitalizing their businesses. Nevertheless, certain movers and shakers of e-commerce and digital services were identified in contexts of customer experience, analytics, and leadership. Frankly Partners is an agency concentrating on customer insights, audience strategies, marketing research and consulting, and digital business developing. We help our customers in Finland and globally. Digital Commerce Trends for 2014 are insights and forecasts by Frankly Partners. We are an independent, analytical daughter of hasan & partners. Frankly efficient marketing Digital Business and Marketing Developement. Aligned Business and Marketing KPIs Out of silos. Implementing Customer insight in the organisation to support Marketing and Sales within the continuously changing customer environment Customer/Audience strategies and Insights Integrated Touchpoints – Carrying the customer all the way to the goal. Research and Analysis with Insight
- 3. Digital Commerce Trends for 2014 Frankly Partners Improving customer experience Harnessing data and analytics Re-thinking leadership
- 4. Digital Commerce Trends for 2014 Frankly Partners Improving customer experience VISUAL COMMERCE CHECK-OUTS AND RETURNS MOBILE COMMERCE Early e-commerce put primary emphasis on the technical platform – and this is still the case with a surprising number of retailers today. While these retailers may master traffic optimization and product price elasticity, they give little thought to how they can use e-commerce to achieve competitive advantages and differentiate from competitors. For many, the digital channel exists simply to facilitate sales, even though it presents significant opportunities for value generation and service. Many retailers include the shopping cart abandonment rate among the performance indicators they follow. However, they seldom asses why carts are being abandoned. Complicated – or simply time consuming – check-out processes make it natural for restless consumers to continue their shopping journey elsewhere. Mobile is the new standard for everything digital. Smart phones are an everyday interface for consumers, yet they are clearly under-supported by brands and retailers, and thus fail to offer excellent customer experiences. Commerce in digital channels will become more visual, engaging and experience driven. Future winners will provide customers with an excellent digital shopping experience. Decreasing return rates is also an important indicator to improve, but not by making product returning complicated. Minimizing return rates begins at the product presentation – for example by helping customers understand more comprehensively what they are going to buy. Widespread adoption of smart phones has created such phenomena as instore price comparison. Instead of getting caught in relentless price competition, brick-and-mortar retailers could utilize mobile as part of their indepth customer service. Devices can also provide social layers to shopping experience and purchase decisions, whether in-store or online. In 2014, mobile excellence is not a way to stand out, but rather a requirement of survival.
- 5. Digital Commerce Trends for 2014 Frankly Partners Harnessing data and analytics PERSONALISATION ECOSYSTEM OF DATA MULTI-SCREEN & CHANNEL Data is being collected and consumers are aware of it – for better and for worse. Consumers expect not only great service, but once they understand that companies know about them, they don’t get why that knowledge is not being deployed to improve things like customer service. It has been estimated that 92 % of all data in the world has been generated during last two years. But where is your data saved, how it is backed-up, and how do you manage data from multiple sources? Consumers’ purchase processes are not linear, and never have been. The digital landscape often encourages consumers to browse online and then buy in brickand-mortar stores – and also vice versa. Moreover, people switch between screens or use multiple screens at the same time. Help consumers benefit from the data you collect: personalize their customer experience – and exceed their expectations. Advanced analytics can also help to forecast the next best offers or triggers. Consider also the absolute opposite: being a brand of “no data collected”, but still mastering customer experience creation. Understanding critical customer touch points and critical business elements, and then designing data collection based on these factors, serves as a good starting point. When in digital, also make sure you don’t rely only on cookie based data. Understanding digital commerce deeply enough often requires non-digital sourced data. Eventually, you might consider it essential to have data from multiple – yet still comparable – sources. Sophisticated analytics helps to understand your multi-screen efforts’ effectiveness, and also how digital and brick-and-mortar sales affect each other. Build a seamless shopping experience across all channels and utilize analytics to optimize customer encountering.
- 6. Digital Commerce Trends for 2014 Frankly Partners Re-thinking leadership DATA DRIVEN DECISIONS ALIGN OBJECTIVES SERVICE ATTITUDE Experienced intuition often guides strategy, but in order to find the correct path, leadership needs to be rethought: Switch from asking what do we think about this, to asking what do we know about this. And from analyzing what has happened to analyzing why it happened. In theory this should be the easy one. However, everyday reality proves different: Make sure that such factors as e-com, marketing, sourcing and IT teams’ and individuals’ objectives and KPI’s are rooted in your business objectives. For example, too often sourcing puts emphasis on price, not on demand. Too often marketing managers aim to provide traffic and conversions, but forget to focus on profitability. “In the world of internet customer service, it’s important to remember that your competitor is only one mouse click away.” Initially this makes your learning curve steeper, and moreover, it leads you toward a mindset of constantly improving your service, rather than waiting for a ready-made service that is outdated already when it launches. Frankly, data driven decision-making is not (only) about having team of analysts and fancy tools. It is about asking the right questions. Good leaders make sure their people understand how their everyday work contributes to the larger vision. Moreover, they understand that excellence is achieved through clearcut objectives and continuous improvements. Digital commerce, especially on a large scale, often requires intensive technology and platform integrations. Avoid the mistake of letting integration [im-]possibilities or tech-centric approaches to lead the way. The customer is the key element: design and implement your technology investments to serve your clients, not your internal stakeholders. Also consider helping your organization’s non-tech oriented leaders understand more about technology. Quote: Douglas Warner
- 7. 2014 Thank you for your time! Roope Ruotsalainen Chief Digital Officer Frankly Partners +358 40 735 5557 roope.ruotsalainen@franklypartners.fi