By now, it’s clear to all of us that the pandemic has led to permanent shifts in the way people shop. Although online retail has been popular for years, the adoption of e-commerce has been expedited across all retail industries over the past 15 months. From prolonged lockdowns, closure of stores, and fears of being in public spaces, COVID restrictions have forced many of us to start finding alternative ways of shopping to adapt to this new normal.
Thanks to widespread technology, online browsing, digital payments, and home delivery, this has allowed many retailers to continue business as usual and has also pulled various new products and services into the spotlight. E-commerce activity soared in 2020 as consumers jumped online to satisfy their shelter-in-place needs. According to Mastercard, for every $7 spent on retail in 2019, $1 was spent via e-commerce. In 2020, $1 would be spent online per every $5. This accumulated to a total of $9bn spent on online retail by global consumers!
Almost a year and a half later, vaccine distribution efforts have been ongoing, and restrictions are starting to ease up. However, business owners are beginning to question whether habits formed during the pandemic will continue beyond this short-term recovery phase. How should managers start developing a product strategy that is resilient to succeeding in business post-pandemic?
Read on for the 3 E-Commerce Trends to Watch in Life Post-Covid
Trend 1: Unified retail strategy
As consumers become more mobile, social, and digitally savvy, they expect brands to reflect the new ways of media consumption in their shopping experience. Customers don’t tend to think about separate channels when they shop, whereby everything from awareness to browsing to payment is seen as a part of the overall experience for the brand.
Unified commerce is the practice of connecting all activities of your business into one single stream, where backend systems and customer-facing channels are interconnected to support holistic omnichannel journeys. It creates a cohesive source of all customer interactions to give a complete view of the business by capturing and consolidating all data to produce insights. Insights feed business decisions for marketers and optimize the customer journey across all channels to provide a personalized experience for every consumer.
Brands that combined their physical and digital channels to create fluid, cross-channel experiences and prioritized the customer are those who continued to perform throughout the pandemic. According to Adyen, 50% of unified commerce retailers saw transactions remain consistent during the pandemic, and 40% more was spent by existing in-store shoppers when they moved online.
Influencing consumer decision-making at all touchpoints of the digital environment (such as social media, marketplaces, online websites, ads) and adapting to multiple channels (mobile, tablet, computers) is becoming essential to stay competitive in this new retail landscape.
Trend 2: Buy Online Pickup in Store (BOPIS)
With social distancing measures, ‘phygital’ interactions such as BOPIS (or ‘click and collect’), app ordering, and mobile payments have become standard practices throughout the pandemic. BOPIS has proven to be attractive to consumers as it combines the convenience of online shopping from full inventories with the efficiency of getting the items on the same day.
This method of shopping offers shoppers peace of mind while trying to stay safe amid Covid-19 and a heightened sense of hygiene. It allows consumers to order from their comfort zones and receive goods without breaking any protocols. For urgent and immediate need for products, they can collect their order from a nearby pickup point. As the homebody economy continues to grow, BOPIS is likely to remain popular in the years to come as buyers opt for speed and convenience.
In 2020, an estimate of $72.5bn was spent via click and collect, accounting for 9.1% of all e-commerce sales. This year, those figures are likely to increase to $83.7bn and rise to 9.9%. Factors such as not having to write grocery lists, search for items in-store or wait for check-out lines continue to be incentives for people to shop at home and collect later.
Trend 3: Social Commerce and Shoppable Media
As people spend more time online and on social media, social commerce has accelerated in popularity and created an additional touchpoint for brands. Social commerce refers to the process of selling products directly on social media, where the shopping experience from product discovery, research, to transaction all takes place within the platform.
Shoppable media enriches consumer experiences by being much more interactive than traditional websites. According to Global Web Index, 33% of surveyed millennials found shopping experiences that were socially entertaining encouraged consumption online.
Features like product demos via live streams by influencers that consumers trust can be both valuable and entertaining, bridging the gap between brand building and driving sales in one place. Sephora, the multinational cosmetics retailer, introduced live streaming hosted by popular KOLs (Key Opinion Leads) on their WeChat Mini Program. Viewers could ask questions and be linked directly to the check-out page. By leveraging this mobile-based technology, it fostered a “see now, buy now” culture amongst its community and attributed to a total sales growth of 235% compared to the previous year.
Whether it be Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, or WeChat Mini Programs, enabling shopping on social media platforms can strengthen a brand’s digital presence, allowing users within communities to connect and enrich shopping experiences.
The Future of Retail is Digital
If brands want to meet customer expectations in this societal and economic shift, brands must incorporate a digital approach to their overall customer experience strategy. Managers will need to embrace the unified process and streamline all facets of the business, from online to offline to customer data management. Retail companies must be ready to execute impeccable omnichannel marketing and services and implement digital technology at the heart of the business to thrive in this new era.
If you’re in search of a holistic digital strategy for your retail brand, contact us for a FREE consultation on how to maximize your brand’s potential.
