Four important aspects to help you map the customer journey perfectly: #3 e-commerce

In the past two blog posts, I’ve been thinking about creating high-quality content and customer-centric personalisation. Now, I want to take a closer look at the topic of e-commerce.

How are things looking in 2021?

While face-to-face retail is feeling the strain from the impact of Covid-19, online retail is booming like no other industry, according to T3n: If sales for 2021 remain somewhere between €80 billion and €88 billion, they could even grow to €142 billion by 2024 according to the Online Retail Industry Report published by the IFH Köln. (Link to the article.

On top of this, there are also the latest e-commerce trends – for example:

1. Direct commerce via D2C: More and more manufacturers and suppliers of brand products are discovering the possibilities of going directly to the customer without the need for distributors

2. Hybrid commerce: When retail becomes more independent of the online/offline dichotomy

3. Social commerce: When products are also offered for purchase on social media platforms

4. Conversational commerce: The bold step towards messenger and chatbot-based commerce

There’s no question about it – these trends have meant industries are seeing an increased need to support both their own employees and their customers online with digital solutions for every aspect of the buying and selling process. It’s therefore not surprising that e-commerce is increasingly becoming a part of digital projects.

Content and commerce – harmoniously combining long-standing successful and experience-oriented content with the products offered by an online shop to guarantee a seamless positive buying experience is often seen as a good reason for using a digital experience platform (DXP). In this context, the DXP acts as the platform for all digital customer experiences, which includes the seamless integration of online shopping experiences. So Gartner is more than accurate when it defines a digital experience platform as an ‘integrated set of core technologies that support the composition, management, delivery and optimisation of contextualised digital experiences’ (https://www.gartner.com/en/marketing/glossary/digital-experience-platform-dxp-).

Shopping as one experience of many...

The main advantage of a DXP is that you only have to use one system for editorial content management and e-commerce management. This means that users and developers alike only need one tool to manage and optimise a unified journey for visitors. It also simplifies management and reporting and optimises ordering processes.

Interesting features of e-commerce

You can conduct seamless business relationships and transactions with the DXP if you

Conclusion

e-commerce in 2021 should feel easy and smart and not make customers want to abandon their shopping baskets as a result of pointless media disruptions and regulations. One thing is certain: more and more companies – even in traditional industries such as manufacturing – know and understand how to implement professional e-commerce along the customer journey.

That’s why it’s even more important for you and your company to impress your customers with seamless customer experiences and win them over. The route to achieving this isn’t as arduous as you may think, and professional service providers and solutions can help you deal with most of the work it will take to get there.

Would you like to learn more about exciting topics from the world of adesso? Then check out our latest blog posts.

More posts in this blog series: Customer journey:

• Four success factors – #1 Content
• Four important aspects to help you map the customer journey perfectly: #2 Personalisation