Dear readers,
Welcome to the Digital Review – November 2018 !
We are very happy to present you Digital Review – November 2018, our first review in English! After many good feedbacks we decided to open our borders to the international sphere. Before, we wrote only one Digital Review in French. This time is over! The French version will be write simultaneously with the English one.
Our objective? Bring you instructive topics for your personal culture of retail. Indeed, we select and summarize for you interesting articles about trends and news of retail’s sector.
We wish you a pleasant reading !
2019: trends that will boost the e-commerce sector
Today cyber-buyers are more and more demanding about the shopping experience. In fact, physical stores or retail websites are not enough, they expect a unique customer journey simultaneously memorable, interactive and able to facilitate purchases.
Currently, 3 e-commerce trends are emerging and prepare the retail’s future to a huge advance in the customer experience.
These tools can satisfy interaction, personalization and immersion needs :
- The interactive visualization on-line : for the new era of cyber-buyers, a computer or a mobile screen must not be an obstacle for their shopping selection. Indeed, they want to be sure a product is meeting their expectations.Thus, it is necessary to offer them the possibility to see a product online like if they were in a physical store.Therefore, adding the seamless zoom feature on products’ pictures displayed on the website, is an interesting way to assist cyber-buyers in their choice. The shopper is able to zoom the product aiming to see every details.There are also 3D views and video demos of products, very recommended to improve engagement and so to increase conversions.
The seamless zoom feature in Amazon’s website
- Artificial Intelligence is the future of e-commerce and it is able to boost sales and engagement. It may bring:-to retailers: some interesting and exploitable data concerning preferences and expectations of their cyber-buyers.
-to customers: a real immersive and personalized experience.For example, Amazon has launched its virtual shopping assistant, called Echo Look. A real technological advance !To learn more about it, please watch the video below:
- In-store tools: to build an immersive and interactive experience into a physical store, retailers have to adopt an omnichannel experience strategy. In an objective of bringing interaction during the customer journey, the physical and digital have to be combined.In order to do this, digital installations exist and we can mention smart mirrors and digital signage permitting to help customers in their products’ selection.The smart mirrors have the ability to show product’s information and localization in the store.In 2019, digital signage in-store will offer a new way to order products. Thanks to interactive visualization, digital signage will display unavailable items in stores and customers can upload them on these digital terminals. Then, customers will receive a purchase code to be delivered at home.
Black Friday 2018: great days for retailers
How many times have you heard or seen the word Black Friday this month? Yes, almost thousand times!
From the 23rd to 26 of November, brands offered big deals to consumers and it was very successful for retailers.
First of all, more than 165 million of people have shopped during this weekend in the USA. Compare to 2017 it is 12 million buyers less. However, the purchase budget has increased, especially online with $6.2 billion, up 23,6% since 2017!
These charts below are highlighting three types of buyers using different channels for shopping. 25% will favor the online channel (41.4 million buyers) against 21% for in-store channel only.
It also reveals that Black Friday’s shoppers are using multiple channels during their shopping : almost 90 million people (54% of the 165 million consumers) are multichannel shoppers. The idea is to combine at once digital and physical during the customer journey. Moreover, their shopping cart is about $93 more than others buyers.
Artificial Intelligence: the new age for advertising?
Burger King is using Artificial Intelligence to develop its ads. Really?!
By the use of Big Data, the AI has analyzed all the current buzzwords on Internet and also its competitors’ advertising.
According to the collected data, the AI has written the perfect commercial message to sell King burgers on TV shows. But there is an issue: the text pronounced by the robotic voice off is very strange. Indeed, the message is really not attracting for the burgers, and becomes even funny and satirical.
Why the marketing of Burger King made this choice? Let’s see the video below to understand more 🙂
Snapchat & Instagram: changing e-commerce landscape
With over 25 million business profiles worldwide, Instagram is a profitable commerce channel where 68% of followers are very engaged with brands. The platform has succeeded with e-commerce. Indeed, the average of order value is evaluated at $65, $10 more than in Facebook.
Moreover 68% followers are very engaged with brands and 1/3 of users are making purchases via mobile.
Instagram offers to brands e-commerce features that give more visibility, engagement and can increase conversions. Besides the « Buy » button which is integrated into sponsored ads, there are also :
- Shopping in Stories: a story is a short-lived publication showing pictures or videos during 24 hours. It is possible for brands to add a shopping sticker which is materialized by a bag icon. When the user is clicking on it, it brings him directly to the product page of the article.
- Carousel ads: one publication with multiple slides, a good way to present a new collection of products. The user only has to swipe the slides to see videos or pictures integrated on the ad.
- Shopping in the Explore Tab : in the last update of the platform, a section « Shopping » have been integrated in the Explore tab. The Explore is a tab which reveals the most popular publications sorted by topics. The Shopping section displays all the pictures or videos of products published by brands. According to the tastes and interests of the person, the results will be personalized.
Furthermore, the other social media Snapchat has also launched an innovative shopping feature in collaboration with Amazon, the e-commerce leader. This feature is called « Visual Search« , a kind of search engine working with the visual detection.
How does it work?
The user has to show the product to the camera phone and has to click during few seconds on the product or on the bar code. It permits to proceed to the product’s visual identification. Then, once the identification is done, an Amazon product sheet is displayed. The major benefit is the simplicity and quickness of a product reference’s search .
