The Next Generation of e-commerce Growth is Coming – Take Share!

As we read the press it appears there are many reasons that retail and digital growth has slowed over the last year. The big retailers are stuffed with inventory, inflation is hurting demand, and the market is slowing. All these are sound reasons to pull back expenses and play good defense. That is the conservative and safe play in these environments.

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However, everything is a cycle. With the stimulus packages, COVID, and the new work-from-home trend, e-commerce accelerated 10 years in about 18 months. That kind of comparison is impossible to show growth against.?However, if we fast forward two years, we will see growth level back to historic trends and it will not stop until online sales are 40%+ of total retail sales.

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What that means strategically is this is the time to build and invest in growth while the cost of capital is attractive. That opens a host of opportunities to acquire companies, invest in technology and talent, and take advantage of the lower demand to invest in digital marketing and data platforms.

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While traffic is slowing down post-pandemic, the game has changed for e-commerce given the majority is driven through a mobile device. To build profitable revenue the marketing expense must be optimized, margins improved, and speed and conversion a priority. CX must be the critical priority to drive engagement and improve the frequency and growth in retention of new and existing customers.

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Brands have gotten away with poor call centers, lack of personalization, chatbots that don’t work, and ineffective supply chain communication strategies. Today's mobile customers simply do not have the patience to deal with ineffective CX strategies, policies or support. Turning one-time customers into repeat buyers takes on heightened importance and CX must be the focus at every touch point. It only takes one second to lose a customer for life.

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Another way to think about the Customer Experience is that 96-97% of all visitors to a common site do not buy a thing. Well over 60% don’t make it through the cart check out. The main reasons are speed and where did it create friction or frustration. The promo code did not work, and the freight was priced wrong, you did not have Apple Pay or PayPal. The estimated time of delivery was off by 10 days? The 800 number took 5 minutes, the Chatbot gave you a silly answer, and you were done, off to Amazon.

Today you must love the customers you have as a critical priority and have a culture that is innovating and improving the experience every single day.