You just don’t believe that you’ve subscribed to so many eCommerce sites? And the list is never-ending. They all seem to be discovering and promoting something new every day. And the competition is getting fired up. So the question is how do all of them survive? Is it through sales and coupons? Is it through variation in products? Although they’re a significant part of the business, creative marketing in eCommerce is a big move.
E-commerce and the Mass
Businesses know where their audiences are. They know how to reach and turn them into loyal customers. Have you recently seen the ads of a few popular online sites? The concept of jewellery buying needs no occasion or festival, or the representation of kids acting like grown-ups to have an emotional connect with the audiences is extremely engaging, crisp and creative. The ATL advertisements are building strong recall value. They connect with the mass audiences on a real-time.
Making the Impossible Things Possible
Who said we will not be able to see, touch and feel online products? The time is not so far away when we will have virtual fitting rooms where we can ‘try on’ clothes and see whether it fits us well or not. Retailers are also investing in the development of 3D shopping experience where visitors can walk through the passageway, talk to an assistant while choosing products and pay at the virtual cash desk just like offline shopping. This is not the end… there is a plan that promises to cut the delivery time. Get ready to deliver your products based on customers’ GPS location. Well! This is unbelievable… a life like shopping experience.
Different Forms of Content
Content will continue to hold the throne. Content marketing will be everywhere – magazines, social Medias, blogs, books and the possible places beyond our imagination. However, it will not just be based on text but in other rich media forms including audio clips, how-to-videos, Infographics and interactive images. The majority of the eCommerce sites will heavily invest on content writers who can weave stories to attract audiences towards the brand.
Questions and answers through content will become an effective communication channel to drive engagement and feedback for the brand. There will be more real questions from the customers which would be answered in ‘How-To-Videos’
Some more apps to follow online shopping
QR or Quick Response code is gradually gaining momentum. This machine readable code is typically used for storing URLs or information for reading via the camera on smartphones. Online retailers can put QR codes in their advertisements in the most crowded places including metro stations, trade centres, or bus stop to convert them into shop windows with paper copies of the actual store product lines to excite purchasing decisions.
Prospective buyers can scan them and land into the relevant landing page to place an order. With Google Glass and other wearable technologies conquering the mass market, they’ll be used more intensively for QR shopping.
Similarly, technology is also making provision for hassle-free payment option. It is enabling customers to make contactless payments for their transactions. With biometric fingerprint IDs, biometric sensor will allow for immediate payment thereby enabling fast, secured and password free purchase. The biometric identity will change the way we think about and manage payment and transactions.
Not only this, customers will also find digital coupons on their Smartphone app eliminating the need to carry paper slip. The visually appealing coupons can be integrated with email to regularly update prospective about any special offers and discounts. Merchants can better target their audiences if they can make the most of e-coupons.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is something which is not yet explored. This performance based advertising program is an excellent way to drive customers to your site while paying only for results. Affiliates know which networks are best to use for your purpose. They advertise products on those sites that the visitors will be interested in. Pay-per-click advertisement as used by the affiliate managers ensures potential customers directed to your website. Last but not the least; affiliates make use of shopping directories to advertise your products.
Personalized shopping experience
Retailers who will go beyond their selling strategies and genuinely tell a story to establish brand identity and build relationships with their customers are more likely to thrive. Retailers will offer a more custom-tailored experience that can gauge a customer’s level of interest, their preferences, and accordingly make adjustments to the prices and other options to seal the deal rather than missing an opportunity.
Ecommerce in the near future will resemble a catalog less and feel more like an in-store experience. The emerging technologies will enable retailers and websites to know in advance as to what customers are looking for even before they browse. Shoppers would be made to feel that eCommerce websites are built just for them.
The Near Future Scenario
Don’t get surprised if you find varieties of pickles being sold online. With the enormous increase of shopping on mobile devices retailers are in a much larger and more competitive landscape to sell their products. The cost of developing an eCommerce portal will drop drastically. There would be more eMarketplaces. However, the cost of branding and marketing these portals would increase drastically because of the oversized competition across the world.
All in all, proper management of the competition will have to be done by the use of the right competitive intelligence tool and customer life-time marketing to make it a super success.
Images: “Young woman using touch screen device for online shopping/Shutterstock.com“
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