menageAs many reports reveal, the festive e-commerce market in Southeast Asia is worth billions of dollars, rewarding those brands willing to digitally reinvent themselves constantly and matching consumer demands and expectations steadily. Or as Meltwater describes it in one of their recent reports, “the common thread between the winning brands – whether that is Lazada, Amazon or Shopee – lies in their understanding of consumers and willingness to provide the best experience through price, value, quality and service.”

What comes on top, according to Forbes, is the fact that “we are now a generation into digital retail, but change continues to accelerate. In the Third Era of Digital Retail, traditional barriers and frameworks will fall by the wayside. Everyone can be a retailer and every surface a store. There will be new competitors from outside the sector as well, reimagining what retail can be. Thriving in such challenging conditions requires entirely different combinations of skills and the courage and creativity to rethink entire business models – not just adapt them.”

Indeed, there are plenty of other trends and technologies that retailers will need to adopt in the coming years in order to gain competitive advantages and thrive in this new era, such as e.g. VR, AI, voice assistants and even more personalization. The fact is that every other consumer is interested in VR offers in stores and one out of three in language assistants, aside from 90% of all consumers demanding fewer advertising emails.

Digitization and retail - often a difficult relationship

The purchasing behavior of customers has clearly changed dramatically due to the increasing digitization. They search for inspiration on social media and do more and more transactions on their smartphones. At the same time, they have a high demand for speed and convenience.

This increases the pressure on retailers to offer as innovative shopping experiences as possible in order not to be pushed out of the market. Unfortunately, it is still hard to figure out which user experiences bring the most revenue.

In the race against the online giants, traders already had various ideas, such as virtual reality in changing rooms, but although such measures attract short-term attention, bringing shopping experiences and brick-and-mortar digital technologies together remains difficult. While new technologies are impressive and have a high impact, the big question is still whether they really improve or in fact distract the shopping experience?

Despite growing acceptance of language assistants like Google or Alexa Home, most consumers still believe these devices are not necessary for their purchases. Digital innovations are generally embraced in retail, but consumers generally demand mainly technologies that make their lives easier and reduce any barriers to purchase, such as automated payment systems, location-based offers and online ordering options. Hence, by investing long-term in new technologies, you most probably create a competitive advantage for the future.

Personalization - a high priority for retailers

According to customer surveys, personalized content, such as personalized offers and recommendations, is the alpha and omega to the shopping experience, and home pages are only perceived as useful if they show exactly the products the customer was just looking for.

Although both sides, retailers and customers, say that personalization improves the shopping experience, the devil is in the details. Product recommendations must be relevant to the customer and effectively addressed. Of course, the email is still an important and powerful marketing tool but should be used carefully due to consumers general complaints about an overkill. Not to mention that you should always reconsider whether your personalization measures find fertile ground.

Visual content plays a significant role

With the unmanageable number of consumer goods in the market, shoppers are looking for guidance and find it in the recommendations of other users. When potential buyers read the experiences of other customers about products, the revenue per visitor usually doubles and the conversion rate increases enormously.

Visual media is currently extremely popular and social media is becoming a third shopping channel, alongside in-store and classic e-commerce. Nevertheless, the enormous potential of social commerce is still not tapped enough, since so-called ‘Shoppable Social Feeds’ are not yet widespread.

There is no denying that the market must constantly evolve and use innovative technologies, since those who neglect this, will be overtaken by the competition. But to fall into blind action-taking and introducing any innovations, simply because everybody is doing it, is not the best solution. Rather, traders should focus on the essentials and pay close attention to what their customers really want. Most importantly, the solution should bring them closer to their customers and give them the opportunity to share their opinions and find the right answers to their questions.

By Daniela La Marca