The race to get online and sell has probably never been more apparent for businesses. With the perceived potential sales revenue available, plus the pressure from competitors from other verticals trying to ‘eat their lunch’ the e-commerce world just got a bit tougher to crack. There is a necessity to get online whatever the pressure, because if anything it is a great way to offer a window into your company, a shop front. A way to showcase what you do well and why. What differentiates you from other companies and this can be in your values, your proposition or your mission. It is really fundamental to have a website as a business and it does not have to be transactional but serving up your brand online with great content, will be used by your potential customers to not only find you but to see what you are all about.
If the decision is to move to e-commerce then choosing the right platform can be really difficult. Magento for instance, is open source but is a huge platform with a specific structure that requires specialised developers to create great shopping experiences. The problem here lies with the fact that the expertise does not lie in house and the resource needs to be brought in. There is also the impact of omnichannel marketing (Mckinsey, 2022) which often is disregarded in the conversation. This is where the expertise from grow forward can be used to map the correct journey in an omnichannel marketing ecosystem. Marketing in general is often a discipline missing in a business that has experienced growth and as the business changes its marketing requirements also change. Furthermore companies may be trying to emulate something that is omnichannel but not realising what they are doing. This is where proper strategy to be consistent over each channel is imperative to success.
This is answer to the question, as each touchpoint or channel that you try and talk to your customer is your omnichannel marketing. This could be in store, online, through Facebook or via text message. This is irrelevant of whether your vertical is B2B or B2C it still may require the same amount of interactions to achieve a conversion or sale. A sale or conversion can be a lead or an actual monetary transaction. McKinsey (2022) suggest that B2C customers engage with three to five channels each time they make a purchase. That is a lot of activity to secure a customers share of wallet. It takes planning, time and good execution to remain relevant over lots of channels. This also does not incorporate Customer Experience (CX) which Duncan et al. (2022) suggests returns three times more revenue, the better it is.
This merchandising to gain engagement and conversions (Attraqt, 2022) then is totally different on a digital platform, a website for instance, because then the decisions become down to making sure that you convert on the products that you are displaying. Merchandising online is different to instore and new disciplines will need to be learned to give a better CX. This could be in the form of trust icons, AB testing on ‘Buy now’ buttons and lots more ways to increase conversion rate and reduce bounce rate. There is also personalised views for logged in customers (Attraqt, 2022) and powered merchandising blocks that can be AI driven to give a unique view every time a user visits the page. This user-centred design approach (Duncan et al. 2022) has been proven to give the best return. Duncan et al. (2022) argues that CX can easily be let down by the operation irrespective of the UX design, and this really goes to the point of what grow forward is trying to achieve, a operational led omnichannel approach to achieve the most sustainable growth through digital.
Attraqt (2022) Ecommerce merchandising:Your guide to Attraqt’s solutions for merchandising teams. Available at https://www.attraqt.com [Accessed online July 2022]
McKinsey (2022) What is omnichannel marketing? Available at https:// www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-explainers/what-is-omnichannel- marketing [Accessed online November 2022]
Duncan,E., Habre,E., Licitra,E., Neher,K. And Snowball,D. (2022) McKinsey : CX without design only gets you halfway. Available at (https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/ growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/cx-without-design-only-gets-you-halfway [Accessed November 2022)