COMMERCE PREDICTION

FORWARD2017 will be the year we hit peak online brands. Most retail brands already online. The big change this year is that larger numbers of consumer brands will sell direct to consumers and b2b businesses will also shift to a fully online selling model. At the same time, global brands are expanding into new geographies, proliferating the number of brands in each market.

This is also a time of global political uncertainty. Past experience tell us that this means we can expect currency fluctuations and a rising costs of goods and consequentially, consumers hold back on spending.

What does it take for an online brand to succeed in a troubled, slow growing and over-saturated market?

CUSTOMER LOYALTY

In the digital age, customers have control. They choose when, where and how they shop. They have all the product and price information they need at their fingertips. If brands don’t provide them with the interaction and service they expect, they’ll simply shop elsewhere. Focus on what the customer wants is paramount.

This is why customer loyalty is the Holy Grail for the leading online brands. But don’t be confused; customer loyalty doesn’t begin and end with a loyalty program that enables consumers to collect and redeem points. Loyalty initiatives need to look beyond post-sales marketing activity. Instead customer loyalty ideals need to be ingrained throughout the entire customer experience.

I asked colleagues and Oracle Commerce partners to describe the new online commerce trends and initiatives that will be vital for driving customer loyalty in 2017.

FORWARDCHRISTINE BARDWELL– Senior Strategist, Oracle Commerce

Winning brands will be those that secure their customers’ loyalty at the get-go and then work hard not to let them go.

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Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence will continue to help us to create one of a kind personalized experiences that will in turn generate faster higher value transactions online as well as a more loyal customer base.

Machine Learning can be used today for things such as understanding sentiment – i.e. scanning social media and rating/reviews and offering targeted products based on our own personal feedback.

It can also be used to filter out spam and irrelevant material to offer high quality content and personalized product offerings. Showing customers that your brand offers products that are relevant to them helps gain their trust, and ultimately their loyalty.

Artificial Intelligence Will Give Personalization a Quantum Loyalty BoostKATRINA GOSEK – Senior Director, Oracle Commerce

AI

The dawning of Quantum Computing will allow us to compare much, much more data in parallel and simultaneously, which will lead to much more powerful uses of machine learning than we can currently predict.

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The smartphone is the consumer’s tool of choice -- and the key to influencing their behavior. Consumers no longer shop in single, linear session online or in-store. They have mobile-based bursts of activity (1 minute, 150 times per day on average1), that inform their purchase decisions across disjointed sessions, scattered between social media and messaging. Across these sessions are micromoments: critical influence points within each consumer’s journey that are up for grabs.

Consumers are only loyal to their need in the moment, with 90% of smartphone users uncertain of the brand they want to buy when they begin shopping2.

Retailers who can reach through the flurry of mobile activity to quickly meet shopper needs will win the biggest prize in commerce – their loyalty.

2017 is the tipping point where retailers will become mobile-first because their customers are. 50% of eCommerce retail sales will be processed through mobile devices, and purchase decisions will become micromoment-dependent.

Consumers will spend less time per session on mobile but will convert at higher rates, becoming so informed by bursts of research activity that they will make faster, more precise purchases when ready. Retail winners in 2017 will be ready to meet all unpredictable needs across the lifecycle (discovery, purchase and post-purchase) in as few steps as possible.

Mobile Web and apps will continue a near-even split on revenue (with web being the volume of transactions and apps for higher-value customers). More retailers will experiment with text price alerts, rapid shipping memberships, and loyalty programs that unlock exclusive savings and products.

While consumer allegiance to their own need will remain the priority, retailers who think in mobile micromoments to make their experience easy, and fast and ubiquitous will build loyal (and lucrative) customer relationships.

Consumers are loyal to their need in the moment, not brands

Seizing Mobile Micromoments Will Be The Key to Driving LoyaltyBRENNA JOHNSON – Senior Strategist, Oracle Commerce

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For years, complexity has been at the center of most B2B commerce conversations. It is this complexity that is prohibiting businesses from moving online quickly or in some cases even at all. In fact, in a 2016 study by B2B Online and Oracle, 55% of respondents identified complex industry challenges as the top barrier to ecommerce development.

2017 for B2B eCommerce will be about simplifying ecommerce operations while at the same time being able to innovate at a pace that outdistances your competition – this includes honing in on a few key areas that will make the biggest impact.

Businesses not yet selling online will adopt phased programs that allow them to tackle the most pressing issues first, or focus on the areas that will provide the biggest ROI. Adopting a phased approach will get skin in the game immediately and revenue in the door faster.

Those already selling online today will look to streamline their ecommerce efforts and focus in on the areas that are driving success today. They will adopt modern technology that will allow them to increase selling speed and scale as their business grows.

Speed and Simplicity Will Trump Perfection JERI KELLEY – Senior Strategist, Oracle Commerce

B2B eCommerce success won’t depend on meeting every complex need; speed and simplicity will prevail”

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The proliferation of direct to consumer commerce websites will accelerate as companies seek to build direct relationships with consumers in an increasingly competitive economic environment.

This trend will be facilitated by the availability of cloud technologies that allow companies to launch compelling new brand-centric sites in a fraction of the time required by traditional on-premises or hosted solutions.

These brand centric sites will focus on providing targeted customer experiences that build loyalty to the brand over the long term and will put increasing pressure on traditional reseller channels.

MARK KNISELY – Director, Oracle Commerce Consulting

Direct to Consumer Selling Will Accelerate as Companies Seek to Solidify Brand Loyalty

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ALISTAIR GALBRAITH Senior Director, Strategy, Oracle Commerce

Voice-Activated Shopping Will Change How We Interact With Brands

Voice-shopping is a fast path to instant gratification.

Like a magic genie in a bottle, just say your wish and the voice activated app will command it.

Millennials in particular are less patient and respond well to such fast paced interactions . Meeting the demand for instant gratification keeps customers engaged which in turn are more likely to be loyal and valuable brand advocates.

Enhancements to voice recognition capabilities will continue to transform how we interact with music, content and services. Amazon made it available to the world with its first range of Alexa-enabled devices. Soon device makers, service providers and application developers will catch the wave and make voice-shopping a new touch point.

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SIXShoppable Video Adoption Will Educate, Entertain, Convert and RetainALLON CAIDAR – CEO, TVPage, Inc.

One of the hottest trends for 2017 will be the adoption of shoppable video. Consumers love video because it is entertaining and requires less effort than reading. These “Video Commerce Experiences” give merchants more value from their video assets. Simply adding video to product pages can create a 2-4x increase in conversions among visitors who watch video. When fully deployed across an entire e-commerce site, video commerce experiences increase overall customer loyalty by educating and entertaining users at every stage of the purchase funnel.

In 2017, every merchant should have a video commerce strategy for every stage of the customer journey. Video helps customers connect and identify with your brand in a more authentic way which builds loyalty and increases lifetime value. Advances in technology have made concerns about production costs, content accessibility and other barriers a thing of the past. We have become a mobile-first society with the attention span of a goldfish. Video captures our attention and keeps us engaged, no amount of text on a web page can do this.

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2017 Will Be The Year That Loyalty Drives ContentTHERESA ONEIL – Senior Vice President of Marketing, PowerReviews

Loyalty programs were built to incentivize shoppers to make frequent purchases by offering rewards, in the form of discounts, in return for additional purchases. In 2017 loyalty programs will expand to focus not only on transactions, but also on fostering quality user generated content (UGC).

Of shoppers, 86% say reviews are essential in making a purchasing decision. Businesses in all industries understand the importance of user generated content in the shopping journey and offer incentives such as sweepstakes and product sampling to get customers to write reviews. In 2017, we predict that loyalty programs will become a key channel for generating consumer-submitted reviews, images, and videos.

However, the focus on volume and growing concerns about fake news and fraudulent reviews will need to be balanced with additional measures to ensure transparent and authentic user generated content.

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