The ever-evolving commerce experience
In today’s technologically advanced environment, change is nonstop. To retain a competitive edge, you must constantly know what’s new, think about what’s next and explore what’s possible.
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YOUR ECOMMERCE EXPERIENCE Embrace innovation. Engage more customers.
Social commerce, shoppable videos, voice commerce, the Metaverse, subscriptions — all these trends, along with a host of others, have a place in commerce today. Of course, new ones are emerging every day. The fact is, no single approach is going to delight every consumer. Ultimately, it takes continual experimentation to discover what will work for your brand and appeal to your customers.
COMMUNITY AS COMMERCE Conversations lead to conversions
Social media platforms have fully morphed into sales channels.While Facebook launched the trend and still generates the highest sales, shoppers can now buy products through Tiktok, Instagram and Pinterest. Yes, the audiences overlap, but it’s important to remember that users expect different experiences on each platform.
What is social commerce?
The popularity of social media platforms spurred the birth of social commerce, which involves a range of strategies that specifically support the buying and selling of products and services via social media platforms. Any experience that allows a shopper to discover and purchase a product — is considered social commerce
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Inspire impulse purchases
The concept of shoppable videos has come a long way since it was first introduced in 2016. Now, brands are turning full-length content, such as movies and TV shows, into opportunities to showcase products that customers can, in turn, find and purchase online, in the moment.
What is shoppable video?
This is video content specifically created to feature products that viewers can purchase via embedded links. In some cases, selected products are added to a cart and held until the end of the video. In others, pop-up windows allow shoppers to purchase in the moment and continue watching the video.
What is live commerce?
These are videos in which a live “host” — often an influencer — showcases products that viewers can purchase online, in the moment. Streamed on both eCommerce sites and social media platforms, these live videos allow viewers to interact with the host and other viewers in real time.
NBCUniversal took shoppable video to the next level when it launched shoppable TV in 2019. Since then, the mass media network has launched nbcstore.com, a marketplace powered by commercetools, where viewers can purchase select products they see on the screen.
Our entertainment is reaching 95% of US homes every four weeks and is naturally and organically inspiring shopping intent with consumers through content and advertising. For a long time, the largest screen in our home has been regarded as the dumbest screen, but it is just as powerful and interactive as what's in your pocket. It's a much bigger canvas on which to tell a story and to drive viewers into a shopping experience.
SVP, COMMERCE PARTNERSHIPS, NBCUniversal
VOICE COMMERCE 2.0 Listen up
22% Of consumers currently make purchases directly through voice and 17% have used it to reorder items
54% Estimated increase in voice commerce sales in 2024
Virtual assistants opened up the ability for consumers to simply say “Alexa/Siri/Google, order paper towels” along with a few more prompts and boom, complete the purchase. Adoption has been slow, but advancements in AI technology are improving the voice commerce experience. More consumers are experimenting with it, spurring more brands to explore integrating voice commerce capabilities.
What is voice commerce?
It is a type of commerce that allows consumers to connect to a retail website through a voice assistant device. The device uses voice recognition technology, allowing consumers to give the assistant verbal direction on what they are looking for and how to purchase. Instead of having to type in a request, and scroll and click repeatedly, voice commerce enables you to have conversations to discover and order products.
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COMPOSABLE COMMERCE Take any trend for a test drive
To capitalize on the tech-driven shopping trends delighting customers and driving sales today you need flexible, agile technology that allows you to act fast.
The old-school, monolith platforms won’t let you add a social media channel in one day and remove it the next. Nor can you launch a last-minute promotion or add a new payment option on the fly. You can do all these things with composable commerce. Its cloud-native, component-based design enables you to embrace the trends driving digital sales, continually experiment with new ones and always be prepared for the future.
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Why composable commerce is the best choice for digital commerce success
When we looked at our objectives and business needs, we did not find a single platform solution that fit the bill. commercetools Composable Commerce offered a solution that met our needs, allowed continuous flexibility for future needs and gave us access to all the best-of-breed platforms for our end-users.
GROUP HEAD OF TECHNOLOGY, APG & CO
Enabling choice at checkout
900 million
Juniper Research estimates there will be Buy Now, Pay Later users globally by 2027 ⁴.
Customers increasingly expect easy payment methods like one-click checkout and in-app purchases. Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) options are also gaining traction, offering businesses a huge opportunity to reduce abandonment rates.
Expect to see more options at checkout emerge as vendors bring newer solutions such as guaranteed buyback and product and shipping protection options to checkout.
ENGAGE YOUR CUSTOMERS Experiential & phygital retail enhance the omnichannel experience
Simply offering great products at fair prices isn’t enough to drive traffic to your brick-and-mortar stores anymore. Customers want omnichannel experiences that allow them to connect with your brand on a deeper level.
Experiential retail is helping brands attract new customers and build loyalty. Some of the best examples merge digital and physical elements to create phygital experiences. Not only do these unique interactions engage customers, they often make shopping in-store an easier, more memorable experience.
Guests are engaging with beauty outside of the store and then coming into the store to interact with the product. We know our omnichannel guests represent a 2.5 to 3x increase in revenue over an in-store-only guest. We want to make sure it’s seamless and interactive, so, it’s great that we can leverage digital to make sure they have the information they need in-store.
VP DIGITAL EXPERIENCE & OPS, ULTA BEAUTY
commercetools Platform Automatic gratification
Experiment with new channels. Try out hot trends. Get innovative with personalization. When you run your commerce on commercetools Platform you don’t need detailed instructions to start selling on TikTok Shop, an integrations expert to enable voice commerce or an implementation plan to launch shoppable videos. The flexibility and agility to innovate and fail fast — this is why some of the biggest brands in the world choose to run on commercetools.