As eCommerce continues to progress and change, what will be the advancements that retailers take on in 2010? Here are my predictions based on my plans for 2010:
1. Dynamic recommendations
Having automatic recommendations generated for cross-sells and up-sells based on shopper engagement will increase revenue for retailers from 5% - 10%. Dynamic recommendations will also reduce the workload on merchandisers, which will allow them more time to spend on the other important activities.
2. KPI's
Using conversion and CPO by channel does not give retailers all the information about why sales are down or what is going wrong within your supply chain. eCommerce Key Performance Indicaters will allow eCommerce Directors to find problems quickly and allow them to correct them. Michael Ross of eCommera has published a good article on this. Retailers who use a KPI driven eCommerce site will achieve better results in 2010 then those who just use conversion!
3. Master Data Management
Multi-Channel retailers need to have a single repository for Product information and Customer information to effectively present offerings to their shoppers. Most retailers will have some system that holds a minimal amount of data, however to effectively present the same data to shoppers over the web, in catalogues or shop displays, a single repository is required within which product data can be enriched.
As retailers expand their range of products by using Drop Ship Vendors, management of this data through work flows becomes increasingly important.
4. Site redesigns
Sites that have been around for two years are starting to look tired. What looked cutting edge has now become common place. And sites that have had redesigns recently are adding features that are becoming the defacto standard of retail ecommerce. Is it time your site had a redesign?
5. On-site price comparisons
On-site price comparison is where you display the price that your competition is selling the product for. This is very effective when your price is cheaper then theirs. It also stops the shopper from visiting other sites to compare the price, which aids to them purchasing the item from your site.
6. More Payment options
Every retailer offers the standard credit and debit card options through their payment gateway. However, shoppers still require other ways to pay for these items. These can include: Paypal, Google Checkout, Finance options, bank transfers, etc....
7. Better delivery options
All retailers should be offering Next day, Named day and Saturday as part of their delivery options; If you are not, do so now! Shoppers also require more delivery options to suit their busy lifestyles, these include: AM/PM delivery, evening delivery, time slots, Sunday and same day.
8. Extending range
If you are a trusted brand that offers great customer service then shoppers will continue to shop with you. If you want to expand your eCommerce business then you need to broaden your range of products. This can be achieved with very little cost by using Drop Ship Vendors to hold the stock and perform the fulfillment. I've seen this work very effectively with ASDA Direct where they added a Living Aids category. Without any marketing this category does very well.
9. Dynamic customer segmentation
Active Merchandising for me was a big thing in 2009 and all of my customers have this implemented in their eCommerce sites; this is one of the advantages about using a SaaS eCommerce platform!! However other retailers should be implementing this in 2010 to allow the shopper to be directed to products that they may be interested in based on Gender, age group, previous purchases, etc...
10. Shorter checkout process
Checkout processes are too long, and one way to stop shopper drop out is by offering a quicker checkout process.
