A veteran in the Internet industry with over 10 years of professional experience on the technology side of e-businesses,Samarjeet has been recognized by the CMO Council and the World Marketing Congress as the‘Best Digital Marketing Professionals'in India and awarded ‘Outstanding Contribution to E-retail' by The Indian Retail & 3rd e-Retail Awards.

The Evolution of Commerce

Today, buyers enjoy all the power in making a purchase decision. Surfing the internet on their mobile or laptop, browsing online catalogues and reading reviews, the buyer may place an order online and then collect the purchase from a nearby store-that is how retail has evolved since the introduction of the smartphone. It has been a long journey for organized retail - since the mid '90s. After two disruptive waves the Internet around 1995 and Smartphone/Mobile internet around 2008-commerce has now shifted completely from a linear, instore purchase experience to a non-linear, omnichannel retail. In the process, the balance of power moved from the hands of the brands to the consumers.

In the past, buyers used to learn about a product from the sales staff, but today, they gather their information from the retail site, published product videos, and online social platforms. Although this has cut down their instore time, it didn't cut down their engagement with a brand. Brands who have developed and changed their communication style by moving to short videos, short texts and blogs have maintained their presence in the mindspace of buyers. Besides, publishing these types of content across different channels - both online and offline -allow a brand to stick onto a buyer's mind throughout their journey and offer an immersive brand experience that lead to deeper engagement. The transformation has made the internet grow from one of the sales channels to an integral part of all shopping activities.

The Future of Commerce

The number of e-Commerce users in India is growing at a steady rate of 24 percent per year. Users who have grown with smartphones and fall within the age bracket of 25-34 will predominantly populate the total e-Commerce user base. Effectively, it indicates that either most of the online shopping will take place on smartphones or smartphones

will play a significant role in the purchase decision.

With respect to the product categories, all category verticals will experience a surge in purchase pattern. In the years to come, the digital sales may experience a bump of only six percentage point, moving from 13 percent in 2015 to 19 percent in 2020, the influence of online channels that will help crank the offline sales will shootup by eight percentage point, moving from 21 percent in 2015 to 28 percent in 2020. The change clearly indicates that buyers will rely more & more on online channels to make a purchase decision. This should make retailers and brands start to think from the user's point of view and weave a unilateral experience for them. They need to offer content at every step on their journey and on every platform.

Merge Content with Commerce

Considering the role of content, as it'll be, retailers and brands should take a four pronged approach to maintain and increase their mindshare.

1.3C Strategy: First, the disjointed technology and data repositories should be brought together to create a synergy between content, community, and commerce. In the intersection of commerce and content there lies offers like buying guides, FAQs, and detailed product content that are closely connected to commerce. In the intersection of content and community, the content types will be exploratory like posts on forums, answer to questions, and targeted towards solving problems. And in the intersection of community and commerce, tailor made content, personalized content are the main types that serve the purpose. In the 3C strategy framework, the approach is focused on content that will lead to community and offer commerce as a derivative.

2. Seamless Experience: Mobile is the key to the future, hence creating a mobile centric experience will bring home a decisive advantage. In connection, voice enabled search, image search, AR product visualization or VR walk throughs should get the CTOs attention. Particularly, when AI is becoming the norm of the future. An extension to the experience should be made on the social channel to facilitate native social selling that is focused on 1 click purchase. To create a feedback loop, brands should use social platforms, be there, stay ready with answers to questions posted on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger or WhatsApp.

3.Integrated Technology:Keeping the integration of content, overall technology, and data repository at the backdrop, retailers and brands should work to build an architecture that stands on the hotbed of analytics and business intelligence system. Using APIs, the architecture should tie the content layer, social platforms, third party services like payments and publishing platforms like the websites. As content will be driving force in this case, the architecture should center around the digital asset management system.

4.Big Data Analytics: When data repositories like purchase history, content consumption history are combined with data stream like browsing pattern, shopping cart behavior are analyzed in real-time, deep insight on the customers start showing up. These can be used to offer personalized content suggestions, make emailers customized, or offer effective customer support.

Market segmentation is moving towards n=1 where the fight is for ‘attention'. Winning a fight by being found and then staying on the top of mind are only possible with the help of high quality &value driven content and that too across multiple platforms at the convenience of a user. In a time when the competition is fierce, retailers should take cognizance of this fact and start working on it. Because if one doesn't, another will, and the effect will show directly on both top and bottom line.