Social Commerce in Focus

Social media is indispensable in our everyday lives and even influences our purchasing behavior. Accordingly, it’s no wonder that more and more companies do not only use social marketing as means for communication and brand presence, but also as a sales tool to market their products. Be it product articles, reels, or brand name references by influencers – through social networks, you can reach out to customers around the clock and generate sales directly. In this blog, you can learn about all the things that social commerce makes possible today, what trends on social media platforms may be of relevance to you, and how you can combine all this with Product Information Management in order to provide your customers with a smooth purchasing experience.

 

What is Social Commerce?

Social commerce is a form of e-commerce which focuses on the sales of products or services directly via social media. Contrary to traditional e-commerce, companies here utilize the outreach and interaction possibilities of social media in order to present products and generate sales through social shopping.

In recent years, social commerce has been developing at a rapid pace, especially in the US and Asian regions. By now, it’s also enjoying ever-growing popularity in European countries. Online retail on social media platforms is on a success course and makes up a significant portion of e-commerce sales: The worldwide market volume of social commerce is estimated to grow to 1.23 trillion US dollars. While, in China, platforms such as Douyin (known as TikTok in our regions), Pinduoduo, WeChat are utilized for social commerce, the meta-platforms Facebook and Instagram are most popular among social media users in both Germany and the US. (Source: Statista)

 

Successful Social Commerce: Seize the Possibilities of the Various Social Media Channels

Depending on the individual social media channel, there are different functions and approaches to social commerce. Factors include the respective target group, demographic attributes, and the demands of all those who frequent the channel. Companies are to adjust their social commerce strategy accordingly in order to get the most out of the specific functions and possibilities of each platform.

The following are some differences in methodology concerning social commerce in various social media channels, together with trends that slowly seem to manifest themselves:

Facebook

Facebook offers various tools for e-commerce, including Facebook Shops. It enables companies to offer their products directly on the platform. With Facebook Shops, companies can create online storefronts, i.e. virtual representations of their shops, and highlight their products through personalized collections without the need to build their own online shop from scratch.

While the so-called Live Shopping is no longer available on Facebook, the new Meta-Amazon Shopping is already in the making. This will allow you to sell Amazon products via Facebook to provide a smooth purchasing experience.

Other than that, you can still, now as then, sell products within the Facebook Community of Facebook Marketplace or market your products with ads featuring call-to-action buttons like “Buy Now” or “Shopping.”

Instagram

Instagram’s social shopping options have undergone drastic changes throughout recent years. The so-called Shopping tab which allowed users to buy products directly through the integrated online shop has recently been put on hold. Instead, you now have the option to mark products in reels, posts (shoppable posts), and live videos, as well as to open relevant product information in a preview. From there, buyers can be redirected to the external website of the online shop.

In Instagram Stories, the swipe-up links have long been replaced by link stickers that redirect to external sites. This, too, is a great option for online sales.

The integration of checkout features on Instagram, which enables users to buy products directly in and through the Instagram app without leaving the platform, is currently only available in the US.

Pinterest

Pinterest has introduced Shoppable Pins that provide users the option to buy products directly through the pin, without leaving the platform. The integration of Product Pins into organic content facilitates your sales and creates a seamless customer journey. Additionally, the collaboration with influencers and market partners motivates users to discover and share products.

TikTok

TikTok is at the forefront when it comes to successful social selling among younger generations and is setting its own social commerce trends: Thanks to TikTok hashtag challenges such as #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt, users are animated to present their platform-inspired product purchases. Brands use the momentum of such trends to further their user-generated content (UGC) and product placement.

On top of that, shoppable ads make it so that products can be presented in ads and purchased directly by users. The integration of links in the bio, just like on Instagram, enables influencers and brands to market their products.

X (formerly Twitter)

On X, companies can create shoppable tweets with embedded product links. This allows customers, through integration of e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, to shop directly by browsing X. Also, users can make use of the so-called product discovery to explore products and purchase them without ever leaving the platform.

 

The Future of Social Commerce: User-generated Content, Influencer Marketing, and Augmented Reality

In social commerce, trends can be observed that are of great importance for a smooth and immersive purchasing experience: User-generated content, influencer marketing, and augmented reality. Companies who are quick to catch on can boost their competitive prowess with these trends.

When it comes to UGC, i.e. content which is created by users, brands bank on authentic evaluations and recommendations provided by the users themselves in order to strengthen the customers’ trust.

In influencer marketing, the focus is on micro-influencers for building a stronger relationship to target groups. Using affiliate links and special discount codes, these influencers are not only brand ambassadors but also direct sales channels.

Augmented Reality (AR) for social media is already heavily employed in Asian regions in order to design virtual purchasing experiences. Through AR, customers can test products from the comfort of their own home before committing to the purchase. You can, for example, try on a piece of clothing or project furniture into your living room. These interactive experiences increase the level of involvement of customers while also reducing the risk of product returns.

 

Why Product Data is Important for User Experience in Social Commerce and How a PIM can Support You

PIM systems play a decisive role in social commerce because they enable companies to manage product information centrally, optimize it, and distributed it to various channels. Through this consolidation of product information, companies can increase their efficiency and make sure that customers always receive exact and uniform information for a smooth shopping experience.

Since the various social media channels require data in different formats, for different target groups, in different communication styles, contextualization is crucial. A PIM system enables your company to adjust product information to the context of the respective channel, be it adjusting product descriptions, images, or videos to achieve maximum effect in social media environments.

Thanks to the integration of PIM into their social commerce strategy, companies can maintain a consistent brand presence across various platforms while, at the same time, increasing both efficiency and effectiveness of marketing and sales activities.

Why is Returns Management Important?

A professional and transparent returns management is of utmost significance for sales in e-commerce when it comes to fulfilling the customer’s expectations and reducing costs. A well-organized returns management enables customers to send back their products without any problems which, in turn, translates into positive feedback and an overall higher customer satisfaction. Additionally, an efficient returns management allows for the refurbishment and reuse of products, which hereby reduces waste output and is easy on the environment. Good returns management can even be proactive and guarantees that the number of returns is lowered. Bad returns management, to the contrary, can lead to considerable financial losses since unclear processes and high return costs limit your company’s profitability. In order to secure your long-term success, then, it’s indispensable to invest into an effective returns management.

 

The Two Approaches to Returns Management

In returns management, there are two kinds of approaches. Both are to be optimized: On the one hand, the proactive or preventative returns management which is about taking measure to minimize returns before they have a chance to come up in the first place. With it, you can reduce return rates. On the other hand, there’s reactive returns management. This is about completing returns in the best possible manner to minimize the costs of processing them. On top of that, you’ll need to make a decision on what you want to do with products returned in such a manner.

 

Proactive Returns Management

Simple and transparent return conditions are decisive when it comes to making it easy for your customers to understand when and when not products can be returned and how this return is processed. Clear communication and a simple reverse transaction process contributes to smooth returns and a positive customer experience.

The good packaging of the goods is crucial for keeping the return rate at the minimum. Appropriate and secure packaging protects the product from damages which may occur during the return shipping and, consequently, minimizes the risk of transport damages. Additionally, an appealing packaging for the goods can also contribute positively to customer experience and the overall quality of the product. A meticulous and high-value packaging can increase customer satisfaction, minimize the number of returns, and also boost your company’s image.

The use of software for preventing returns in advance allows you to automate related processes and identify risks revolving around returns. Spotting potential returns ahead of time enables e-commerce companies to react immediately and take appropriate measures for avoiding it. This, then contributes to an effective return procedure and cost savings.

Good product quality is highly relevant for achieving a low return quota. Here, one possibility is to improve the product description or product images in order to provide more detailed information and a more realistic representation of your products.

On top of that, a size chart or a perfect fit guide, for example, can support your customers in finding just the right size that fits their individual body proportions and figure. This assures that customers make an informed purchasing decision and minimizes the probability of a product return because of issues related to size. In this context, an efficient variant management can also be of great help to your customers.

The general rule of thumb is: When a product boasts with high quality and matches the customer’s requirements, there is a lower probability that it will be returned. Good product quality helps avoiding any mispurchase and dissatisfied customers since customers will feel that the acquired product perfectly fits their expectations. By focusing on high product quality, companies can regulate the number of returns, enhance customer retention, and, ultimately, also improve the overall profitability.

 

Reactive Returns Management

Quick and efficient returns processing is the deciding factor for minimizing the length of the overall procedure and for avoiding frustration on the customer’s side. Thanks to fast transactions, you can inform them about the current state of the return on the spot and, consequently, increase the satisfaction with the company’s service.

The optimization of the return logistics is important in order to reduce the costs for transport and storage. By designing their logistics processes in a more efficient manner, companies can minimize the return costs while also reducing the environmental pollution.

Return order tracking enables you to analyze the reasons for returns and find suitable counter measures for improvement. Through the identification of recurring problems, your online sales team can develop solutions that will avoid returns of goods in the future.

Transparent customer communication is necessary to keep everybody informed about the state of the return and corresponding compensations. An open manner of communication can strengthen the customers’ trust as well as their satisfaction.

The quality assurance of returned products serves the purpose of making clear decisions about reselling, repair, or further processing the product. Thorough testing guarantees that the returned product is safe for sale again or that it can be utilized for other use cases. If the goods are ready for resale, the question is how this is to be carried out – you may, for example, tap into secondary markets.

 

Pros and Cons of a Returns-Based Secondary Market

A returns-based secondary market comes with some benefits which support you in managing returns. Through the sales of returned products on a secondary market, the costs for disposal or reprocessing can be reduced. At the same time, it even offers you opportunities to generate additional income and, consequently, increase profitability. Furthermore, rebuys from customers contribute to environmental sustainability since the amount of waste involved is lowered and resources are preserved. Last but not least, customers are always happy to purchase these products at a cheaper price.

Despite these advantages, however, you’ll also have to keep some potential disadvantages in mind. Setting up and managing a secondary market can be time consuming and complex, therefore requiring additional personnel and effort. An additional source of danger is the so-called cannibalization effect, where the sales of returned products limits the sales of new products from the same assortment. Companies must be mindful that the secondary market doesn’t negatively affect the brand image or threatens customer trust. All in all, this requires a careful consideration of both pros and cons in order to get the optimum out of a return-based secondary market.

The question whether or not a secondary market is indeed meaningful for a company is to be decided on an individual basis.

 

How can a PIM System Support Your Returns Management?

A PIM System (Product Information Management) can lend important support to your effective returns management. By using a PIM system, companies can create and manage a central database for all product information. The system enables easy organization and updates of product attributes, specifications, images, and other relevant information. Through user-defined quality assurance mechanisms and automated workflows in PIM, you can guarantee that the product descriptions and images presented in your online shop are always up to date and provided in the right quality. This also contributes to the fact that customers won’t come to form wrong expectations and it also reduces your return quota.

Through the central management of product information, the PIM system also enables you to update return guidelines and conditions in a quick and easy manner so that the return process is fully transparent at all times. On top of that, a PIM system provides you with the option to analyze customer-related feedback and return messages so that you can implement product improvements and quality assurance. And it also offers the possibility to use the PIM as the data basis for your return-based secondary market.

An efficient PIM system can support companies in their profitable returns management, strengthen the customer retention, and positively impact business success in a sustainable manner.

Tips and Strategies for the Successful Sales on B2B Marketplaces

That private customers primarily shop online is most certainty not news for you. Did you know, however, that more and more companies do also shop online – and that they do, in fact, have similar expectations and demands as private customers? B2B marketplaces such as Amazon Business or Alibaba provide you with a complete, practical, and secure infrastructure for the online sales of your products. Do you also want to profit from this development and utilize these user-friendly setups of online marketplaces for your company? If so, then this article is for you.

 

What Benefits do B2B Marketplaces Offer?

You want to reach out to new customer groups, you want to expand your offer, or you want to tap into new markets? In this case, B2B markets can function as a mediator between company and customer with a strong outreach: Once your products are listed on a B2B marketplace, you profit from reaching out to broader target audiences and from the technological infrastructure – while also saving costs and effort on your end.

Thanks to this, the B2B marketplace may be a formidable alternative to your own online shop: You save the costs of all those experts you would otherwise require in order to guarantee a comfortable and intuitive purchasing experience, a secure purchase transaction, and a growth of your outreach. Your customers, in turn, can get to learn about your products on the familiar grounds of a well-known B2B marketplace, compare your prices – and find your products at a place which they do already visit on a frequent basis. The result: Satisfied customers – with minimal effort.

 

What Criteria are of Particular Importance when Choosing a B2B Marketplace?

Before you commit to one of the 7 exciting B2B marketplaces which we’ll present to you in this article, think about which aspects of your individual products are of particular importance:

• What target groups do you want to address?
• What B2B marketplaces is this target group already familiar with?
• What does the general outreach and growth potential of the platform look like?
• How strict are the requirements of your customer concerning the user friendliness and purchase experience of the platform?
• How easy is it to update master data and image assets and adjust them to fit your needs?
• Is using the platform also intuitive for your customers and does it provide fast and reliable results for your search requests?

 

What Kinds of B2B Marketplaces are there – and which of them Suits You Best?

The e-commerce marketplace functions as the connecting link between business customers and supplier, particularly close to what a B2C marketplace like Amazon is providing. An e-commerce marketplace is a trustworthy third party creating a wide range of standard offers for business customers of all industries and fields. They can easily gather products from all sorts of retailers in their shopping cart and purchase them with a single transaction. You want to be listed on an e-commerce marketplace? Once you’re listed, you can address a wide target audience on a big platform – while also profiting from the technological infrastructure, the security related to transactions, as well as the implementation of a variety of payment options.

So-called e-procurement platforms (or many-to-many systems) bring together purchaser and supplier. To this end, an independent marketplace operator provides an e-procurement platform for making orders, which may involve features such as a uniform user interface, multi-supplier or multi-vendor catalogs, and standardized interfaces for connecting third-party applications. With this, target companies can access an extensive product catalog in a quick and uncomplicated manner – making purchases here is just like shopping in an online supermarket. This also means: Offers and products can be directly compared by price and properties, hereby saving the purchasing companies time and organizational costs.

On a circular economy marketplace, you can re-sell or rent used products, and you can also recycle or upcycle them. Given its functionality, a circular economy marketplace is best compared to platforms for secondhand items such as Vinted or Craigslist – with the difference that it is exclusively for business customers. The benefit: You can optimize your stock keeping processes and generate additional sales – while your customers can be happy about the low-priced offers.

The network marketplace provides you with the possibility to bundle together all your products on a central platform for your network partners. Are you operating in a company network with many expert retailers, procurement offices, or franchisees? In this case, you can collect and manage your offer for all partners – and enable easy transactions for your purchasers.

A Digital Transformation marketplace is the go-to guide for the journey of a company which previously only operated on the basis of physical branch offices and is now going digital. Upon entering online sales, such companies can modernize their sales cycles, convert new customers – and also win new customers frequenting their physical stores.

 

Which are the Most Successful B2B Marketplaces? Our Top 3!

The development of B2B marketplaces is dynamic: While it’s true that the first signs of who may emerge as market leaders are currently manifesting, the matter is far from being set in stone. We present to you the most important B2B marketplaces in terms of growth potential.

1. Amazon Business

The name “Amazon” is a name everybody is familiar with – and “Amazon Business” is well on the way to establishing the same feat in the B2B field. Those who make purchases in the B2B field expect a broad scope of available products, market-based prices, and a user-friendly purchase experience – and Amazon Business delivers (in every sense of the word). Here, buyers can, for example, request an internal approval for their shopping cart, get an overview of all expenses and purchases, while also allowing you to add more users to the account, create lists of preferred retailers, and profit from bulk discounts.

Accordingly, Amazon Business is aimed at all those companies which want to profit from the already well-established Amazon infrastructure as well as both the corresponding popularity of this marketplace and its already existing customer base.

Order Options:

• Business Prime (shipping on the same day)
• Amazon Fulfillment (up to the customer’s choice)
• Free shipping (with minimum order value)
• Pallet shipping (doorstep or dock delivery)

Payment Options:

• Credit card
• Line of credit

Further Features:

• Sponsored ads highlighting your products on the first page of the search results
• Various possibilities for product presentation (images and video, CAD files, application or user manuals)

2. Alibaba

Alibaba is headquartered in China and used to be a pure “Yellow Pages” directory – by now, however, it has established itself as one of the world’s largest and most important B2B marketplaces. The platform addresses millions of suppliers and buyers – across all industries and sectors. On what one might refer to as “China’s Amazon,” you can build international trade and customer relationships and make secure business transactions. Your products are listed for free. Alternatively, you can benefit from better findability and visibility on the page in exchange for a fee.

A particular benefit of this platform: Alibaba mediates between retailers and customers. Accordingly, the platform does not compete with the companies themselves (in contrast to Amazon).

Order Options:

• FedEx, UPS, or DHL (for goods under 100 kg)
• e-package (for goods under 5 kg)
• Delivery by air
• Delivery by see (EXW, FOB, and CIF)
• Your own shipping company
• Delivery times between 24 hours and 7 business days

Payment Options:

• Alipay (comparable to PayPal)
• Bank transfer
• Credit card
• Western Union
• Escrow

Further Features:

• Product verification (this creates additional security for your buyers)
• Purchase protection (refunds for advanced payments in case of delay or misdelivery)
• Access for retailers from the US to official trade documents

3. Ebay Business & Industrial

eBay Business & Industrial offers an enormous product variety for competitive prices – and that on a global scale. With the option to launch special sales and sales promotions for any industry or sector, eBay Business & Industrial occupies the golden mean between e-commerce marketplace and circular economy marketplace – and combines the benefits of both marketplaces. With some strategic and well-executed Search Engine Optimization, you can also boost your findability and visibility on the platform.

Payment Options:

• Klarna
• PayPal
• Credit card
• Instant bank transfer
• GooglePay

Order Options:

• Free shipping and product return with eBay Plus
• Your own shipping options

 

Not Just the Unusual Suspects: More Interesting Options for Your Online Commerce

Did you not find your perfect fit among our top 3? Here are some further exciting possibilities for your online sales in the B2B field.

Mercateo

Mercateo is a B2B marketplace which provides its users with a particularly diverse product range on top of performant search functions. Here, customers filter by manufacturers, products, or suppliers – and, maybe, very soon by your company, too! To this end, you have the privilege of choosing between marketing your products via BusinessShop or Spotmarket. With a BusinessShop on this platform, you can strengthen your customer relationships and agree on the individualized product pricing. On Spotmarket, on the contrary, you address a broad buyer network as a pre-supplier.

AnkorStore

AnkorStore wants to establish an innovative B2B shop system that concentrates on niche markets. Retailers ought to have the possibility to buy from independent manufacturers in an easy and direct manner – for example, by placing a collective order from different manufacturers. The process is kept particularly simple with AnkorStore – retailers can make purchase with a comparatively low minimum order value and fully digitize their order process. This does also mean: AnkorStore analyzes carefully which manufacturers they list in the first place.

IndiaMART

After already discussing what we referred to as “China’s Amazon,” we now naturally transition to “India’s Amazon.” IndiaMART is India’s largest B2B marketplace and provides its B2B sales services in particular to SMEs (small and medium enterprises). Besides its role as a central hub for international purchasers and sellers, IndiaMART does also provide accounting software services which support you in managing your business and make processes more efficient. All payments are made without any fee via the IndiaMART payment protection.

Global Sources

The B2B multi-channel media company Global Sources mediates trade between Asia and the rest of the world – both online and offline. Global Sources supplies conventions, online marketplaces, magazines, and apps. This comes with benefits: Global Sources’ relations to trade conventions, for example, guarantees that no counterfeit products are brought into circulation. Suppliers can get their data analyzed and validated independently, whereas the buyers, in turn, can evaluate the suppliers based on their needs. This establishes both security and trust – building on the strict selection procedure by which suppliers are approved in the first place. Equipped with the flexible search feature, products can be compared in a clean overview.

 

Selling in the B2B Field – This is what the Best Practice Looks Like

Digitization simplifies the interaction and relations between companies while also facilitating sales and purchases – that is, if you have the right strategic setup. Do you want to market your products in a quick and uncomplicated manner? Do you want to transform your sales practices? Do you want to make your product catalog accessible online to a wide target group? What constitutes the foundation for all these cases and more is a well-prepared PIM – that is, a Product Information Management system.

It functions as the heart and central database for your digital sales strategy: In the PIM system, all relevant information about your products is gathered centrally, maintained, unified, and optimized. Before you go about establishing your presence on a B2B marketplace, first pool together and standardize all your product data in PIM – in order to distribute it in a consistent and complete manner to all sales channels anytime and anywhere. Be it product descriptions, images and videos, prices and availability, or technical data and digital assets: On which channels this or that unit of data is to be published or not is defined by you. This may include B2B marketplaces, online shops, apps, and catalogs – that is to say, the entire world of e-commerce.

No matter which sales channels you have in mind: With a PIM, you avoid inconsistencies or errors in your information; instead, you adjust your product data to the individual requirements of the respective channel and target group, while also guaranteeing optimal data quality. This is what an all-round successful Customer Experience looks like – have fun with it!

How a PIM System Helps You Minimizing Return Rates and Saving Costs

Owing the circumstances of the corona pandemic, online shopping is currently booming as never before. Accordingly, the product return rates have also skyrocketed. With a return rate of 64.3 percent, Germany is European Champion in returns of delivery orders (source: www.retourenforschung.de). About two thirds of the orders placed in the fashion industry are being returned. Not only time but also the financial aspect is enormous. On average, the return of a product costs the retailer 15.18 euro. This amount is the sum of the process costs and the loss in value. This, in turn, is reflected in the product costs. By now, many e-commerce companies are affected by this negative trend.

Did you also notice a trend in the increase of time and resources allocated to your company’s product return management? Or you may have even faced the need to create a new position in order to handle the high product returns? Maybe you’re already searching for a solution for reducing the product return rate of your online shop. With a PIM system, you have an effective and sustainable measure ready to hand with which you can lower the return rate of your company. Equipped with it, you can save not only time but also costs. Before we address this point any further, however, we want to have a closer look at the most frequent causes for high return rates in the e-commerce industry.

 

Product Returns in E-Commerce: Causes and Solutions

The causes for product returns in online retail are diverse. According to a study by KPMG (Statista 2023: Causes for Returns), 71 percent of the customers who return goods do so because the product doesn’t match their use case, followed by insufficient product quality or personal dissatisfaction with the product as major reasons. However, causes such as “product doesn’t correspond to description” are decisive for high product return rates. Another survey of this study (Statista 2023: Reduce Returns) does also show that 57 percent of the customers whish for better product information and commonly share the self-assessment that this is a measure for preventing returns.

What makes for a good product description? The more precise and detailed an article is described the more realistic is the image the customers can create in their mind’s eye. You can achieve this the following way:

• expressive product descriptions
• suitable recommendations for product variants (e.g., size and dimensions)
• good product images from different angles
• detailed product video

Little helper monkeys such as, for example, the so-called “nudging” are also currently high in trend. Nudging revolves around planting subtle notes which inform the customer that participating in the prevention of product returns is a contribution to the reduction of CO2 emission in its own right. To the end of preventing returns, there are also helpful AI tools (Artificial Intelligence). A prominent example for this would be “Fit Finder,” an AI-based tool that helps customers finding the matching size.

If you operate in the fashion sector, you can grant customers the possibility to compare themselves with the fashion model by providing their body size and physical dimensions. Wherever this isn’t possible, a detailed product description is all the more important to lower return rates.

Always keep in mind: after the purchase is before the purchase. Assist your customer throughout the entire shopping process in order to generate authentic customer reviews and product evaluations. Customers trust fellow customers. This way, you optimize your product descriptions and reduce returns.

In general, the following can be observed: if the product data quality is high then the product return rate stays low while the satisfaction rate of both customers and employees alike increases.

 

Product Return Rate in Full Control with PIM

And this is where the PIM system comes into play. PIM stands for Product Information Management and supports you in maintaining your company’s product data. Whenever it’s about improving the quality of your data, PIM is a good measure for creating the processes required to do so. PIM systems help you when defining, applying, and monitoring data quality rules.

The dashboard of the system facilitates the presentation of product data for you and your fellow coworkers, e.g. in the form of diagrams. This way, you will be quick to gather all the numbers you need and you always know where to begin when it comes to improving your data quality. You can classify your data objects, and you can do so as you see fit. In which units are your goods measured? Or do you want to give your product or other data objects a specific internal or external name so that it sticks better in your coworkers’ or customers’ minds? Other possibilities include terminology and translations. Subsequently, you can publish your product information on several output channels, such as your various online shops. Everything you need is your product and a PIM system which is configurable to fit your company’s exact requirements.

Better Product Information = Lower Returns and Higher Sales

The equation is simple: better information prevents product returns in the double digits while also enhancing the customer satisfaction rate. Therefore, the quality of your product data is decisive for your business success. Let a PIM system handle the heavy lifting. Equipped with our checklist for optimal data quality, you have a best-practices guideline ready to hand with which can transform your data model, quite literally, into a top model in virtually no time.

What are the Highlights of Next Year’s E-Commerce Trends?

Before anything else, the e-commerce industry is one thing in particular: fast-paced and ever-evolving. Only those who look several steps ahead, adopt to future-centered topics, and continue to inspire and surprise their customers anew on every occasion can not only keep up with the competition but can also stay on top of it. What, however, are these topics in the field of e-commerce to which you should dedicate your undivided attention? Find out in this blog entry. Naturally, not every development and every single trend is equally important and interesting to some online retailers. Get an overview of the hottest trends in the year of 2023 which will stimulate your creativity and provide you with valuable input.

Voice Commerce

“Ok, Google – where can I find the cheapest flight to New York?” More and more people are using voice-based search commands – be it Siri, Alexa, Echo, or Google Home. This trend will continue in 2023. For e-commerce companies, this means that you should optimize your website for the so-called Voice Search.

Live Shopping

The pandemic has shown us very clearly: The majority of people buy online. At the same time, however, we’re also seeking personal interaction and the feeling of strolling through the shopping mall together with a friend. And herein lies the great potential of Live Shopping. In China, this format has already become the norm. Though, in Europe, it’s enjoying increasing popularity, too. This is because the benefits are enormous for both, companies and consumers alike: On the one side, when companies provide Live Shopping events on their own platform, they retain full data sovereignty over their own products and can gather relevant analytics data. On the other side, consumers benefit from top-notch product consulting on-site, an exciting event character, and direct contact to brands and influencers.

Cookiecalypse: The End of Third Party Cookies Draws Near

Google will let its support for Third-Party Cookies run out – whether or not this will happen at the end of 2023 or in early 2024 is still open. With the help of such cookies, companies can gather analytics data on the behavior, purchasing habits, and selected private information of customers. This allows for personalized advertisement. With the end of Third-Party Cookies, it will be significantly more difficult for companies to address consumers in a targeted manner. This is a power move by Google, using their forerunner role to set new standards in Digital Marking and forcing companies to transform their marketing strategies into the more progressive direction of Context Marketing and other approaches centered around feedback data about and from their customers.

Social Commerce

Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Co are indispensable in our everyday life. In Germany alone, for example, 86.5 percent or 72.6 million people are browsing social networks daily – according to a study from the year of 2022 conducted by “We Are Social.” With these numbers, social networks are and will remain to be an attractive platform for offering products and staying in touch with customers – the magic word is Social Commerce. In Social Commerce, you can directly market your products via social media channels and reach out to a large target group without much effort.

Mixed Reality and Metaverse

The boarders between virtual and real world are becoming more and more blurred. Mixed Reality has the potential to become a market worth trillions and shouldn’t be dismissed from the get-go as a thing that’s still a long way off. According to predictions by Gartner business consulting, every fourth person will spend an hour per day in the Metaverse by 2026. Metaverse promises to provide a spacious, accessible social network where humans can move freely, work, shop, spend their free time together, and maintain contacts. One unified experience which will transition seamlessly between virtual and real-world affairs.

Trend Radar: You Should also Look Out for the Following E-Commerce Trends

• Artificial Intelligence, chat and service bots
• Augmented Reality features
• Multi-Channel Commerce
• D2C: Direct-to-Customer sales without third parties as middlemen
• Headless Commerce
• Personalization and personalized product offers
• Mobile First and Mobile Friendly
• Content Marketing
• Groundbreaking product visualization with configurators
• Sustainability and social acceptability
• Marketing Automation
• Reviews and Recommendation Marketing

Our Personal Highlight Trend: Customer Centricity

An all-round positive purchase experience and happy customers will never be out of fashion – and it will also continue to be the ever-lasting trend of e-commerce in the year of 2023. Especially in times where good news is hard to come by. In these trying times of hyperinflation and exploding energy costs, on top of the still ongoing pandemic, the name of the game for companies is to inspire and send a different message that looks on the bright side. Accordingly, when developing your e-commerce strategy, you should always put your customer front and center.

While current trends will not necessarily provide you with a surefire way of securing success in online retail, they can and will still provide you with objective criteria and indicators for assessing future trends and developments on the markets. Figure out what your customers will be occupied with in the future long before they themselves do.

Purchasing a Kitchen Made Easy 

Let’s adopt the first-person perspective of Paul (purely fictitious entity). He needs a new kitchen. Yet after a long and tedious workday, he’s simply much too exhausted to stop by a kitchen studio to receive a configuration for his desired kitchen in person. Instead, Paul does his research and stumbles across a provider where he can configure his kitchen fully by himself. He selects a kitchen front, chooses his favorite drawers, and picks a work surface. At a glance, Paul notices that the desired kitchen work surface comes with a delivery delay. Easy peasy, he simply selects another work surface with shorter delivery times among the alternatives presented by the configurator.

Now, what electronics fits the configured cupboard best? Paul is worried about purchasing the wrong kind of oven. But no reason to get too warmed up about it, since the configurator only provides matching components which are fully compatible with one another. This way, the dynamic configurator allows even laypersons to set up complex products without any room for error whatsoever.

Once Paul is done configuring, he checks out the final result once more in the form of a 3D model for the intended room. He then proceeds by booking the kitchen assembly service and signs the purchasing contract at the click of a button. Immediately after, Paul receives an e-mail containing his kitchen as a 3D model together with a list of all ordered kitchen components. On the other end, the kitchen manufacturer and the warehouse do also receive a components list, allowing them to prepare his kitchen free from error. Paul is extremely happy about how the digital age makes his everyday life much simpler and eagerly awaits the arrival of his new kitchen.

The basis for a well-oiled product configurator is data, data, and, not to forget, data – for example on properties, components, building parts, services, variants, or configuration rules. All such data is gathered and managed in a Product Information Management system (PIM). With PIM, there’s no need to file data for every single variant and combination. You only manage the individual properties, components, and rules of how things can be put together. The actual putting-together, in turn, is processed with dynamics and automatisms. This comes with huge benefits, which is why more and more companies are putting their trust into the duo of PIM and configurator.

 

The 3 Most Important Advantages 

Manage Combinations More Efficiently

Product configurators are a must-have if your product offer consists of various combination options with multiple components. Some simple math best illustrates this point: If you have seven components and five different properties to offer, there’re already 78,125 possible variants to cover. Now, imagine creating all of these variants manually by hand, let alone maintaining and translating them – you don’t want to commit yourself to such menial labor. It’s much simpler to just register the seven components together with properties and combination rules in your PIM system and manage them centrally. On top of that, you also take care of any possible data redundancy.

24/7 Product Experience for Customers

Product configurators are crucial for the digitization of companies, especially since they provide customers with inspiring online experience and product visualizations. The concept is simple: A customer-oriented product approach translates into higher customer satisfaction rates, more sales, as well as lower return rates and, with all that, a substantial increase in revenue. On the other end, users benefit from simpler configurations, since the product finder is easy to operate – even for laypersons. After all, users can only combine compatible components with one another in their product config. This way, for example, Paul will never accidentally purchase the wrong oven. And the best thing is: Customers can configure your products around the clock 24h and make orders from anywhere they want. Neither do you have to invest personnel resources, nor do you need a physical store.

More Success in Product Sales and Lower Product Return Rates

Your sales team, too, will soon learn to cherish the merits of your new configurator. The offer creation can be fully automated. Your success rate increases. You save time, resources, and costs throughout all processes – from sales, through manufacturing, to logistics. With smooth process chains and exact components list, reliable price estimations will be generated together with the purchase offer. The overall error rate in production is minimized. As a result, the follow-up processes will bring in results with much less complaints and returns.

When does the Use of Product Configurators Pay Off? 

In particular, a configurator will pay dividends in product portfolios with a lot of product variants. If you’re distributing high-quality products and want to provide your customers with an extravagant purchasing experience, the configurator is also the perfect go-to choice for your online shop in this use case. Even without physically holding the product in their own two hands, consumers will gain a perfect impression of what it is like to use your product thanks to the configurator.

 

Be it B2C or B2B – Product Configurators are Always a Welcome Sight 

Product configurators are most prominently represented in the B2C sector, with an ever-increasing tendency. Regardless of whether we’re looking for a replacement part for our car, buying a new bike, or booking vacations – in many of today’s online shops, we wish we would be able to simply configure our own dream product by ourselves instead of being presented with a fixed and static assortment. When purchasing a new computer, we select the memory size ourselves. When it comes to tours and travels, we select our preferred hotel room and catering service. Even the clothing industry is investing more and more into configurators. In the furniture and housing sector, they have long become indispensable. And this is how you and your business, too, can make things easy for your customers, significantly enhancing customer experience.

Especially when it comes to complex products, a configurator can support your customer in making the right purchase. For this reason, we also find more and more configurators in some fields of the B2B sector. Be it for driving shafts, connector sockets, warehouses, automation systems, hydraulics, or pneumatics. In fact, as consumers, we sometimes don’t even come to realize that the offer has been put together by a configurator. When it comes to complex products or companies that value customer retention, sales teams may even operate the configurator themselves. With this approach, too, the benefits clearly outweigh the investment.

 

This is How the Implementation Works 

In a first step, choose a suitable provider and specify your requirements. The software solution will be adjusted to your individual needs. To this end, you will receive support and counseling throughout the integration project to make sure that all technological requirements are realized as smoothly as possible. After checking the product configurator on the basis of usability tests, you can import actual product data into the system. For this project stage, you’ll need a PIM system. After all, PIM is what constitutes your company’s data basis. In this system, you define variants, rules, combination options, CAD data, videos, and images. In short, all data and information which your configurator requires.

With a PIM system, you can also benefit from optimized interfaces for centralizing and bulk-editing data. This, in turn, avoids data redundancy and additional effort when working on content and data quality. Last but not least, you can not only supply your configurator but all relevant e-commerce channels in real-time with the newest product data which you have approved and released as part of your built-in product information workflow. Our software, eggheads Suite, provides you with vital support as the central datahub for your company’s entire IT landscape.

Optimizing Product Experience and Inspiring Customers

Not least because of the corona crisis, we experience nothing less than a boom in online retail. The result: The competition increases drastically and offers multiply. Your customer finds herself lost amidst a huge selection of products and suffers from the agony of choice, having to decide for this rather than that product. In turn, the online inquiries carried out by your customer also become more broader in scope and the selection of the suitable product becomes more and more self-informed. Now, it’s all about providing the right information during the customer’s research and inspiring her while doing so. Simply putting your product online is no longer going to cut it. Nowadays, each and every customer expects to be met on her own ground throughout all touchpoints across her entire Customer Journey.

In short: The key to success in online retail is Product Experience. In order to distinguish yourself from the competition, you’re required to create and optimize the customer’s experience across the whole Customer Journey. This way, you make your products come alive and also make them intuitively understandable. Since we don’t only sell products, but also the solutions and values for which they’ve been produced in the first place – this is what should never drop out of your focus.

However, how can we go about creating and optimizing Product Experience?

It’s clear: You’re required to adopt the viewpoint of your customer and observe the entire process – from product inquiries to purchasing decision and use – in and through her first-person perspective. To begin with, you’ll have to get to know your customer. Here, we can make use of various useful methods and strategies, such as creating a Buyer Persona. That being said and done, we have to visualize precisely what challenges and problems your customer is confronted with when searching and purchasing your product, so that we can remove any obstacles blocking her journey. Only after doing so, we can propose concrete measures and solutions which can optimize the customer’s experience.

This sounds like a monumental challenge to tackle, but don’t worry. Having invested some genuine work into your product information, this task will practically take care of itself. In our newest whitepaper, we demonstrate together with our Partner ChannelPilot, that and how 4 steps are enough to utilize your product information as a foundation for creating the perfect Product Experience, inspiring your customers in a sustainable manner. Since this is what we ultimately want: Turning customers into fans. So, have a look right here and now and download the whitepaper:”4 Steps to Using Product Data Efficiently and Creating Product Experience“.

E-Commerce is growing rampant. And where are you?

Given an anticipated increase in sales and the impact 2020 had on the markets, e-commerce is growing rampant. Day by day, more and more retailers are switching to online sales, while entrepreneurs opt for launching their business with e-commerce. By 2022, the sales of electronic retailers will have reached $5.69 billion worldwide, compared to $3,53 billion in the year of 2019.

Source: Statista.

Each year, new trends come into being which help companies to further boost their growth and stay streets ahead of the competition. 2021 will be no different in the ever-evolving field of e-commerce. This begs the question: What is the trajectory of your own e-commerce journey? What do you need to be prepared for as a shop operator in the year of 2021?

For you, we’ve compiled the major trends of 2021 in this whitepaper.