Technology impacts the complete journey of consumer buying behavior from discovering, Ordering & fulfillment, and then post-consumption engagement.
Smart mobile phones with data are a commodity today and consumers are consuming, producing, and distributing content with their gadgets hence giving birth to new kinds of marketing. Much evolved version of word-of-mouth.
Technology has enabled millions of people around the world to be smart consumers. The customers now have all the sources and channels to gather information about a brand and a product and form an opinion.
Technology impacts the complete journey of consumer buying behavior from discovering, Ordering & fulfillment, and then post-consumption engagement.
Discovering:
Let’s talk about how easy it is now to discover a product or service as compared to the last decade in India. As per the Statista report, the number of smartphone users in India is estimated to reach over 760 million in 2021. This number was 76 million in 2013. A smartphone coupled with high-speed internet is helping consumers to find a product with just a few taps and scrolling the screen.
Social commerce, as it’s commonly termed, is an integral part of the D2C business model in e-commerce. Top D2C brands are using content as a source to drive commerce and get more sales. They use influencers to create compelling content for them promoting their products. This helps in achieving sales/revenue and building the brand’s trust among the audience.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are used by various social commerce apps to provide personalized offerings to their customers. It saves a lot of time and effort for the customer by showing them what they are interested in.
● Servion Global Solutions predicts that by 2025, 95% of all customer interactions will be managed by AI technologies. AI-enabled revenues in eCommerce are expected to reach $36.8 billion worldwide by 2025
Augmented reality (AR) is also used to give customers an option to try the products virtually like a dress or furniture for the home. This is an extended offering many companies are integrating within their apps for consumers.
● According to a survey conducted by Research & Market, both AR and 3D rendering markets will increase at a 38.4 percent CAGR and have a market value of USD 172.8 billion by 2026.
● The technology offers a customizable solution, real-time interactions, and an accurate representation experience to users like never before. Consumers can access information and details of products from any place at any point in time.
Unmanned retail aka vending machines are also becoming very popular in India and it has emerged as a great distribution channel for companies to sell their products and Consumers can now buy products from their nearby vending machines installed in their offices, apartments, colleges, etc. This is one of the quickest ways to buy products without the intervention of any human.
Ordering & Fulfilment:
Payment options and modes of ordering have changed the way people buy products from physical stores.
O2O (offline to online) is one of the buzzwords in India when we talk about giving online platforms to offline retailers and a phygital experience to the consumers. People now can go to an offline store, check the product physically and then order it from an online store and get it delivered to their doorstep.
Self-checkout is another option making life easy for both customers and business owners. Customers can go to a store equipped with a self-checkout system and pick up the products they want to buy and checkout without any human interaction.
Services like Self pickup for online orders or buy online from a brand’s website and pick up from its physical stores (Online to offline) is rapidly becoming a new trend among consumers.
There are a plethora of social sellers on Facebook and Instagram who pack orders from their homes and courier the shipments.
Feedback & Engagement
Feedback has become an integral part of brands and their product development cycle. Brands are focusing on capturing the right consumer insights to deliver better value and stay connected.
Top D2C brands are leveraging influencer marketing to reach out to more consumers and make them try their products. There cannot be a better influencer than your own consumer itself. Hence taking content-based engagement through video testimonials.
Specialized CRM Tools are used today for feedback and other post-purchase activities including cross-selling, converting to subscriptions, free to a premium plan, etc.
Source: Business World
