🛒 This is what consumers want (according to Facebook 💰)...

🎱 The Future of Shopping Has Come Early Due to COVID-19

Facebook just released a fantastic overview on the state of eCommerce, customer experience, and emerging trends.

One underlying theme: the dynamics are shifting between consumer and brands, where the consumers have greater expectations of what their shopping experience should be.

And consumers are empowered as a result.

Personalization is becoming mere table stakes.

🧐 Facebook highlights the phenomenon of “Discovery commerce” -- where consumers expect convenience and relevance in their shopping experience.

66% of shoppers expect technology to recommend products in a timely and serendipitous manner.

Takeaways:
Turn on discovery commerce: Through rich data and sophisticated advertising tools, understand what’s important to people and how they interact with your business in order to make it easier for them to discover and buy the right products.”
Cater messaging to the right audiences at the right time and place: While price and reliability remain overarching factors both online and in-store, shopping needs are increasingly based on the individual. Consider offering a range of promotions and let the ad-delivery system optimize to the audience most receptive.
Consider the whole customer journey: Rather than focusing solely on the narrow opportunity to capture existing intent, brands must think about how they generate fresh demand. This moves e-commerce from a bottom funnel activity to a full funnel one, with different roles to play across it.

It is worth a read, check it out here

This is also a good one for your swipe file -- the main objections that customers have when they are shopping:

🗒 8 Ways to Use Ecommerce Quizzes to Your Advantage

In light of iOS 15, third-party cookies being deprecated, GDPR and more makes clear: brands need a direct relationship with customers.

A key ingredient in any personalization effort is gathering data points allowing you to speak to customer on an individual basis.

Historically, personalization at scale might include using a first name, purchase history (ie “because you purchased basketball shoes, you may like these new styles”), and possibly demographic information like age or location.

The power of the quiz is that it arms ecommerce marketers with much richer insights about customers. With this, marketers can build better segmented audiences, send more relevant campaigns, and compelling offers.

In short, every interaction with a consumer can be far more personalized, closing the Customer Experience Gap, if there are the necessary data points.

Connecting the dots by gathering zero-party data can empower marketers to understand what problem they are solving, and how they can help the customer address their needs most effectively.

As Seth Godin writes in This Is Marketing; “Marketing is the generous act of helping someone solve a problem. Their problem.”

How Stitch Fix Uses A Quiz:

One example from the post is how Stitch Fix gathers insights from customers with their quiz.

Their product--subscription clothing--has different customer types and use cases. The quiz helps uncover why your customers are on your site, and what problem they are trying to solve.

Understanding these from the outset can help you identify what’s most important to the customer, and therefore what messaging and campaigns will resonate best.

The Stitch Fix customer that wants to save time may receive just a few transactional emails and messaging that highlights convenience. On the other hand, the customer that wants to discover new styles may receive inspirational style guides and look books.