Over 30,000 attendees at MiCodi Milan for the eighteenth edition of the Netcomm Forum, the digital hub for the evolution of businesses to digital consumers around the world, which took place May 17-18.
Many surveys and strategies shared, including participation of major market players. 3 plenary conferences; 175 in-depth workshops including 15 in the Netcomm Space and 11 at the Netcomm Academy; more than 300 sponsoring and exhibiting companies.
The B2C eCommerce in Italy will reach a value 54 billion euros in 2023
"In 2023, Italians' online purchases will grow by +13% and reach 54 billion euros. It isValentina Pontiggia, Director of the B2C eCommerce Observatory Netcomm School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano, who shares the survey and presents all the numbers.
"Products mark +8 percent over 2022 and by the end of the year will be worth 35.2 billion, while Services will touch 18.8 billion (+22 percent). Apparel, Beauty and Information Technology today are the most dynamic sectors (with increases of about +10%), while the progression of Food & Grocery (+1% compared to twelve months ago) slows down.
Among the services, growth continues in Tourism and Transportation (+27% over 2022) and Event Ticketing."
Here is transforming B2C eCommerce
What are the main challenges? How to combine eCommerce development with physical development and overcome the tensions between innovation and sustainability'?
"The Customer experience remains the protagonist and becomes the basis in building an eCommerce platform. The relationship with customers is thought in the medium to long term, not dwelling only on a conversion as an end in itself.
The changing shopping habits of the new generations turns out to be one of the key points in the evolution of shopping. The conversion path no longer follows a linear trend, but merges online and offline touchpoints, destroying the boundary between these two worlds.
Information gathering begins even before the actual visit to a physical store. Thereby the asymmetry of information between customer and seller disappears. From search engines to brands' eCommede, only once all information is acquired can consumers make a decision.
The evolution of the concept of space and time due to the pandemic has transformed the way we work, but also the habits of consumers, who seek simplicityand fluidity, including in payments and an innovative and personalized experience.
This scenario has seen the emergence of different shopping environments: on the one hand, smaller stores with strong omnichannel focus and integration with large shopping malls, and on the other hand, local digital malls.
There is thus talk of proximity commerce which allows to reach customers in the surrounding areas of cities by offering cutting-edge services and technologies, but also of csmall to medium-sized centers that can serve both local demand and the export of Italian excellence abroad.
Another important issue is logistics, which must be environmentally sustainable and include integration with a network of pickup points consistent with the city's structure and an automation system in the warehouse to speed up the distribution and delivery of products."
Manifesto for eCommerce: 10 assets presented at NetComm 2023
To ride the change and the future of eCommerce, during the days at MiCo from Netcomm and the Consortium of Digital Commerce in Italy, the Manifesto for eCommerce was born. 10 assets that aim to seize the opportunities given by the change that commerce is experiencing.
Let's look at them together:
- The skills, the digital skills of businesses, but also of entrepreneurs, managers, workers, young graduates and high school graduates, which should be supported through specific training initiatives. Today digital retail is a sector that employs about 378 thousand workers in our country.
- The proximity commerce that enables integration between large e-commerce players and small retailers, who can reach customers residing in nearby areas.
- Made in Italy. Italy's artistic, cultural, artisanal, landscape, food and wine and production excellence must also be promoted and supported with international tourism and OTAs.
- Local digital malls, consorting craft and trade enterprises with the emergence of local supply hubs, capable of serving both proximity demand and the export of excellence internationally.
- Digital districts in which the glue must be complementarity in products and services.
- Marketplaces, including international ones (more than 400), to channel the Made in Italy offerings of Italian companies, supporting funding for new digital export figures
- Logistics and intermodality, encouraging the creation of new environmentally, economically and socially sustainable models.
- Digital payments can be developed through increased awareness in consumers through awareness campaigns and education.
- Technologies such as AI, Big Data, Blockchain, Augmented and Virtual Reality, to increasingly improve consumer insight and offer consumers an omnichannel and personalized customer journey.
Marketplace: digital export, revenue and brand awareness
Talking about sales at Netcomm also debated at length about Marketplaces which represent a virtual showcase, a touchpoint that companies leverage to talk to consumers, providing updates, brand messages.
With Marketplaces, the user base is larger, products and brands gain recognition, but this is not the only factor that makes a difference, such as the images offered in the gallery and those at 360 degrees, the inclusion of particular attributes as Zalando does with sustainability, but also content to present the history and values of the brand. Not forgetting branding and retargeting campaigns for foreign markets and affiliate programs that focus on social selling and influencer marketing.
Strategic importance also for reviews that help both to learn about new markets and to improve products and organic.
Marketplaces therefore are increasingly being used for digital export, revenue, and brand awareness. The strategies are different and vary from brand to brand.
Naturally, it is not enough to replicate content, SEO and products with simple translations, one has to assess thefeasibility of entry logistically, legally and fiscally, although MarketPlaces help a lot in this.
How do I pass on brand value where I am least known? The challenge is to offer a homogeneous experience between the brand's eCommerce and the Marketplace, you have to speak the same language.
In the United States Amazon has launched Buy with Prime which allows companies to use their existing inventory in Amazon logistics centers to fulfill orders. The promise of speed and efficiency already known to billions of users ensures more conversions.
The aspects to consider when working in new markets are many You need to drive performance and have all the tools in house to govern growth and organic traffic, but also register your brand.
Being present where you are relevant to brand or product category positioning is important, you have to work to be in the top of mind of consumers all year round, continuing to analyze buying habits.
The choice of Marketplace is another key aspect; you must identify the one best suited for your business. You may prefer a generalist Marketplace with multiple audiences or a vertical one on a certain type of product and pricing, considering global or regional ones.
Amazon is probably the best known, but it depends on the countries, in Poland, for example, one cannot fail to mention Allegro, Kaufland in Germany.
"The consumer in 10 years has become the king"
There is a lot of talk about digital and omnichannel, but Jacques-Antoine Granjon, founder and founder of Veepee, a pioneering company that has made event sales a business, is ready to bet that "the future of retail will be physical, because the shopping experience is tied to the store! The product of course has to be desirable, innovative, at the right price.
In 10 years - Granjon recalled - the consumer has become the king, he has every opportunity in front of him: offers are everywhere, from the Marketplace to the digital channel to the physical store, but you have to be careful about permanent discounts that kill the brand. The consumer is known to be attentive, but you have to be careful because this can change your pricing strategy.
"The new eCommerce challenge is theworking on conversions and omnichannel, thanks to new technologies, to better serve the end customer.".
Google AI helps businesses build immersive, personalized and seamless experiences
"One of the most fascinating aspects of this industry has always been the vocation for change propelled by technological innovation," debuted at Netcomm Jacopo Allegrini, Sales & Retail Director of Google Italy, main partner at Netcomm.
"Think of the advent of the internet, which 20 years ago allowed retail to innovate business models, or the mobile which led marketers to relate to consumers by interacting with them at every moment of their lives.
Today we are talking about Artificial Intelligence which has a revolutionary and transformative scope greater than its predecessors. At this time of great change, at Google we think we can support businesses by making available AI-based technologies that help achieve growth goals in a responsible and sustainable way.
The use of AI serves to reach new customers, deliver an optimal brand experience, improve business models all along the value chain, and finallycapitalize the power of data from a privacy first perspective.
Today more than ever we are called to innovate, to change."
To new business opportunities
Studying consumer behaviors turns out to be relevant for managing the complexities we face today, which lead to new purchase funnels and new expectations. Jacopo Allegrini cited three of the main ones:
- immersiveness. It is relevant to know that 61% prefer to shop on eCommerce that offer immersive and immersive experiences;
- Mobile. 7 in 10 consumers say they feel frustrated if interaction with a brand is impersonal. Shoppers want to be recognized in the context in which they express a desire or request, above all they want to find what they are looking for;
- Omnicanality. In recent months, the increase in sales in physical stores has sanctioned the convergence of an offline and online channel. This is a new, different balance that generates new behaviors. More than 1 in 2 consumers buy from their smartphones while in a physical store of another retailer.
The world of possibilities is growing, and consumers have learned to interact with digital in a way that is increasingly intuitive and natural. As a result, we have a need to understand what they are looking for.
The Google Multisearch
This is why Artificial Intelligence has great transformative power; today it can synergize textual and visual language. In February, Google launched Multisearch, a tool that allows users to search via a photo in Google Lens for a piece of furniture, an item of clothing, and modify the results based on textual input such as color, pattern, and size.
3D Augmented Reality most engaging
While the 3D Augmented Reality as well as minimizing the performance of returns, it satisfies the desire of consumers who are looking for more engaging technologies by acting on one of the pain points of traditional buying, the lack of look and feel.
Google Search and AI recommendations
Google's cloud products such as Search allow retailers to use the same algorithms as Google's Search for sites. These are strategic tools; there are about 2 trillion lost sales because users do not find what they are looking for.
AI-based recommendation models also can intercept unexpressed customer needs, increasing cross-selling and up-selling rates.
AI for after-sales and conversational support
Artificial Intelligence also matters in the post-purchase phase. Today, all AI conversational systems offer a new, holistic, fluid experience and give the customer the choice of being assisted in text or voice by a digital or human agent. This helps minimize friction and work on loyalty.
Inventory strategy
Inventory strategy also has great expectations for the future of retailers, because they can optimize shelves that are not optimally stocked and do not allow customers to find what they are looking for.
Predictive models that are able to leverage corporate data assets can minimize this impact by improving the supply chain, influencing future product development and assortment decisions.
From customer journey to customer's trust journey
Facing the relationship with customers, we talked about trust, then reviews. "As the Treccani recites, trust is not only that feeling of security that comes from trusting in someone or something, but is also synonymous with credit, good reputation.
Trust impacts every aspect of the customer journey," Laura De Lorenzis, Senior Partnership Manager Global Emerging Markets & Italy reminded in her remarks, "from awareness to the moment of purchase. The way people make decisions is chaotic, and it will become even more so."
Today we are faced with what Google has called a messy middle,a large and diverse number of touchpoints to which consumers are exposed from the time they decide to search for a particular product to buy, to the time a particular product is chosen and purchased.
Reviews influence final purchase decisions, trust is a driver, but we need to rethink the entire purchase journey as a customer trust journey.
The importance of reviews
How can a brand manage to survive and get noticed within the messy middle? The strategy to be adopted is the same for both large and small businesses. The goal is to reassure the buyer with respect to the product they are interested in by providing the right information to help them complete the purchase.
It is important to implement a brand awareness strategy so that the product/service is noticed and remembered by customers later, filling those 'gaps' that can be created within the consumer's decision path.
Reviews have strategic value not only for consumers, but also for businesses:
- increase more than 16% in CTR and ad effectiveness with Google Seller Ratings;
- increase organic traffic with rich snippet stars;
- enable search engines to index content by providing SEO benefits for companies to enhance organic site ranking.
People respond to people: the Google experiment
Reviews help combat uncertainty due to overly broad choice. The data speaks for itself, 89% of consumers consult reviews before making a purchase, 93% say reviews influence their purchasing decisions, and 75% of consumers expect to be able to share their experiences."
To demonstrate how important it is in decision making, Laura recounted Google's People respond to people experiment, in which shoppers were asked to choose their first and second favorite brands within a category.
To test an external scenario, the experiment also included an imaginary brand in each category to which shoppers had never been exposed before.
The results showed that the least effective competitor, a fictitious cereal brand, managed to win 28 percent of shoppers' preferences over an established preferred brand when it demonstrated countless quality benefits, including five-star reviews and an extra 20 percent discount offer. Therefore, it is no longer the historicity of a brand- concludes Laura -,but reputation that makes the difference.".