The digital commerce landscape is shifting and becoming a monolithic source of revenue for all kinds of businesses. Get answers to basic questions like what is digital commerce, explore its importance, understand how it differs from other types of commerce, and find solutions with the information below.
What Is Digital Commerce?
The digital commerce definition is the process of purchasing and selling products and services using online channels. These online channels might include the Internet, mobile platforms and apps, and other e-commerce infrastructures.
What is digital commerce?
Digital commerce is more than just clicking "add to cart," though. It’s about the consumer’s journey. Digital commerce examples also include things like:
- Marketing online products and brands to encourage sales
- Supporting online and digital sales with people, processes, and technologies
- Pricing online products
- Brand interactions through web content and social media
- Analyzing digital commerce data and making appropriate adjustments
- Obtaining and retaining customers
Why Is Digital Commerce Important?
Digital commerce is important because it’s more than just a sales channel. In fact, it’s the lifeblood and heart of many businesses. It is the fastest-growing sales channel, makes up a large contribution to revenue, brings a large percentage of sales volume, and is the most essential channel in building consumer engagement
E-commerce vs. M-commerce vs. Digital commerce
The digital commerce landscape is not only changing, but also broad. You’ll find terms like "e-commerce" and "m-commerce" tossed around, but what's the difference? Let’s consider e-commerce vs. m-commerce vs. digital commerce.
E-commerce
E-commerce, short for electronic commerce, is basically any kind of online selling. If you set up a storefront on a website and launch a product, you’re participating in e-commerce. Your e-commerce online store might be a substitute for a brick-and-mortar store, or you might choose to maintain both.
M-Commerce
M-commerce, short for mobile commerce, takes e-commerce into the palms of your consumer’s hands. M-commerce lets your customers engage and do business from their mobile phones. It might have a few advantages. M-commerce makes consumers reachable, you can track their locations, and it can be more secure thanks to fingerprint and facial recognition on mobile devices.
Digital Commerce
Digital commerce, also sometimes called D-commerce, is much more inclusive. In fact, digital commerce can refer to all online commerce experiences and each stage of the customer journey. The infrastructure used to sell goods via e-commerce and m-commerce is part of d-commerce.
A lot goes into digital commerce and it can be a power source for your e-commece and m-commerce businesses. Integral parts of digital commerce can include web content and social media posts, research and development, marketing practices, analytics, social media presence, customer experience, and even customer satisfaction.
Digital Commerce Trends
Digital commerce examples and trends can help your business remain robust and competitive as consumers shift further toward online buying. Let’s take a look at a few of the digital commerce trends and shifts to keep in mind as the online economy grows.
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence, or AI, is a game-changer for digital commerce. Why? AI is broad and can encompass almost anything. For example, AI can help digital commerce businesses create more targeted ads, increase customer retention, provide seamless automation, lend toward a more efficient sales process, and more.
AI chatbots are a huge part of the AI trend in digital commerce. These automated bots simulate human conversation and a preferred channel of communication for customers. Chatbots meet customer needs quickly and can be an essential part of the customer journey.
Mobile-first commerce
Practically all consumers have smartphones in their pockets and this means digital commerce often begins at the palms of their hands.
Mobile-first commerce puts an interesting spin on online commerce. This concept encourages businesses to build mobile-friendly or responsive websites first, and then upscale for desktop versions. This lets businesses quickly tap into the m-commerce market, which is growing at an enormous rate, especially for B2C businesses.
In-app shopping
When it comes to consumers and their spending, there’s an app for that. In-app shopping accounts for a staggering amount of online sales. It makes sense, as the average American spends about 4 hours on their smartphone per day.
Social commerce
Social media is an important touchpoint for businesses in the digital commerce landscape. Not only is social media a powerful marketing tool, but it is turning into a valuable sales platform, too.
Facebook and Instagram are great platforms for selling. Checkout on Facebook and Instagram lets you set up an online storefront within the popular social platforms and even handle payment processing for you. Another popular social app, TikTok, also has gotten into the social commerce game.
Whatsapp is a popular platform for both selling products and services, as well as providing customer support. It’s easy to integrate selling tools with Whatsapp and other social platforms to provide a seamless experience across channels.
Marketplace growth
Online marketplaces are a big deal in today’s digital commerce world. These selling platforms facilitate shipping from many different sources and let customers connect with sellers.
Amazon and Walmart are big names when it comes to online marketplaces, but there are others in the game, too. eBay, Etsy, and even Alibaba and DHGate let consumers buy goods from multiple sellers based all over the world.
Personalization
Today’s consumers crave a customized touch. Personalization does more than just engage shoppers, as it can also drive sales and increase conversions.
Personalization comes in many forms in today’s digital commerce landscape. For example, businesses can deliver personalized experiences to customers by basing information and content shown based on previous behavior. For consumers, this might look like product recommendations and specific offers tailored toward their browsing behavior and demographic information.
Omnichannel support
Omnichannel support provides consumers with a seamless digital commerce experience. It lets you meet customers wherever they are, with the same experience each time.
Digital commerce - omnichannel support
For example, if a customer reaches out to a business via Facebook Messenger to solve an issue, but follows up on the website with a chat window, a great omnichannel support tool will connect the dots and jump off where the previous interaction stopped.
A robust omnichannel strategy will let the consumer’s journey take place on multiple platforms with a consistent experience. This is what consumers expect in 2021.
E-Commerce Apps
Sellers have all kinds of e-commerce apps to choose from when they’re ready to get down to business. Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and Magento can all be easily integrated with WordPress and other tools to make your digital commerce business more functional.
What kind of functionality can e-commerce apps add? Many of these apps can help you extend your reach with built-in SEO, SEM, email marketing, and social tools. Some can help you streamline the shipping process with built-in solutions. Others even offer customizable CRM features to help you keep track of customers.
Self-service options
Providing self-service options not only lightens your customer service load but empowers customers to interact with your business in the way they prefer. How can you provide self-service options for your customers? Online knowledge bases empower customers to find answers to common questions on their own, for example.
Digital commerce - self-service options
Shipment tracking lets customers see the status and progress of their orders in real-time. Online appointment booking lets customers take control of their schedules.
Customer reviews
Looking to see conversions rise? Let your customers do the talking. Customer reviews work because they inspire trust. From testimonials on your website’s funnel pages to reviews on Google, Facebook, or even Yelp, letting your customers do the talking can pay off in a big way.
Digital commerce - customer reviews
Challenges of Digital Commerce
Digital commerce is exploding and businesses are finding success in this online landscape. That doesn’t mean it comes without challenges, though. It can be hard to keep up with the constantly evolving world of technology and customer expectations are becoming increasingly demanding.
You can stay abreast of any obstacles and arm yourself for challenges by being aware of the digital commerce stumbling blocks below:
- Technology: Digital commerce thrives on technology. Today’s consumers are on many platforms, which means your tech needs to be both responsive and desktop-friendly. There are so many tech-heavy solutions out there, from conversational marketing to video marketing, it can be hard to stay on top of changes and shifts.
- Customer service: Your business might not have the staff or resources to handle customer service across multiple platforms and all touchpoints. It’s hard to be on Amazon, Facebook, phone calls, and email at the same time.
- Driving traffic: Businesses today need multiple streams of traffic to complete conversion goals. Organic SEO and PPC (pay-per-click) can only bring in so many customers and today’s digital commerce world also depends on email marketing, display ads, affiliates, retargeting, and influencers to send customers to e-commerce sites.
Despite the challenges above, there are solutions available. The right tools can help you excel and see growth in today’s digital commerce landscape.
Solutions for Digital Commerce Challenges
One way to excel in the current digital commerce landscape is to seek out solutions for the challenges facing your business. There are many processes and tools your business can use to find success by enhancing the customer journey and boosting conversions.
Automation
You can make the most of your time and overcome digital commerce obstacles by automating tasks and processes. In fact, automation can solve technology and customer services woes, as well as free staff from routine tasks. Things you can automate might include:
- Welcome messages, which let you greet and communicate with website visitors, returning customers, or even staff. Automated welcome messages can create a warm, engaging experience.
Digital commerce - welcome messages
- Thank-you messages can help establish two-way communication with your customers. Thanking them for the conversion -- whether they filled out a lead form, signed up for an email list, or made a purchase -- can establish credibility and trust.
- Abandoned cart emails solve a serious problem in today’s digital commerce landscape. An automated follow-up email to cart abandonment can reel customers back in and encourage conversion.
- Review requests can be automated after a live chat or agent phone calls, via SMS, and even via email. This information can later be used to collect valuable feedback and used to build trust.
- Invoicing automation lets you stay on top of your revenue and collect payments simply.
- Inventory management can be automated to give you real-time numbers about stock and supply. You can avoid overstocking, effectively fulfill orders, and even gain visibility by automating inventory management.
- Customer support can be automated with chatbots or AI agents. Not only does this free up your customer service agents, but also meets customer desire.
Lead generation
Meaningful traffic from qualified visitors is an essential piece of the digital commerce puzzle. The right lead generation strategy brings in traffic that is ready to buy. A few beneficial approaches to lead generation might include:
- Search engine optimization can bring in quality traffic. Great content will attract customers ready to click "add to cart" and drive customers down the sales funnel.
- PPC ads can catch customers’ eyes and drive them to your site. Putting spend on the right keywords and phrases can attract qualified consumers.
- Social media lets you build a following, engage with customers, run targeted campaigns, and much more.
- Email marketing puts your brand right in your customers’ inboxes. Messages can be customized and segmented, allowing you to truly reach those leads ready to convert.
Customer retention
Retaining customers is very important to digital commerce success. Holding on to customers can seriously impact your bottom line. Boost customer retention by making your customers feel valued.
- Loyalty programs encourage repeat conversions by offering an incentive to purchase again. Customers who collect points or engage in other loyalty programs can feel connected to your brand.
- Special offers just for existing customers can also inspire repeat conversions. This recognizes devotion to your brand and makes customers feel like their in an exclusive group.
- Personalization, like greeting a customer by name when they land on your site, can also send customers down the sales funnel multiple times. Remembering preferences can pay off again and again.
