Guest comment: E-commerce innovation’s what we need
- Added:
- Feb 03, 2010
After a burst of innovative activity in e-commerce over the past few years (from single page checkout to shop the catwalk), 2009 saw innovation all but grind to a standstill. While this is to a certain extent understandable due to the torrid time traditional retail has had through the recession it has lead to all e-commerce sites looking pretty much the same… and this isn’t good for the e-tail business. Is this going to continue into 2010 or are there already new ideas that are set to burst onto the retail scene? Fadi Shuman, co-founder of digital agency Pod1, looks at the outlook for e-commerce in 2010.
Remember the good old, bad old days of early e-commerce? When in 1996 Jeff Bezoz launched Amazon from his garage (turning its first net profit six years later)? When the much-lauded fashion site Boo.com blazed through $135m of venture capital in just 18 months, a high profile victim of the dotcom bust? When high street brands thrashed out in earnest the pros and cons of selling online?
In today’s e-tail world these early days seem a lifetime ago. With UK shoppers spending a staggering £5.46 billion online in December alone, and with every high street brand of note increasing their commitment to online transacting. Ecommerce is maturing, and is now firmly in the mainstream.
But something in me almost – just almost - longs for the Wild West frenzy of innovation and creativity of before. Because innovation in the ecommerce space has gone dry online – and I’m hoping that returning company and consumer confidence will also see a return to more online investment and more original thinking.
Even as recently as 2007 there was a hell of a lot going on – brands were creating animated lookbooks, catwalk videos to showcase their clothing and improving functionality with features such as single page checkouts.
2008 was all about optimising sites, looking at the numbers and the tracking; making sure that your customer was going to the right place; improving the usability and information architecture.
But in 2009 there was nothing new of note to talk about. And that wasn’t because there was no new technology or systems. There was loads of stuff. But etailers and brand owners were either not upgrading their systems or were too scared to make a move because of the market conditions. They just wanted something safe that worked.
I hope that the improving world economy and a more optimistic outlook means that these same brands commit to innovation in 2010. Because what we have now is an online world where everything looks the same. Every website has the big image on the homepage, each site has the catwalk videos, the same lookbooks...they’re all cut from the same cloth. What is different about any of these brands – what is going to keep the customer engaged?
It’s time to look beyond the obvious, to look again at creating sticky, engaging content. Sticky content used to be things like ‘shop the catalogue’ or view the look book.
Innovation is what we live for. People need to keep coming up with new things, but retailers haven’t been following suit, haven’t been investing.
It’s something that brands are going to have to do because every single brand has a competitor online. It’s not like walking past a shop and going to a store and popping in for a quick browse.
Online you choose your destination, and you go to that destination because you’ve heard about it, someone’s talked about it, you remember it from another occasion, you’ve been sent an email about it or you’ve seen a logo or an ad somewhere.
One area where I hope to see investment is social shopping, where consumers can go online and invite friends or colleagues to view the same item in real time. Some brands such as Converse are in this area, but they are very, very few and far between.
It’s also about being innovative and holistic about your multichannel strategy – for instance, digital should not be confined to the computer – it should be about fitting stores with kiosks so that consumers can order items not available in store online, saving a second trip and potentially the purchase entirely. Or purchasing instore for home delivery the next day – or earlier!
There are myriad ways that retailers can improve and innovate: even small, creative changes can have a big impact on a brand’s bottom line and reputation. Ecommerce has evolved so much in such a short space of time, but we’re nowhere near at the peak of what it can do. If we commit to invest and excite just imagine where e-tail will take us next.
By Fadi Shuman
Co-founder of Pod1
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