E-commerce’s Impact on Brand’s Evolving Story

According to Statista, total e-commerce sales in the United States are expected to increase by more than $225 million from 2017 to 2022, while total market sales are expected to be flat during that time.¹ Given this shift, 10% of all CPG sales will happen online in 2022, which is more than double the current rate.²

For brands to maintain their current market position and growth, they must perform well with online shoppers. Consumers are gravitating more towards the efficient and customizable online shopping experience. In order to win in the digital landscape, brands need to shift their mindset in four critical ways:

1. New Triangle: Convenient, Quality, and Value
   For years, the paradigm of product development has been “Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick Two.” In the past, companies had three options, and due to the mutually exclusive nature of these characteristics, they could only choose two as their focus for that product. In today’s digital landscape, as consumer expectations change, and technology continues to improve the product development timeline, the model has shifted to “Quality, Convenient, Value: Have All Three.”
   
   Consumers don’t want to buy the cheapest product. Rather, they want the best value from products that are worth buying. This minimization trend has resulted in consumers reducing the amount of low-quality items in their homes and replacing them with fewer higher quality goods. This reprioritization has enabled the explosion of direct-to-consumer brands, which is disrupting longstanding market leaders and traditional product channels. Brands that reduce the number of decision fatigue in consumer’s lives, improve their perceived quality of life, thus increasing brand loyalty.
   
   

1. Humanize the brand’s connection with consumers
   Due to the variety of high-quality options readily available, it is difficult for even the strongest brands to develop consumer loyalty. Companies with high brand loyalty build personal connections that are deeper than just the product. Brands take a variety of approaches to building this connection, such as emotional media campaigns like Olay’s #FaceAnything, personal brand stories like Burt’s Bees, partnering with social media influencers, or breaking the mold on their social media channels similar to what Wendy’s has achieved with their Twitter. All of the methods have one goal: breakthrough the market’s noise and follow the consumer to prove your relevance to them.³
   
   

2. Design the entire experience
   According to a recent Nielsen study, consumers spend a substantial amount of time researching products prior to purchase. The same study found that Millennials are three times more likely to try products due to better packaging design than older generations.⁴ The packaging should showcase the brand’s unique selling point and be consistent for each touchpoint where consumers may experience the brand.
   
   While the shift to E-commerce won’t overtake brick-and-mortar as the largest avenue for spending anytime soon, it will represent the overwhelming majority for sales growth during this time. Brands that don’t embrace this transition will fall behind their competition, and potentially be uprooted by those brands better handle this market evolution.
   
   As the digital landscape shifts towards more use of phones or tablets over the traditional computer, images need to be optimized so that the most important information is readily available for consumers on smaller screens. Additional specs and legally required information can be added to additional thumbnails to ensure the focus is on the most important information at their first point of contact with the consumer.
   
   Brands also need to consider their impact post-purchase, and how they can extend the brand experience as long as possible. For example, Jet.com uses customized shipping boxes for their private label products, with large splashes of the brand’s logo and signature purple color. These boxes, which provide an additional injection of the brand’s character, delight consumers when they are delivered.
   
   

3. Voice: Consumer and Search
   Online shopping has given consumers a louder voice post-purchase than ever before. According to BigCommerce, 68% of online shoppers in the United States are influenced by online reviews before making a purchase.⁵ Review pages are useful for communication about current products and suggestions for the development of new or updated products.
   
   Along with the consumer voice, direct ordering through mobile ads, social media, and voice services will greatly change the future of e-commerce. Consumer’s ability to buy in real time has already increased dramatically in recent years, and its prevalence will continue to grow as the user experience becomes even more seamless.

1 https://www.statista.com/statistics/638521/cpg-e-commerce-sales-share-us/
2 http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2017/as-us-retail-shifts-continue-e-commerce-thrives.html 3 http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2018/when-it-comes-to-building-loyalty–leaders-say–dont-just-make-a.html 4 http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2018/four-design-driven-trends-sweeping-the-adult-beverage-category.html 5 https://www.statista.com/statistics/788185/us-online-shoppers-purchase-influences/