The end of the e-commerce as we know it
In Hycom we constantly keep an eye on trends in e-commerce. Let`s talk a little bit about important trends that probably will change our world in the future.
Voice interfaces, simplicity and aggregation
“Don’t make me think” is not a new idea. Customers work in context of “micro-moments” — the mobile sessions that take place usually between other activities. Think waiting for the green light on the intersection or sitting at a bus stop. They don’t want to spend a lot of time shopping or searching for proper thing for hours. So the real question becomes: how we can help them achieve their goals faster and easier and withing their micro moment.
Looking at trends we see that people who use voice assistants get used to them and use start using them a lot. The reason may lay in easy way to check the weather forecast or find the recipe for a cake. Ask and get the answer. It’s easier than googling for answers. It’s simple. People like simplicity. It helps them save time. Why? Searching through the data is easy when data is correctly prepared. It’s important that you can search for information by asking only one question in one place instead of browsing through ten different e-commerce websites.
There are places where information is gathered. Let’s call them “aggregators”. We use aggregators like Amazon, Google or eBay on a daily basis. They let us save time and reach more products.
You may search for new T-shirt but even if you’re recommended a trendy new product, how do you decide which one’s best for you? Probably you will spend a lot of time on making decision but will it be the right choice? Personalization is the key to save your time and show you products that just suit your style.
When we talk about personalization and data about you, we should mention hot trend of personal data protection. This trend is pushed by Facebook — Cambridge Analytica data scandal and new regulation in European Union (General Data Protection Regulation). We want to protect our data, but we want to get personalized recommendations as well.
Taking into consideration e-commerce, we can separate four very strong trends that are shaping our future:
- increasing role of voice interfaces,
- simplicity,
- aggregators
- and personal data protection.
INSIGHTS
Increasing role of voice interfaces
Researches[1] show that people are getting used to voice assistants. 72% of people who own a voice-activated speaker say their devices are often used as part of their daily routine. There are some reasons why people like using voice assistance: it allows them to easily multitask, enables doing things faster than with other devices (hands-free) and it empowers them to instantly ask questions and get answers . Role of voice interface will steadily increase in time — after all, it’s one of most natural interfaces people use while interacting with others.
Increasing role of simplicity
People are more and more eager to delegate daily tasks to devices. During consumer insight research leaded by Google about voice-activated speakers one of respondents said: “It should be able to predict what I want and help me execute it. Like, ‘Hey! It’s taco Tuesday, your basket is ready with all the ingredients’”[2].
Simplicity is the key. People do not want to spend too much time for decision making, comparing many options to choose the best one or analyzing all data. It’s not a new trend (the first edition of “Don`t make me think” by Steve Krug was published in 2000, however this story is as old as human`s history and it probably began with invention of the wheel) but in todays’ world changes are faster than ever.
One year ago Goggle showed the world how you could order salad with lemonade and pay for transaction just by talking to your phone[3]. This year, Google Duplex presented how AI agents will schedule hairdresses visits on our behalf. As technology progresses, so our habits will evolve.
Increasing role of aggregators
Most of people follow the rule “if something may be done simply, don`t complicate”. Now when you are looking for something you start searching in the place which we can call “aggregator” or “distributor”. It may be shop where you may find many products from other shops. You may search on the Amazon, eBay, YouTube. This portals work as an aggregator on higher level. The higher level aggregator works, the more effortless are shopping for customer. You don’t need to check every shop in your city because in the first five shops which you have checked they didn’t have product you are looking for.
You want to save your time. eBay could checked a hundreds shops for you and present you the right thing. If you don’t know where you should start you may check it on Amazon or eBay, you may use Google and put a phrase in the search. Google is higher type of aggregator than Amazon and eBay because it may search for you nearly the whole internet, we may say it is the highest type now.
Increasing role of personal data protection
In discussion about how fast the world is changing, one of the most important thing that bother people is transfer of personal data to external subjects. After issue with Facebook and Cambridge Analytica this topic is even hotter than ever. More and more subjects gather very detail data about us. The main aim is to personalize message to our taste, believes and needs to sell more — product or ideas. Do you wonder if we live in the Orwell`s world? Me too.
However gathering data is the aim of many companies, a lot of them still disappoint with managing data properly and suggest you to buy product with the highest margin as a “recommended”. But people really want to buy product which fits to them perfectly. You probably appreciate situation when you don`t need to spend the whole day looking for something. When you know what you want, you want to get it immediately. So the idea of personalization is good for consumer, but the realization (gathering personal data) is not.
VISION OF THE FUTURE
Those insights inspire our vision of the future. Stefen Covey in book “The 7 habits of highly effective people” advices: begin with the End in mind, so we did. If we create vision of the future like a cake, and use this four strong trends as a ingredients, we will get very interesting taste.
Emily tries to buy new jeans. She wants to do it as fast and effective as it is possible. Dialog between Emily and aggregator (for example Siri) may sound like this:
Emily: Siri, I think I need new jeans, what do you think about it?
Siri: Yes, one of your old jeans doesn`t suit you anymore, you should replace it with new one. Please take a look at this propositions. I analyzed products from all online shops, and filtered it by your preferences, so this jeans are perfectly personalized.
Emily: Did you analyzed my financial condition also? I am afraid I can’t afford it.
Siri: Of course, don`t worry. I also predicted how much money you may need till the end of the month so this three option are good for you. Maybe there are not the cheapest but I analyzed quality of fabric and it is the best value for money.
Emily: Sounds good, but I don`t know which pair is the most trendy. Could you ask Sandra, my stylist, what is the best choice?
Siri: <Sandra`s vioice> “Hello Emily, I suggest you to take the pair number two. It suits to your capsule wardrobe perfectly and will be trendy in the next three seasons at least!”
Emily: Ok, thank you. Siri please order this pair.
Aggregator and simplicity — tell your phone what are you looking for
Beautiful, well designed and user friendly interface is ambition of online shop’s owners, but do users really need it? User needs to get information about product. So is the interface we know really necessary? Maybe not. When we look at increasing role of aggregators and simplicity, we predict that all shopping process may be managed with aggregator. Emily can just take the phone and tell Siri what she is looking for. If Siri has access to browse online shops in behalf of user, all Siri needs is pure data about product, delivery and maybe pictures to show to Emily.
Online shops need to present data about product to Siri with some kind of plugin or integration module, but Siri doesn’t need standard interface. Maybe this well knows for us type of interface will disappear within few years.
Personal data — component for personalized recommendation on the user’s side
When we compare both sides of the coin about personal data it is hard to realize that there is still no hype for startups specialized in created component to personalization on the user’s side and protect him before gathering data by third parties. Probably in the near future this market niche will be filled and you will enjoy data protection and personalized recommendation in the same time. Here we can see the increasing role of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, which are crucial to properly manage data and create personalized recommendation.
If world will go in this direction, we may expect paradigm shift in marketing. Now marketing is based mostly of restricted access to data about product. Imagine our Emily wants to buy yogurt. She has 5 products — all has different weight and prices so it is hard to compare them fast and choose the best option. But all brands has different marketing communication: one is extra healthy, one is well known from commercial and Emily knows it is recommended by her favorite actor, one has no lactose so is dedicated to adults, one is high in protein and one is good for heart health. Every information is important for Emily and it is extremely hard to make the best choice. Moreover Emily is not a yogurt expert (like most of us). When it is hard to make rational choice, marketing may play on emotions with fancy design of package and good slogan. If Emily has option to compare all information fast, she may choose not only the best value for money, but the most personalized value for money.
Here is the question — may we live in the world without TV commercial, billboards, colorful packages and follow the rational suggestion proposed by algorithms and data analysis? There may be a advantage of this situation — companies could transfer marketing budget to increase product’s quality. And the way of promotion which we know today will disappear.
The role of human advices
Vision of machine world? Not really. We must remember that machine learning and Artificial Intelligence predict the future in base on archival data. AI may give us prediction, but prediction are only based on what has happened already. It has no intuition or gut feeling. And probably people will want to ask for advice other human. So there will be place for service business, especially like stylist, dietician or financial advisor. So probably there will be a chance for digital products which may help experts integrate with aggregator and offer services to customers. In that way Emily could get personalized recommendation created by AI with support of human professionals.
How do we prepare our clients for this world?
Our team constantly working with trends and scenarios of the future. We presented here only some of them. We want to support e-commerce and m-commerce world with our knowledge and competences to see possibilities and skills to make the right decisions. Based on this we are creating Hymate. Hymate is a conversational interface, native for mobile devices. In the first step we want to help online shops increase sales on mobile and make the sales process fast, easy and convenient. In the second step we will be developing our solution based on feedback from the market. In the future we want to support our clients with functionalities that will help integrate with aggregator and selling products in new reality.
Are you interested in the details? Check out our product Hymate https://www.hymate.ai/.
[1] Google/Peerless Insights, “Voice-Activated Speakers: People’s Lives Are Changing,” n=1,642, U.S. monthly active voice-activated speaker owners (Amazon Echo/Dot and Google Home), A18+, Aug. 2017.
[2] https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/voice-assistive-speaker-technology/
