Large, global eCommerce communities like eBay, Amazon and Alibaba are disrupting the retail marketplace by bringing together vast numbers of buyers and sellers in frictionless transactional environments. Inspired by their success, brand marketers are rethinking go-to-market strategies to better integrate digital advertising with personalized shopper engagement and more effective conversion programs.
“Ingenuity in the Global eCommerce Community,” new research by the Chief Marketing Officer Council in collaboration with eBay, explores the disruptive and transformative nature of global eCommerce communities— how the massive scale, data quality and customization capability of online marketplaces are bringing new levels of customer insight, enriched experiences and added value to brands. Digital commerce accounts for about 10 percent of the $5 trillion in total annual sales across all retail channels.
According to the survey of nearly 200 global brands and their physical and digital retail partner, well over 50 percent believe large eCommerce communities are revolutionizing and reinventing the global retail marketplace and forcing them to rethink every aspect of how they go to market. In a telling self-assessment, 60 percent report that they need to embrace a more cohesive, integrated, multi-channel digital retail strategy to improve their own eCommerce business.
The study asked respondents to name their top five ways in which big eCommerce channels were impacting the go-to-market planning and strategies of major product marketers. According to the marketers surveyed, these included putting pressure on them to lower pricing; rethinking monetization and customer revenue models; forcing them to seek greater brand differentiation; recalibrating and allocating digital marketing spend; and shifting toward an agile, real-time marketing mode.
“The millennial-driven shift to digital retail shopping is prompting the evolution of the old 4P model of marketing; now, more notably, we need precision, personalization, persuasion and perfection of execution to multiply purchases,” notes Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council. “Exemplifying this are innovations in customer attraction, convenience, conversion and consistency of experience that are behind the success of eBay, Amazon and other digital commerce communities.”
For its part, eBay is using advances in technology, such as augmented reality, artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve search relevancy and make buying and selling on eBay much more gratifying.
“eBay has made it even easier to shop and sell on the platform by leveraging new technology to redefine what online shopping means today,” notes Bridget Davies, eBay’s vice president of Advertising and Marketing Activation. “We use AI and big data to learn how people move at a granular scale to better connect with consumers, brands and businesses.”
Davies points to eBay’s AI-powered, personalized homepage and more than 1.1 billion listings using structured data. “More than 80 percent of eBay users are logged in when they access our platform, allowing us to deterministically identify users across channels, browsers and devices rather than relying on cookie-based probability models,” she adds.
The CMO Council report notes that marketers today are challenged to evidence how they are using data and real-time insights to “gain greater satisfaction from every customer interaction” and determine whether they have the ability to “scale the way they track the digital buying trail.”
How do you view the disruptive and transformative nature of global eCommerce communities like Alibaba, Amazon, eBay and others?
| Revolutionizing and reinventing the global retail marketplace | 56% |
| Forcing us to rethink every aspect of how we go to market | 46% |
| Challenging brands to evolve across all channels and markets | 43% |
| Empowering the connected consumer with more choice and options | 36% |
| Commoditizing categories of products (and services) | 27% |
| Heightened need for insights into behavior, trends and patterns across the entire buyer journey | 25% |
| Uplifting customer experience and expectations | 18% |
| Complicating our relationships with traditional retail partners | 14% |
| Bringing scale and new dimensions to personalized customer engagement | 13% |
| Other | 2% |
In what way are these shopping, advertising, trading and auctioning channels impacting your go-to-market strategy?
| Easy to search and find products | 65% |
| 24/7 convenience | 59% |
| Lower prices and pricing transparency | 51% |
| Better selection and availability | 35% |
| Quick and assured delivery | 35% |
| Good deals, discounts and offers | 34% |
| Third-party reviews and ratings | 33% |
| Mobile device accessibility | 26% |
| Secure and easy transaction | 24% |
| Predictable experience | 22% |
| Leveraging new technology to redefine online shopping (AI, structured data, etc.) | 13% |
| Access to new ideas, products and options | 10% |
| Richer, more relevant content | 10% |
| Personalized interface | 9% |
| Member benefits | 7% |
| Social media integration | 6% |
| Multiple payment options | 5% |
| Guaranteed satisfaction | 5% |
| Digital assistant support | 3% |
| Other | 2% |
What makes these online marketplaces compelling and attractive to consumers?
| Easy to search and find products | 65% |
| 24/7 convenience | 59% |
| Lower prices and pricing transparency | 51% |
| Better selection and availability | 35% |
| Quick and assured delivery | 35% |
| Good deals, discounts and offers | 34% |
| Third-party reviews and ratings | 33% |
| Mobile device accessibility | 26% |
| Secure and easy transaction | 24% |
| Predictable experience | 22% |
| Leveraging new technology to redefine online shopping (AI, structured data, etc.) | 13% |
| Access to new ideas, products and options | 10% |
| Richer, more relevant content | 10% |
| Personalized interface | 9% |
| Member benefits | 7% |
| Social media integration | 6% |
| Multiple payment options | 5% |
| Guaranteed satisfaction | 5% |
| Digital assistant support | 3% |
| Other | 2% |
In what way are these shopping, advertising, trading and auctioning channels impacting your go-to-market strategy?
| Forcing us to seek greater brand differentiation | 31% |
| Putting pressure on us to lower pricing | 27% |
| Rethinking our monetization and customer revenue models | 27% |
| Recalibrating and allocating our digital marketing spend | 27% |
| Making our products easier to find, evaluate and transact | 25% |
| Shifting us into an agile, real-time marketing mode | 23% |
| Enabling us to compete more effectively in connected commerce | 21% |
| Accelerating our digital transformation programs | 19% |
| Helping us scale and do business both globally and locally | 16% |
| Introducing us to new ideas and approaches to digital branding | 16% |
| Providing richer intelligence and tools for one-to-one engagement | 14% |
| Giving us new ways to partner, co-merchandize and cross-promote | 12% |
| Growing our number of direct customer relations | 9% |
| Uncovering untapped revenue and business opportunities | 6% |
| Helping us proliferate digital strorefronts serving multiplying markets | 5% |
| Bringing better performance and accountability to digital advertising spend | 4% |
| Adding robust product innovation ideas thanks to community interaction and behavior | 3% |
| Other | 2% |
Source: CMO Council’s “Ingenuity in the Global eCommerce Community” study
The CMO Council’s new thought leadership initiative gathered insights from nearly 200 global brands and their physical and digital retail partners. This included category leaders like Lenovo, LEGO, Puma, Casio, Serta, Bosch, Brooks, PERRIN PARIS and Fruit of the Loom/Spalding. The resulting best-practice report accents how brands are using proprietary data and insights to execute smarter customer acquisition campaigns that key off of seasonal, event-related, price-based and more personalized offers and promotions.
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