Nostico | July 17th, 2024
While eCommerce and cloud technologies are not new, their relevance has grown significantly to ensure the survival of retail businesses. During the Covid-19 pandemic, for example, major brands had to quickly revamp their eCommerce experiences, and some smaller retailers launched online shopping for the first time.
Consumers also quickly adapted and changed their purchasing behavior, even in countries like Italy and Spain, where eCommerce usage rates have traditionally been among the lowest in Europe.
Building for the Future
As consumer comfort with online shopping continues to grow, retailers will be expected to keep enhancing their digital experiences and make their technology more intuitive and ubiquitous. This trend is reflected in the increasing investment in retail technology and the cloud. Inditex, a Spanish multinational and multi-brand fashion company, plans to accelerate and broaden its forward-looking digital transformation strategy, investing €1 billion in strengthening its online business and a further €1.7 billion in upgrading the integrated store platform.
How to Make eCommerce and the Cloud Work for Your Business
During the Covid-19 crisis, cloud deployments proved critical in enabling businesses to continue operating, quickly adapt their workloads and processes, and support remote workforces. With this experience in mind, here are three steps every retailer can take to better serve their customers and make their business more resilient:
1. Bridge the Online-Offline Gap
Until recently, we wouldn’t even think of buying certain items online without seeing them and trying them out first. Consider glasses, a mattress, or even a cake. The average consumer would want to experience these products in person before committing to a purchase. But that no longer needs to be the case as retailers find new ways to bring the shopping experience into consumers’ homes.
Retailers who employ unified commerce platforms, which integrate different channels within a single software solution and database, are better equipped to launch digital experiences with functionality that bridges online and offline, such as click and collect. A unified commerce technology platform also enables you to monitor sales, stock, and customer preferences in real-time, regardless of the sales channel.
2. Be Prepared to Scale
Many retailers have seen their online sales skyrocket, but some were unable to keep up with demand as they struggled to handle the increase in traffic and sales. How has your online store coped? Would it be able to handle a sudden boost in traffic, or would it crash and leave your customers disappointed?
Today, retailers need to be prepared for unpredictable spikes in online business, at any time – not just on Black Friday and Christmas Eve. An effective strategy involves moving to a modern, flexible, cloud-based commerce platform that can quickly expand or contract as needed and handle peaks in traffic with ease.
3. Adapt to Consumers’ Changing Needs
When you are using cloud-based technology, you can also take advantage of all the innovation happening in the cloud. Especially during times of change, this agility can enable you to not only see but also respond to consumers’ desires. Demand forecasting and modeling tools can help you predict and prepare for significant consumer behavior changes by adjusting your product mix, merchandising, pricing strategies, and even messaging. Data analytics and machine learning tools can help you reduce waste and overhead. AI can also help create better customer experiences with tools such as personalized recommendations, and automate customer support with virtual agents who can answer frequently asked questions and direct consumer inquiries 24/7.
With consumer shopping habits changed irrevocably, to stay in business, retailers must continue to do what they have always done: listen to their customers’ demands and deliver the products, services, and experiences they need.
Today, digital transformation can help you respond effectively – allowing you to shift online, implement cloud technologies that improve scalability and agility, and give you the insights you need to offer your customers exactly what they want at exactly the right moment. Want to find out more? Contact us.
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