Leaning heavily into eCommerce and mCommerce.

Brands are at a massive turning point. While noteworthy big-name stores will be forced to restructure operations during the COVID-19 pandemic to try and balance in-store and digital solutions, others will be forced to to focus more on personalization, curation, and increasingly granular analytics to navigate the economic minefield that lay ahead. This effectively amounts to taking complete ownership of the consumer experience. What was once a nice-to-have in terms of connecting companies to consumers in the buyer-experience ecosystem is now a must-have.

But what does that look like when there won’t be a level playing field for the foreseeable future? States are gradually reopening, but with different rules and restrictions for each. Individual stores will utilize local delivery options, or rely on hyper-specific “Buy Online, Pick Up In-Store” strategies to partake in scheduled curbside pick-ups.

Before the pandemic, American shoppers looked at both in-store and digital experiences with almost the same level of importance. They were seen as extensions of one another because customer expectations have shifted to demand benefits from an increasingly digital world. With full in-store experience currently curbed the time to rethink business strategies is now.

Establishing the New Complete Customer Experience

In a post-COVID economy, where and how you find, track, and capture customers will be the game-changer brands need most. What were once baby steps in analytics-based eCommerce and mCommerce is ramping up, meaning brands will ultimately break through by catering to a customer’s unique tastes in real-time.  

At least 63 percent of consumers want personalized recommendations, while 62 percent of consumers expect personalized discounts and recommendations based on shopping histories across in-store and online — and that was before the pandemic. That means brands will thrive if they manage to establish a potential customer journey as a continuous and complementary process that crosses both digital and tangible destinations. 

Brands must know their target in every place they make their purchases, as well as ancillary analytic points like demographic, previous ties to products, and what sorts of products may grab that persona’s attention. These brands and retailers must meet that demand by customizing inventory and more. 

COVID will force brands to be nimble and swift enough to be uniquely positioned to offer products and experiences across hyper-specific customer demographics and geo-targeted campaigns. Solutions like eReceipt Rewards empower brands to deliver consumer offers redeemable at any online retailer without third-party dependencies or technology integrations. It also leverages A.I. to understand the discount sensitivity of each consumer in real-time, and uses this input to support dynamic discounts and other types of content to drive purchases without eroding margin.  

It will also encourage retailers to adopt tools that scale customer personalization efforts, including the ability to create detailed customer profiles, or even enabling custom-build functions that bundle existing stock items. 

Personalized capabilities enable shoppers to match their taste with discovering products, and then continuing their shopping experiences beyond one-time purchases. This effectively kills overindulgent sitewide offers because brands will need to leverage technology and data to deliver the right offer to the right person on their preferred channel at the right time.

RevTrax’s A.I. powered ecommerce solutions use leading artificial intelligence and over a decade of consumer purchase insights to determine the right offer value when a consumer engages with media. This empowers brands with reducing promotional budgets by up to 30 percent without any impact on gross revenue.

Brands are finding themselves at an unfortunate crossroads during this pandemic. They’re in an entirely unique position in survival mode alongside other economic giants. But smart brands will utilize speed and flexibility to truly evaluate what their shoppers want on a seemingly one-to-one level. By digging into personalization, curation, and customer data strategies, they will be able to thrive in their niche and beyond the pandemic.

RevTrax helped brands drive over $19 million in incremental revenue. If you’re  interested in doing the same, and seeing RevTrax in action, click here to learn more.