Last week, iProspect held the Commerce: Connected breakfast briefing, these briefings are held by the agency throughout the year for new pieces of research or thinking to be surfaced to key partners. Our latest event was held at Charlotte Street Hotel, with one hour packed with insight and opinion from experts. The aim of the event was to spark decision about the current landscape within retail, talk through the findings of iProspect’s Data-Driven Commerce whitepaper and to launch our suite of solutions within the iProspect Commerce Framework.
Aoife O'Brien, Retail Trends Manager (Google) took us through the changing landscape of commerce. Shoppers are addicted to their phones, with many unlocking their phone up to 100x a day. This addiction hasn’t been forced upon them; their devices genuinely aid them solve day to day problems. Technology continues to disrupt commerce, whether this be personal curation (Spotify, Netflix, Deliveroo), speed and convenience (with payment services or wearables) or services that cut out the decision-making process altogether (e.g. Uber). These changes have given way to new norms that we are becoming used to. Given all this disruption retail has always been (and continues to be) about price, assortment and convenience. Its also about curation, organising a range, leaning on trusted reputation and giving customers confidence. In today’s world these are all still true, with customers now curating for themselves. Aoife gave the example of people searching for “best paper towels”, a term that is now up +173% YoY, demonstrating regardless of the product consumers want to ensure they get their money’s worth.
Finally, Aoife spoke about her favourite stat in the UK… 80%. 80% of the adult population in the UK are online, however 80% of all shopping spend is still in physical stores. So, to use a phrase by Benedict Evans (Partner – Andreessen Horowitz): “The access story is reaching the end… but the use story is just starting to begin”. At Google aiding the consumer on this journey is referred to as the 'Age of Assistance'.
Aoife O'Brien, Retail Trends Manager - Google, Brenda Imeson, Strategy & Insights Director - Dentsu Aegis Network, Steph Hemmings, Head of Digital UKI - Philips then conducted a panel entitled “The Key Trends Shaping Commerce Today, Tomorrow and Beyond”. The panel was chaired by Laurie Pascual, Retail Sales - Google. Aoife provided the viewpoint of the media partner, Brenda (having recently edited Dentsu Aegis Network’s Retail DNA whitepaper on the consumers) gave the viewpoint of the consumer and Steph provided insights from a brand perspective.
Some of the questions discussed included:
- Why are we as consumers all addicted to digital?
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What does this technology do for us?
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How do you create convenience and relevance for the consumer?
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What are the challenges of bringing personalisation to the consumer?
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What are the biggest opportunities for brands and retailers?
I presented the Data-Driven Commerce whitepaper that has been produced by iProspect. Globally we have surveyed 100 commerce brands in 28 markets, based on their data maturity within four key areas:
- Availability – Meeting consumers where they really are
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Findability – Ensuring relevant visibility when it matters
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Buyability – Driving customers to purchase
- Repeatability – Building a relationship with the consumer
Scores were then placed between one (least mature) and five (most mature) for each factor
Some of the key findings from this report included:
- All brands had opportunity to grow within this framework (average score 2.75/5)
- Brands were more available and findable than they were buyable or repeatable
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Of the three zones globally, APAC scored highest with 3.23, then EMEA on 2.7 luxury, food & beverage, home & garden and finally travel & tourism
- Each of the sectors within commerce scored differently with the lowest score being for m(2.2) and the highest being for travel & tourism (3.2)
If you are interested in reading the full 100-page report it can be downloaded here on our insights page.
Finally, Joe Farley - Partner, Retail - iProspect UK) took us through the suite of services that iProspect now offers as part of iProspect Commerce that supports brands with improving their data maturity within commerce:
We also looked at several iProspect case studies for great work that had already helped our brands to improve their data maturity including talking through how we made:
- Hotels.com more repeatable through optimising to Life Time Value (Krupa Patel - Manager, Data)
- Michael Kors more available through Feed Management (Michael Grethe - Director, PPC)
- Diageo more findable through Google Ads and Amazon Ads combined (Mika Takahashi - Director, PPC)
- IKEA more buyable through Local Strategies on Google (Valash Sirikate - Manager, PPC)
Thanks to Google for hosting this fantastic event and to all our partners that made this possible.
