Should you go with marketplaces? Invest in AI? Outsource the last mile? How can you get online shopping to be profitable? Where do you find digital talent? Attendees of the Omnichannel & E-Commerce Congress were presented with a lot of questions. And answers.
“Limit yourself to the bestsellers”
45 % of Belgian SMEs are active online, so the growth potential is huge, Amazon Country Manager Eva Faict knows. On the platform, more than 1,200 Belgian companies already sell ten products every minute to the rest of the world. The retailer says to be “obsessed” with the customer and is betting heavily on support services for sales partners: data, advice, translations, logistics… A matter of removing barriers.
Gimber manages to break through internationally via Amazon, Annabel Soenen testifies. The company does not spend large marketing budgets: in cases like these, a carefully crafted page with good photos, detailed information and positive reviews is essential. Garzini, a producer of smart wallets, already earns 85 % of its turnover in the United States, where the brand can rely on Amazon’s logistics services. The trust factor of the platform also plays a role, Christophe De Smet says: “People are sure they are going to receive their order.” His tip: limit your offer to the bestsellers.
“We are evolving from baby shop to knowledge centre”
Dissatisfied with her experiences with a big chain, Kim Smeets decided to open a baby and children’s shop herself: “Blabloom is not a shop, but a concept store with added value.” The shop sells only sustainable and healthy products, strictly curated by experts and tested by a community of parents. “We are evolving from a baby shop to a knowledge centre.”
While the webshop reaches customers across the country, the physical shop in Genk is a meeting place, where Blabloom focuses on service and advice, also organises workshops and walks. To extend this unique one-to-one experience online as well, Smeets is putting a lot of effort in a blog and in video content.
“Towards artificial superintelligence”
No conference nowadays can go without a keynote on AI. Things are moving fast in this department: “We are on our way to artificial superintelligence”, CM.com‘s Rutger de Ruiter predicts. AI is a great tool for automated conversations with customers: you can improve your service without needing legions of employees in the call centre.
“A conversation is the next big interface: faster and easier. Five billion people use modern messaging apps and big companies invest heavily in these conversational channels. Customers expect one coherent interaction: 90 % of WeChat users already pay via the app. The boundaries between marketing, service and sales are blurring.”
But what about the issues with hallucinations, caused by AI tools? CM.com builds AI chatbots that answer customer questions based on your own content. This is safe and can lead to 5 % revenue growth and 40 % cost savings on top of that, De Ruiter says. “In the future, I see two types of companies: those who put AI first, and those who are already dead.”
“Half creative, half scientist”
Tom Vanrobaeys of X2O Bathrooms is a familiar face at the cyclocross: his company sponsors one of the sport’s main competitions. As omnichannel marketing manager, he leads the digital team at the fast-growing retailer. Who would have ever thought people would buy bathrooms online? They do now. The company needs good performance marketers, but that is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Outsourcing then is not a bad idea.
“The new marketer is half creative, half scientist”, according to Bart De Ceulaer of Hybrid, the company that evolved from a digital agency to a human capital company. Digital already represents 35 % of media investments in Belgium, and that is growing to 50 %. Digital marketers face huge challenges in a fast-changing context, with thousands of marketing technology tools, a wave of SEO updates, a rising cost per click… Hybrid’s answer: train and engage people with a “growth compass” so that they constantly acquire new competences and grow.
“Owning a Ferrari does not mean you know how to drive it”
For most food retailers, e-commerce is horror: you lose money, but you have to do it. Online shopping can be profitable, Gregor Ulitzka of Ocado says. Supermarkets often take the wrong approach online: they limit the range to keep it logistically manageable, but offline, people are simply used to shopping in different shops.
With the help of robotics and AI, Ocado shows how to get the ‘long tail’ to the customer on time. Getting an order ready takes less than 15 minutes, compared to 74 minutes in a traditional fulfilment centre. The combination of high productivity, hyper-efficiency, a loss rate of just 0.4 % and extra media revenue makes the difference. .
Ocado invested a billion in technology over the past four years: traditional retailers simply cannot do that. They can, however, take advantage of the technology and knowledge the British company has built up in the meantime. It is not just about the robots, but also the services: “We used to sell a Ferrari, but now we know that there is a big difference between owning a Ferrari and being able to drive it.”
“A flower for the birthday boy”
Do we really need more trucks, warehouses and delivery people to make e-commerce work? Or would it be better to use the capacity that is already there? Winners like Booking.com, Uber and Instacart use existing resources or infrastructure. They did not build additional hotels or buy additional cars: they just match supply and demand. Shopopop does the same, country manager Sacha Buyck explains.
The concept is called crowdshipping: people take groceries for neighbours, on a route they would take anyway. He illustrates it immediately by having flowers delivered to a birthday participant in the room. This is a model that works: French market leader E.Leclerc had no home delivery in 2019, now they have a 45 % online market share and 40 % of their shops work with Shopopop for delivery. In Belgium, the company already works for Electro Depot, Collect&Go, Carrefour and Cora.
“In search of the Goldilocks zone”
Consumers expect a personalised shopping experience. Personalisation done well actually increases sales by 10 to 15 %. Like NASA in its search for extraterrestrial life, retailers who want to make a stronger commitment to personalisation should look for the ‘Goldilocks zone’ – a term that refers to the fairy tale of Goldilocks, a girl who tastes three plates of porridge of which one is too hot, the other too cold, and the third just right.
Take Steve Jobs’ advice to heart, Vaimo‘s Steven Volders stresses: “Start from the customer experience and work back to technology”. It is an iterative process. In doing so, you can use AI to translate search terms people use into categories, for example. He ends with this quote: “Your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.”
“No one is interested in purely transactional e-commerce”
Just as Amazon is a technology company that started selling books, and Ocado is a technology company that sells food, Zalando is a technology company that sells fashion. Fabio Baum showed an impressive range of applications that the German e-commerce player is using to serve the online fashion shopper ever better.
The launch of Zalando Stories, for example, aims to increase engagement. “A purchase is just the by-product of a search for inspiration”. The new ‘Fashion Assistant’ uses AI for personalised fashion advice. For example, you can ask: “I have been invited to a wedding in October in Barcelona. The ceremony will take place in the church, the party will be on the beach. What outfit do you recommend to me?” The answer is amazingly detailed and relevant.
“That is the power of our internal data and OpenAI. We built this in three weeks”, Baum said. It is already available in German and English-speaking markets, with further implementation planned. Size advice is also improving all the time, reducing size-related returns by 10 % and raising customer satisfaction above 80 %. The next step: the app takes your measurements and creates your avatar based on two photos. Then you can see of each garment, whether it will be tight or large. “We are experiencing ‘a new wave of digital commerce.’ No one is interested in purely transactional e-commerce.”
“No need to do anything.”
“Do you have to get active on Amazon? Maybe if you are Gimber, but not if you are Blabloom. Should Blabloom open a second store? Doubtful. Should you outsource e-commerce to Ocado, and delivery to Shopopop? Should you start with AI? Should you be a trendsetter or a follower? Should you personalise? Yes, but how far?” Moderator Gino Van Ossel synthesises the whole congress in a number of questions.
“You can try to imitate Zalando, but I advise against it: you do not have 4,000 techies at your disposal. AI works perfectly in PowerPoint, but it is a lot harder in practice. Therefore, act like Wout van Aert: ‘There is simply no need to do anything‘! But do make choices. How are you going to make a difference?”
The RetailDetail Congress, our next event, will take place on Thursday 25 April in Antwerp. Two thematic preliminary programmes in the afternoon are followed by a joint evening programme. We already announced the first speaker: Country Director Frank Christant of Jysk. Order your ticket now at advantageous early bird rate.
