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Posted on June 29, 2022 (Last Updated: June 29, 2022)
Ready to hear about this year’s crispy fresh e-commerce trends?
Then you have come to the right place. We have brought you news from Google Marketing Live 2022, Google’s Annual event where they share product news, updates and important news for the upcoming season.
Shall we start?
Let us point out some influential trends of 2022 within retail, and then move on to how to act upon them.
Changes to the e-commerce landscape
A new decade and the effects of a global pandemic have brought changes visible to all businesses. Let’s look at the ones highlighted by Google in this year’s summit.
Window-shopping is moving online
Customers are increasingly seeking information online instead of in person. The reign of wide shopping windows at busy streets stuffed with all kinds of shiny items for people to see has nearly been brought to an end.
Consumers are more likely to try new brands and retailers, consequently some brands see a decline in loyalty. Customers are a click away from everything, which is good news because they are a click away from you, but it is also bad news as they can click right over to your competitors. It is not enough anymore to have a big window in your store and a good location where many people walk by. Brands need to build a virtual window that is worth looking at.
Value vs cost leadership
Seth Godin, marketing thought leader, says:
What retailers eventually sell is not a thing, but a story behind a thing.
It is key to remember that customers who go to buy clothes are already wearing clothes. When they go grocery shopping, they already have food in their house.
If the story you have been telling to your customers is that you are fast and cheap, you cannot be surprised if they switch to someone faster and cheaper because that is a race to the bottom.
Personalisation
Personalisation is a key booster that can bring the customers’ lifetime value to the next level. According to McKinsey, personalisation can drive 10-15% uplift in revenue by directly influencing buyer behavior across the customer life cycle, including likelihood to purchase, recommend and repurchase. The key to succeeding in personalization is up-to-date and optimized data.
Learn how you can utilize feed management in marketing personalization in our joint webinar with Agillic - a marketing personalization and automation tool.
Sustainability
Sustainability has never been more important. Over 73% of EMEA consumers indicate that sustainability is important when choosing to buy a product or a brand. It is essential for retailers to understand the impact of their supply chains, communicate their sustainability credentials, and help their customers to make more sustainable choices.
How to act upon these trends?
E-commerce had been subjected to a rapid growth even before the pandemic, which of course accelerated the growth even more. E-commerce retail growth is expected to grow almost 10% by 2025 in Northern European markets. Therefore, a robust digital tool kit is every retailer’s must-have. But what is a toolkit worth without knowing where the customers are, and how to best reach them?
Where customers are
Recently a change, worth ten years, has happened to consumer behavior in a flash. The biggest question is, which changes are here to stay, and which changes are to fade with things returning to some version of normal as the effects of the pandemic fade.
What can be said with confidence is that the shopping journeys of today and tomorrow are always on, non-linear, multi-device and omnichannel.
The recent holiday season has started earlier, with 42% of holiday shoppers starting their shopping sooner than in previous years. Shoppers returned to stores in 2021 with no impact to their digital usage. In fact, digital shopping is increasingly happening on mobile devices.
In 2021, mobile purchases accounted for 45% of online purchases across EMEA which is up from 32% in 2019.
The 2022 Christmas season has been more omnichannel than any year in the past, with 49% of holiday shoppers claiming that they confirm online that an item is in stock before going to buy it. The importance of online channels as a source of inspiration and discovery has been cemented.
How to best reach them
These trends all mark an era of commerce where demand shifts dynamically, where consumers need help across surfaces and where consumers reward relevant experience that also respects their privacy.
Shoppers need more help than ever navigating choice complexity between triggers and purchases, where decisions are made. It is not a funnel, but it is a loop which swings back and forth from trigger to exploration to evaluation before decision.
Retailers can increase their chance of winning, just by being there when consumers explore.
Live Inventory
Live inventory and local inventory ads are retailers best friends in a world where about every second consumer checks an item’s availability before setting a foot outside.
Youtube
Youtube’s combination of entertainment, utility and authenticity is a powerful tool to ensure you are there for your customers. In fact, Google’s Analytic Partners found that online video is 1,8 times more successful in driving e-commerce sales than TV within retail.
Performance Max
If you are a retailer, you can use Performance Max campaigns, a new way to showcase your ads across YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail and maps. For more information on how you can promote your online and local inventory from a single campaign, boost traffic to your website and local store with Performance max check out our Performance Max blog post.
And if you are unsure how you send your product data to Google or any other sales or marketing channel, we are here to help you out. Book a free Demo of the WakeupData platform and have all your questions answered.
