In a post on Econsultancy, Jasper Bell explores the notion that successful companies need to take a more “agile” approach to selling that encompasses social media, user-generated content, and content curation. People with smartphones are using their devices to price check, research, and shop. Connected consumers are using social media to discover new products. And companies need to develop strategies for succeeding in this multichannel, “distributed commerce” reality.
“Commerce today is less about ‘selling in’ a channel but selling ‘through’ a channel, reaching out to consumers wherever they are and selling in that context,” Bell writes.
Distributed Commerce: Think Outside the Box
This new way of using “distributed commerce” to sell requires companies to expand beyond their current ecommerce activities to include:
- Selling from apps, social networks, games, and shopping aggregators.
- Empowering consumers to act as “social affiliates” (i.e. offer rewards for consumers who recommend your products to their social networks).
- “Teasing” consumers to “encourage product exploration before the sale sign goes up within their official stores.”
Enter the Experience Lounge
Bell sees a future for “distributed commerce” in which consumers will use mobile phones or tablets to make purchases in the store without having to stand in a checkout line.
“In effect, stores will become multichannel product and brand experience lounges,” he writes.
No matter how ecommerce and brick-and-mortar stores overlap in the future, this talk of “distributed commerce” should serve as a reminder of the importance of effective, nimble product-level content.
Additional thoughts on how companies can embrace multichannel commerce can be found at econsultancy.com.
