Stronger trend towards digital commerce
By next year, digital commerce is expected to become a key strategy for businesses to catch up with changes in their customers' shopping habits.
The power of social networks and smart phones will force businesses that interact directly with consumers to revise their marketing plans.
Uraiporn Cholsirirungskul, chief executive officer of Thomas Idea, said yesterday that the digital commerce trends for next year were in-store mobile applications for shopper experience integration, e-stores speeding business growth, personalised promotion in consumers’ pockets, from social networking to social commerce, mobile advertising, and digital strategy.
Companies should kick off their digital strategy with a plan for regional reach and then expand digital to regional and integrate digital strategy, she said.
Nowadays consumers like to use mobile apps to compare prices, locate products, and connect to social media to get friends’ opinions and recommendations, she said.
When they are in the store, they still connect with friends and others online via mobile devices, so retailers should have in-store apps to engage customers.
For example, in the United States, online pharmacy Walgreens’ "Aisle 411" integrates a map of up to 7,900 stores and a shopping list. It also offers an in-store app to help customers locate products by aisle and section.
Department stores and other retailers are preparing to launch e-commerce platforms to sell their products online along with traditional offline sales. For example, UK-based Tesco saw its Web sales rise by 11 per cent in the first six months of this year.
"We will see e-stores debut in Thailand a lot more next year," Uraiporn said.
Personalised promotions will be a must for businesses next year, and social networking will become social commerce. Mobile advertising will continue to grow, so firms have to be aware of these trends and come up with digital strategies.
Smart phones will drive mobile advertising. Of the population of 67 million, 24 million are Internet users, 17.5 million are Facebook users and 10.4 million use smart phones.
"By next year, online advertising is expected to be at least 3 per cent of total advertising spending in Thailand. That’s an increase from 2 per cent this year," she said.
According to the Commerce Ministry, online commerce last year reached Bt1 trillion. Of all Internet users in the country, 31.7 per cent have experienced online shopping. Online commerce increased to Bt75 billion last year from Bt65 billion in 2010.
In the first half of this year, 9,993 e-commerce websites were registered. The top three businesses were fashion, healthcare and industrial tools.
Google’s Android Store, with 670,000 apps in stock, had 25 billion downloads as of September. Apple Store offers more than 700,000 apps, with 250,000 of them developed specially for the iPad.
