What Does This Mean for Businesses?

It means two things.

First, you need to analyze customer behaviors to ensure that you do well on “the basics”.

Magento 2 and Zoho SalesIQ analytics can help you in collecting data and analyzing them in every dimension.

Second, you need to think about how to invest in using new channels to beat your competition by building the Best Customer Experience. Let’s revisit each of the five models and drill down one more level.

Brand Loyalty.

The manufacturers’ goal is to ensure that customers are brand loyal to merchandise. Stores need to figure out how brand-loyal customers truly shop in the product categories and stock appropriate merchandise mixes. Noting shifts in brand loyalty can drive shelf allocation and mix decisions.

“The Trust Circle”

refers to the phases of establishing trust with customers and enhancing their confidence in your company and brand. From an online selling perspective, the four stages below unfold in a matter of seconds:

1. Awareness: This is an initial getting-to-know stage. Potential customers run across an ad, or you pop up in search results. They have now become “aware” of you, which is an opportunity in itself. They look at social media, web search, and talk to their friends and family.

The Forbes statistics below show that people do take into account social media shares of friends when making a specific decision about a specific brand:

1. 65% of adult internet users have an account on at least one social network
2. 40% of consumers prefer using a social login over setting-up a new account or using a guest account
3. 68% of consumers use social sites to read product reviews
4. 50% use social networks to provide product feedback1
5. 31% more time is spent on your site by consumers can comment and share using their social account

2. Knowledge: Awareness drive them to you, but you have just a couple of seconds to explain what you are all about. This is where the value proposition is essential, so crafting and designing the right one is crucial.

3. Liking: If you give them the knowledge they need to stick around, and they browse the site more and more, they have entered the “liking stage.” During the liking stage, you should address visitors’ questions such as: do I know enough about what this company does or has to offer? Can’t I go to a more well-known established name and get these products or services? If you succeed in moving visitors through the liking stage, you have gained them as a customer, at least once.

4. Trust Stage: Your visitor just made a purchase. Congratulations! This visitor trusts you. Of course, it is now essential to ensure he has a pleasant experience when receiving the product and services. As this customer trusted you enough to make the purchase, confirm the reliance with a successful post-purchase experience. Up to the point of having the product in their hands, visitors are still anxious about the purchase they just made. Assure them a satisfying experience by shipping in a timely manner, ensuring that the product is in good condition, and making an exchange or return as seamless as possible.

Fashion.

It’s in the best interests of the fashion industry to make sure customers need to come back and buy new clothes because the old ones, while wearable, aren’t stylish anymore. Fashion is all about intentionally creating obsolescence. 2020 changed the game. The offline shops were closed for months. People started to save money and not concentrate on fashion but on usability, quality, and ecology. The fashion industry has to adapt to this new reality and focus on online sales and online marketing, especially on social media.

For example, fifty-seven percent of millennials discover fashion trends on social media, and they were expected to spend $1.4 trillion in 2020. They are the dominant generation using social media and the most likely to make online purchases. They are influenced by online advertising as well as the people they follow on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.

Massimiliano Tirocchi, CMO and co-founder, Shapermint, sees a shift in social media:

Social media will become a top channel for purchase, instead of just discovery. “Social media platforms like Facebook are making it easier for consumers to go from discovery to purchase without ever having to leave the platform, creating a simple and seamless path to purchase. With social commerce continuing to grow into 2021, retail brands will have to adapt to these platforms with new rules, similar to what many did with Amazon.”

Size.

Entirely new stores that cater to non-traditionally-sized people have growing fan bases, and size mix is yet another analytic. It is especially very important in any online store where you can filter products by size of clothes, furniture, and other dimensions. You can also introduce some unique and rare sizes in your shop to get more customers. Of course, you need to check if there is an interest in it.

Price.

Sales are a huge driver of consumer behavior, but companies must do volume vs. margin analysis to ensure that they aren’t leaving “money on the table”. Promotion effectiveness analytics can also help businesses understand the cause and effect of advertising. This area will heat up considerably soon because of technological advances. The price comparison portals are very popular everywhere, even for offline shops. People shop online because they trust the offer and price. They spend some time for searching the best offer. In many countries, price is the major factor for purchasing.

Context.

Some stores focus on service, and in many cases that means they are very good about helping you with context – finding things that “go with” things you have already bought. The marketing automation AI helps to get such data, especially in omnichannel sales. Next, you can propose new products based on the purchased products in your newsletters, with discounts, gifts for birthdays, and start the whole marketing automation workflow. People shop in the same place if they had a great experience.