Shopper Marking in CPG eCommerce

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True Purpose

Shopper marketing leverages shopper's insights to create a marketing mix, which applied across the path-of-purchase needs to create incremental consumption increase, but as well longer lasting change in consumption behaviour in terms of habitual shopping change in favour of the specific brand and category, creating measurable ROI and growth. So the true, long term, and more important purpose is the shopping behaviour change. If there is no change in shopping behavior then there is no growth.

Fragile Preferences

Creation of habitual purchasing is often a well desired outcome of shopper marketing activations and activities. But, habitual purchasing can only go so far. Repeat customers are not immune to competitors' tactics or bad reputation from the brand they are using. They will change brands if certain variables are missing or when there is a clear better option available. So their consumption preference is quite conditional and fragile.

Questionable Loyalty

Repeat purchase behaviour will definitely foster the creation of habitual buying and somewhat will aid the creation of higher customer loyalty. But, it will be more conditional - some will call it, in case it is based on promotional / rewards - 'mercenary' loyalty and if it is based on inertia - simply because it's convenient or there are exit barriers or switching costs 'inertia' loyalty. Since the customer is lacking an emotional stake, it is not true loyalty.

Pre-purchase Bias

Most companies (over)invest into online advertising - search, acquisition and conversion optimisation. At the same time everything that happens after the check-out button receives much less attention. Obviously, acquisition is important because you can’t have a repeat purchaser if they never make that first purchase, but ignoring this very profitable customer segment by ignoring the post-purchase experience as the main driver of repeatability of purchases obstructs the revenue growth potential.

Focusing on Post-Purchase to Drive Loyalty

Shopper marketing managers who want to create lasting shopping behaviour change through creation of customer loyalty and deliver on their growth plans, must include post-purchase as the most influential phase of e-commerce journey into their marketing plans and shopper activations. Having insights into market level performance of marketing activations of leading e-commerce players will help you both meet average customer expectations and create delight with smart marketing communications.

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SO DIGITAL GLOBAL E-COMMERCE OPERATIONS EXCELLENCE PLATFORM is a management tool that helps CPG companies formulate, evaluate, and improve their e-commerce strategic growth bets by providing a systematic assessment of competitive performance of post-purchase and delivery performance of channel partners across markets.

Who is it for?

Shopper Marketing Managers of CPG brands tasked with creating long lasting consumer behaviour change and cross-category eCommerce growth. eCommerce leaders who oversee channel execution within a single or across multiple markets. Team leaders who have direct influence, control and responsibility for overall eCommerce performance and continuous sustainable revenue growth

Supply Chain, Commerce Operations and Brand team professionals are just some of the examples of those who can leverage insights from the market research and leverage them for tactical improvements, performance gaps identification and/or general market trends tracking.

Why is it needed?

When the sales channel shifts from the physical to digital, so does the shopper journey, effectively resetting the selection process. Switching from physical to online, consumer is exposed to alternatives unavailable at local store. As limited choice and convenience was driving his habitual buying, now re-evaluates his options in favour products with a competitive price tag an innovative value proposition.

At that moment, in CPG e-commerce competition moves from shelf space presence to post-purchase experience, as consumers' primary motivation for doing online grocery, aside for expanded choice, is time saving and convenience. Take example of Gillette brand loosing market share to subscription (post-purchase experience) driven Dollar Shave Club.

How is it done?

Trained researches in target countries perform actual purchase of products from target e-commerce market players, recording their every step, while answering standardised scale based scorecard with average 200+ data points to provide insight into comparative performance on loyalty defining elements of post-purchase experience : tracking, delivery, packaging (out-of-box), returns & refunds.

With yearly subscription, clients get access to benchmarked country data sets, while also being able to create reports on the platform itself to drive focused learning insights. Reporting module enables comparison of markets, retailers, marketing activations within and across completed benchmarks to discover trends.

How do you benefit?

When a customer makes a purchase online, there’s an “experience gap” from the time the customer checks out to when the product arrives. Marketing inserts, unexpected gifts and other marketing communications aimed at increasing customer lifecycle value, applied at the post-purchase exceeding average customer expectations, will convert one-time shoppers into lifelong brand advocates.

Having insights into market level average customer expectations from post-purchase experience, with detailed overview of marketing activations used by competitors and leading e-commerce and industry players, you'll be able to identify gaps on the market to exceed expectations, creating differentiation and customer delight.

How long does it take?

Depending on the number of countries researched and whether it is a standardized or individual client tailored benchmark research average duration of the project lasts up to 3 months. During this time client is able to actively participate and track research progress in the platform. In case markets of your interest have been benchmarked within last 6-12 months you can gain access to this right away.

Once you gain access to the platform through subscription packages, you can use it during the period of one calendar year, after which your subscription and access to the refreshed dataset will have to be renewed. During this period client designated users have an unlimited access to the data and are able to continuously create reports of their choosing.

How much does it cost?

Standard benchmarking contains research results of 20+ leading e-commerce players from a single market. Cross-industry sample usually contains all e-commerce models (marketplaces, pure-players, brands, e-retailers, omni-channel). Access to the standard country research that details into delivery, tracking, packaging, returns & refunds with omni-channel reporting starts at 5000 EUR / year.

In case a client wants to tailor the research so it is more focused on his particular industry and contain additional question sets, standard pricing will be augmented depending on the size and the scope of changes and markets that are researched just for this client. On average tailoring of research criteria (scorecard or industry) entails +30% per each segment.

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Beyond the "buy now" button

Audit the most influential phase of customer brand relationship by contrasting the customer shopping experience across stages of delivery, tracking, packaging - out of box experience, returns & refunds ( the reality) versus brand set expectations (the promises).

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Flagship clients

(EMEA) 14 markets

brand digital wholesale. com team / brand creative team / digital supply chain team

(EMEA) 47 markets

in-house marketing / creative agency

(EMEA) 17 markets

in-house creative agency / HBO Max EMEA CS / marketing department teams (11 teams) / WarnerBros IT team

(WHQ)

CRM / Internal Comms team

(Europe) 10 markets

media / integrated marketing / UGC / creative / local marketing team

WHQ

European D2C eCommerce Team

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Shopper Marketing in E-Commerce : Missing Half of the Story

07.08.2019

Obstructing eCommerce growth : ignoring post-purchase as the most influential customer journey phase

07.08.2019

If you are ignoring the eCommerce post-purchase experience you are directly obstructing the growth of your repeat customer segment and repeat purchases as important driver of total revenue growth.

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Obstructing eCommerce growth : ignoring post-purchase as the most influential customer journey phase

07.08.2019

Testimonials

"With the AS Monaco brand being exposed to numerous audiences across its versatile digital properties, we identified the need to create a dedicated landing page for a specific match to ensure engagement & conversion of a specific targeted audience. Not only did the SO DIGITAL team help us develop a unique and engaging content destination, it provided powerful insights into our fans and their optimal conversion path."

Bruno Scropeta

Marketing and Communication Director at AS Monaco FC