Criteo S.A. (NASDAQ: CRTO), the commerce marketing technology company, today shared the findings of its ‘Commerce and Digital Marketing Outlook 2018’ report. The analysis explores the world of commerce and how large scale customer data, both online and offline, has become a core asset for retailers and brands to understand and connect with today’s omnichannel shopper.
“With the increasing importance of offline innovations and data collaboration, Criteo is is looking forward to what can only be defined as a very exciting year. Data collaboration initiatives and offline-online integrations have led to the need to develop innovations at a rapid pace, providing a big opportunity and growing necessity for retailers and brands to pool data. As members of an experience-based economy, businesses need to create innovative customer experiences across both online and offline platforms to stand out and build brand loyalty through optimizing their data strategy,” said Dirk Henke, Managing Director of EMEA at Criteo.Changing consumer behavior forces retailers to adapt
As shoppers and travelers become more empowered, their expectations from retailers is creating a rapid shift in their behavior with an emphasis on speed an convience.
A retailers website is one of the key places where consumers go to search for product information and pricing. The demand for fast delivery of products purchased and convenient services, such as click online and collect in store, as well as seamless returns has led to companies creating easy, no-fuss payment options.
Originally pure-play online niche retailers and brands, such as Warby Parker and Bonobos, have now opened brick-and-mortar showrooms that bring their online tech into the offline world, while providing the same high levels of personalized shopper service and choice. Smart stores are incorporating AR and VR to engage shoppers in new ways within stores
Shoppers are adapting to global shopping events
Black Friday is no longer a US phenomenon. In 2017, GCC retailers witnessed an increase of 179 per cent buying in comparison to a regular week, which has been an icrease of 94 per cent from Black Friday in 2016.
The line between social media and commerce is blurring
As major social networks create walled gardens of customer data, brands and retailers will need to find ways to own the customer relationship – and the data that goes with it.
Offline-to-Online Sales
Retailers will seek partnerships that enable them to better use in-store CRM data to find and reach consumers online, with personalized campaigns for re-engagement and upsell. There will be an increasing emphasis on driving offline foot traffic to online interactions.
The data collaboration imperative
To stay competitive and innovative, retailers and brands will continue to pool data assets to personalize content and build better customer relationships.
The growth of acquisitions and partnerships
More pure players will proactively look for opportunities for strategic acquisitions and partnerships to bridge offline and online worlds and generate crucial value from it. In the race to compete with Amazon, for many retailers, the discussion is not about “build”, it’s about “buy”.
For a complete look at the 2018 Global Trends Report, view the report at: https://www.criteo.com/insights/commerce-trends-2018/