It has become clear to all of us that the digital acceleration fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic is something that is here to stay. I find it interesting to analyze how this “digital pandemic” benefited those businesses that knew how to adapt on time and harmed those that did not. Those who took advantage of the latest e-commerce developments had a boom in their sales; others who could not anticipate the digital wave were left behind and saw their sales decline.
How we adapt the business model to the times in which we live in is one of the most important factors to have a healthy, strong and profitable company, always with the aim of achieving exponential growth taking advantage of trends and new developments.
To mention an example of success in terms of adaptation, we can analyze the case of Mercado Libre, belonging to one of the industries that has had the greatest adaptation challenge in terms of speed and digitization: logistics. The company positively experienced the development of e-commerce, which was reflected in the first quarterly report of this year with an 81% increase in its order volume in Mexico and Latin America.
Another company that successfully faced the situation generated by the pandemic was 99 Minutes, dedicated to instant shipping in countries such as Colombia, Mexico, Chile and Peru. It registered a growth of 120% at the end of April and managed to incorporate 150 workers during the pandemic, consolidating a total of 2,800 employees
There are some factors that companies must take into account when digitizing their business. For my taste, the key pillars of an online business are the following:
Manage the business with databases (Data-Driven)
It is more important than ever to identify patterns and contemplate them in the customer journey. It will help you to start operating via e-commerce and incorporate big data analysis that helps you understand your customers and give them a better product or service. It will also allow you to understand the market and be able to expand to places that you may not have considered before.
Ease of payment and transactions
Nobody wants to lose potential customers at the most decisive moment of the buying process. Therefore, your e-commerce must have different payment options. Be quick, simple and understandable, so that the buyer does not have time to reconsider their purchase desire.
Business publications and dissemination
Keep your e-commerce publications updated on and off the site (even on social networks). For Google, interesting content must be created in order to attract consumers and explain, in a simple and concrete way what you are offering. It is important to take into account holidays and commemorative dates since usually there are peaks of searches with purchase intentions on those dates.
Availability and variety
Today many people go to digital marketplaces for the variety of products, affordable prices and ease of delivery logistics. It is important to consider having a presence in them to expand your market, for example, on platforms such as Amazon, Google Shopping and Facebook Shopping.
When you have all these pillars aligned, I recommend using artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the customer experience. It can be heard very far-fetched, but it can be as simple as automatic responses on social networks, a chat bot on your website or even a click tracker to find out what your users are most interested in and how they get there. A new trend ChatBots is called Conversational Commerce were, with the powe of IA technology, you can create workflows in order to answer in a way a real person would do it adapting the response to whatever your costumer is asking and looking for. This will enable you to obtain real data about costumer journey and costumer preferences bringing a personalized experience in every touchpoint the user has with your brand.
We have learned that those who take the first steps are the one who wins, remember that it does not matter if you make a mistake. The important thing is to keep trying and learn from mistakes to be better every day. One thing is for sure, we all have and must adapt to this “new normal” and the new form of consumption that it brought with it. Here is where I ask, is your company digital already?
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