The devel­op­ment and evo­lu­tion of dig­i­tal shop­ping has already affect­ed the way con­sumers are shop­ping for goods and ser­vices, and there is no sign of this let­ting up in 2014. A Capgem­i­ni report into dig­i­tal shop­ping behav­iour has made a com­pre­hen­sive study of the way shop­pers are behav­ing in both mature, and devel­op­ing mar­kets, with fas­ci­nat­ing results.

The sim­plest, most effec­tive way and to find out the way con­sumers are inter­act­ing, expe­ri­enc­ing, and buy­ing from brands in the pur­chase fun­nel is to ask them. Out­sourc­ing tech­nol­o­gy con­sul­tan­cy Capgem­i­ni did exact­ly that, sur­vey­ing a mas­sive 18,000 con­sumers across 18 coun­tries in both mature and devel­op­ing mar­kets in their Dig­i­tal Shop­per Rel­e­van­cy Research Report 2014.

The report cov­ers a wide range of top­ics, with key find­ings reveal­ing: a decline in the influ­ence of social media as a dri­ver for pur­chase in devel­oped mar­kets; the grow­ing num­ber of dig­i­tal­ly savvy con­sumers in high-growth devel­op­ing mar­kets; and how dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing ini­tia­tives can best incen­tivize in-store pur­chas­es.

Here are five key find­ings from the report.

1. Social Media In Decline As A Driver For Consumer Purchases

Social media shows a com­par­a­tive decline since 2012. With retail stores expe­ri­ence a resur­gence as mobiles and app incen­tives are inte­grat­ed with offline and in-store expe­ri­ences, few­er shop­pers now expect the use of social media will change their shop­ping in the future.

2. Physical Stores Still Favored For Global Shoppers

Around the world, 72 per­cent of con­sumers still favor phys­i­cal stores for point-of-sale pur­chase, for all cat­e­gories except elec­tron­ics, con­sid­er­ing stores to be impor­tant or very impor­tant. This is slight­ly greater than the 67 per­cent of con­sumers who regard the Inter­net to be impor­tant or very impor­tant.

3. High-Growth Markets Extremely Digitally Savvy

Con­sumers in high-growth mar­kets showed a con­sid­er­ably high­er pref­er­ence for dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy and mar­ket­ing. Con­sumers were much more recep­tive to mar­ket­ing mes­sages in many aspects of mobile, social media, and in-store tech­nol­o­gy, than any of the 13 devel­oped mar­kets includ­ed in the study.

4. Fashion Takes The Digital Initiative

The fash­ion indus­try has tak­en the dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing ini­tia­tive, expe­ri­enc­ing the high­est lev­el of online momen­tum with 9 per­cent growth. 61 per­cent of the 18,000 respon­dents indi­cat­ed that they had shopped online for fash­ion items in the last six months.

5. The Future Use of Digital Channels

Increas­ing­ly, as mobile and app usage grows, and in-store retail becomes more inte­grat­ed with dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing incen­tives, shop­pers will expect more flex­i­bil­i­ty in their shop­ping expe­ri­ences.

Dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies are going to play a major role in the future of con­sumer shop­ping. Con­sumers will expect rewards for their loy­al­ty and rec­om­men­da­tions, just as they expect and wait for incen­tives before pulling the trig­ger on pur­chas­ing deci­sions. A chal­lenge for retail­ers will be to inte­grate online and offline mar­ket­ing fun­nels, and stream­line in-store retail with wider dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing efforts.

7 Digital Shopping Personas — Rise Of The ‘True Digital Shopper’

An impor­tant aspect of the report is in how it dis­tin­guish­es shop­pers in dif­fer­ent ter­ri­to­ries. The study iden­ti­fied sev­en shop­ping per­sonas in total, seg­ment­ed by mature and devel­op­ing mar­kets:

In mature mar­kets, the largest major­i­ty of con­sumers (41 per­cent) are “social­ly-engaged dig­i­tal shop­pers,” or those who engage with brands on social media and are hap­py to pro­vide per­son­al data to retail­ers. How­ev­er there is a sug­ges­tion in the study that shop­pers in this group progress to being “true dig­i­tal shop­pers” (which now num­bers as high as 19 per­cent in mature mar­kets), those who read­i­ly use mobiles, and apps to get the best deals on dig­i­tal or in-store shop­ping pur­chas­es, and are able to com­pare prod­ucts, track deliv­ery, and form long-term rela­tion­ships with the brands they like.

High-growth mar­kets such as Brazil, Chi­na, India, Mex­i­co, and Rus­sia, have an even greater lev­els of dig­i­tal engage­ment, with a mas­sive 77 per­cent of shop­pers falling into either “inter­ac­tive dig­i­tal shop­per,” “or technophile dig­i­tal shop­per” per­sonas, both of whom have embraced dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy, mes­sag­ing, and incen­tives as part of their over­all shop­ping expe­ri­ences.

6 Takeaways for Brands from Capgemini’s Report

Capge­meni’s report high­lights some key take­aways for con­sumer fac­ing brands, in order to inform and devel­op strate­gies that can adapt to the evo­lu­tion of dig­i­tal shop­ping behav­ior:

1. Change from a prod­uct- or fea­ture-focused approach, to a con­sumer- and shop­per-focused approach across all chan­nels.
2. Glob­al com­pa­nies need to take note of the dif­fer­ences between high-growth and mature mar­kets, and retail­ers in gen­er­al needs to reassess the coun­tries where they are present and exer­cise cau­tion in any mar­ket entry strat­e­gy.
3. Estab­lish process­es for inte­grat­ed mer­chan­dis­ing, order ful­fill­ment, and inven­to­ry man­age­ment across all chan­nels rather than indi­vid­ual chan­nel.
4. Incre­men­tal­ly and iter­a­tive­ly grow via a “test and learn” approach to cus­tomer-cen­tric ini­tia­tives.
5. Build orga­ni­za­tion­al struc­tures and goals around val­ue propo­si­tions that cut across all chan­nels, with incen­tive and com­mis­sion pro­grams to pro­mote cross-chan­nel sell­ing.
6. Devel­op and imple­ment cross-chan­nel bench­marks and met­rics.

Inventiveness, Personalization, Future Thinking

Per­haps the best exam­ple of an indus­try that has thrown itself into con­sumer-cen­tric dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing is the fash­ion indus­try.

By adopt­ing a heav­i­ly cus­tomer-cen­tric focus, online fash­ion retail has effec­tive­ly turned the home into a fit­ting room, allow­ing cus­tomers to try, eval­u­ate, and eas­i­ly return goods should they wish to do so. With 71 per­cent of con­sumers indi­cat­ing that post-sale, the option to return goods eas­i­ly was extreme­ly impor­tant, mak­ing returns an easy and inte­gral part of the pur­chase promise pro­vides an lev­el of reas­sur­ance for online con­sumer pur­chas­es that can make the dif­fer­ence.

Kees Jacobs, Glob­al Dig­i­tal Propo­si­tion Lead at Capgem­i­ni Dig­i­tal Cus­tomer Expe­ri­ence, gave the fol­low­ing com­ment in an inter­view with big4.com:

“Notably, fash­ion has seen more growth in dig­i­tal shop­ping than any oth­er cat­e­go­ry. Lead­ing the way in terms of inven­tive­ness and seg­men­ta­tion, fash­ion could be the chan­nel to essen­tial­ly dri­ve the dig­i­tal shop­ping expe­ri­ence even to appre­hen­sive con­sumers.”

As both tech­nol­o­gy and con­sumers con­tin­ue to evolve, inven­tive­ness and seg­men­ta­tion will be two areas that will sep­a­rate the best per­form­ing dig­i­tal brands from the aver­age per­form­ers. The abil­i­ty to offer new, per­son­al­ized shop­ping expe­ri­ences and oppor­tu­ni­ties for con­sumers to engage, will be a defin­ing char­ac­ter­is­tic of suc­cess­ful dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing for years to come.

You can read Capgem­i­ni’s full Dig­i­tal Shop­per Rel­e­van­cy Research Report 2014 here.

Do you agree with Capgem­i­ni’s find­ings? Is social media real­ly in decline or is it just a momen­tary blip?