Smart commerce to become the next big thing in ecommerce

With customers constantly seeking greater personalisation and enhanced experience, many brands in India are opting for ‘smart commerce’ strategy. That’s according to a new Deloitte report, titled: ‘Smart Commerce: Moving to a platform-based business model’.

The Deloitte report explained smart commerce, as an innovative concept that goes beyond using the online medium to facilitate transactions between buyers and sellers. It enables a platform view of an organisation and provides an alternative mechanism for stakeholders — suppliers, customers, and employees — to engage in value creation in a transparent and resource-efficient manner. 

“Legacy brands have largely missed taking advantage of the ecommerce opportunity by focusing excessively on the direct-to-customer or D2C opportunity. A platform based Smart commerce lens will help them accrue multiplier benefits that are 10-15 times more impactful with implications on their business models and cost structures,” Anand Ramanathan, Partner, Deloitte India said.

According to him, “Smart commerce takes into account an end-to-end transformation of the organisation using cloud infrastructure, digital technologies, and intelligent analytics to create a data-driven, customer-centric organisation.”   

“In other words, it includes everything from personalised marketing engine, digital sales, smart pricing, and merchandising, fulfilment, along with having a digital mindset,” Ramanathan added.

Also read: Digital wallets to account for 52.9% of all e-commerce payments by 2025: Study

The new age of blended commerce requires organisations to realign their sales strategies and business models to focus on customer centricity and offer enhanced experience. In India, companies such as Lenskart, Asian Paints, Puma, Hewlett-Packard and Bata, among others are already leveraging this concept, by harnessing digital technologies, such as AI/ML, cloud, and automation tools to transform their operations, and in turn to attract and retain customers.

Several companies are realising that tech advancements in sales processes can lead to lower costs to serve customers and higher revenues, and an opportunity to cross-sell other products due to an improved customer experience. 

Ramanathan gave an example of an Indian retailer that offers fully autonomous store solutions using AI, computer vision, and deep learning to enable a convenient shopping experience for consumers with instant checkouts. The company has installed sensors and cameras to track purchases and enable a cashier-less experience apart from getting a detailed insight into inventory levels, analyse buying patterns, and update stocks instantly.  

Another auto OEM, he mentioned, launched a dealer pilot program to enhance the customer experience process through multiple digital initiatives. One such AR/VR tool that was implemented enabled a self-serve shopping experience, utilising tablet devices and digital hotspots on each vehicle. Customers were able to, in real time, view various customisation options and get further details on the vehicle.

 “Many more will join the smart commerce bandwagon in the coming months, as brands especially new-age enterprises are thinking beyond the traditional marketing models and are seeking to offer an optimal mix of ‘phygital’ experience,” he said.

Ramanathan believes that despite regulatory hurdles and skills shortage in India when it comes to leveraging advanced technologies, smart commerce enables brands to become more agile and scale more efficiently, to serve customers better, and in turn improve their bottom-line.