Customization; the Ultimate solution for the development of E-commerce

Customization; the Ultimate solution for the development of E-commerce

The future of the brick and mortar retail stores is surrounded by a mist as the creeping silence and the echoing music in specialty stores can be heard. It is quite evident that amazon.com is knocking on every customer’s door hence keeping them engaged and reducing their need to visit the shopping mall or the specialty stores they once couldn’t stay away from.
The executives at the traditional retail stores are brainstorming over ideas to match the pace of Amazon and provide their customers with something that Amazon can’t offer. The question from these executives is what’s next?
It can be said without a doubt that Amazon holds the credit of representing the basics of consumerism for a lifetime. It has a dominant possession over the services of the products it sells but it’s very rare that holds passion over the product itself. One big limitation that Amazon faces is the inability of Amazon to hold control over the customer’s experience regarding the product.
The question is how can consumer goods companies move forward in this race? The answer is product customization- to whichever extent you think suits your product. Product customization means you can now turn the product into a perfect fit as demanded by the customer. This includes customizing the product to a certain style, color, size and using artificial intelligence to analyze the shopping preferences of a shopper and suggest the items of their choice for them for next time.
This meant using 3D technology as leverage to make a perfect Cinderella fit for our shoes. No matter which path you choose in the quest for customization let it be known that it is the first step on the path of building a truly customized experience.

Steve jobs serve as an inspiration for me because he had the vision to look beyond IBM and use technology in accordance with the consumer spending patterns. His vision was not to make a company but to make his technology a necessity for the people.
I challenge investors, shoppers and entrepreneurs to think about the world beyond traditional retail and to cross the boundaries of limitations to give birth to something new. Our world has made its way into the digital retail and the traditional retail system is fading slowly and Amazon is the king of this world.
But I believe the throne is still yours for the taking it you come up with something that will overpower the strength of Amazon, and I strongly believe this can be done through customized products and by providing a customized experience to your customers and followers.
The slogan “looking beyond Amazon” is considered a fail attempt to boost the market into producing something new but brands that are ambitious to get the throne to believe in innovation and customization and are making efforts to come forward with something new. The ways of consumption need to be challenged through bringing in new ways such as the customization through perfect fit. This is the only way the smaller brands stand a chance in a retail world dominated by Amazon.

How can brands increase their clientele in the ever-growing e-commerce market?

1. Customization: All you have to do is grab the attention of the customer by making him feel he is being given individual attention. How can this be done? Make a product that matches the desires of the customer in reference to size color and fit. We’ve seen that many times the standard size is substandard and in order to make the customer loyal to your product you need to use digital technology to provide the perfect fit. A custom printed serial number which is printed on every shoe shows the size of the customer to his or her fit.
2. Curate:  although customers love variety but they also wants simplicity in their decisions. For example if they type block heels on Amazon they will get a number of options to choose from but if you provide them with an item which is the right amount of perfect than the customer is yours.
3. Know Your Customer: Continuous feedback from your customers is what you need in order to gain the loyalty of your customers. You need to know what your customers think about the products you sold so that you will have an idea for which products to continue and which products to diminish from the sale line.
4. Offer a Strong value proposition: A fact to be noted is that Amazon sells products produced by other brands and adds its own percentage of profits to it. The brands that originally own the product can sell the same item with the same luxuries with a price tag of a lower price. This will increase the number of your customers.
5. The days of preplanned inventories are gone: these days customers are unpredictable because the market is changing rapidly. So brand owners need to stop stocking inventories a year before and need to focus on exactly what to sell before the consumer buys it.

According to the studies of kpmg 60% of shoppers find new brands online but 26% of them will prefer to go and visit the store before they buy something. This shows they need personal attention before they opt to buy from a brand. It also shows that 47% consumers expect personalized service. This shows that physical retail is withholding it’s place all it needs is a little innovation.

It can be concluded that by bringing in customization in products and the experience of the customers in addition to customer feedback new brands stand a chance against Amazon in the Ecommerce market.

It will be wrong to say that Amazon can be overridden by another brand because we don’t expect it to and neither do we want it to go away. What we want is for the ecommerce market to become something that offers more than just what you want. We want the competition to be of a broader perspective.
The future of consumerism lies in the art of customization and this is what will predict how your brand moves forward.