One that lays down the future rules of engagement
Litmus7’s C-Commerce professes to move from a static unidirectional product-catalog-based approach to a dynamic bidirectional wish-fulfillment regime.
“As consumers are deciding how and when they are ready to shop, retailers will have to determine where to place their digital bets. But it’s clear, brands that successfully leverage the balance of physical and digital experiences and remove friction along the customer journey to create an exceptional customer experience will be the ones that remain relevant in the future” – Michael Witty, Director – Retail, ISG Americas.
With the rapid pace of technological developments and evolving consumer expectations, the current yet dated e-commerce consumer journey paradigm – path to purchase and beyond – will soon cease to exist. Today brands and retailers have limited scope for consultative sales and the innate awareness of consumers’ purchase needs and goals is missing. As things stand, the burden of product and pricing research is on the consumer, thereby swaying the consumer towards price comparison and the market towards commoditization. This current system well serves behemoths like Amazon that offer a 300 -million SKU marketplace but is a letdown for category specialists. Forward-looking retailers must rework and revamp their current channels and modes of consumer engagement to stay in the business. Litmus7 has envisaged a new retail paradigm that it calls Consumer Commerce, or C-Commerce, ― a value-based experiential commerce approach that goes beyond traditional transaction-based consumer-retailer relationships. This Briefing Note tries to understand and explain the business case for C-Commerce.
“Litmus7’s C-Commerce is an attempt to re-imagine retail transactions and retailer-consumer relationships that are more integral, timely, humane, and value-oriented. As Litmus7 continues to garner industry support and put the technology pieces together, C-Commerce is showing a lot of promise” – Ashish Chaturvedi, Principal Analyst – ISG.
The present-day e-commerce user experience goes scarcely beyond capturing the order, with very little shopping assistance for the consumer. Intending to move beyond order capturing and enhancing consumers’ lives, the C-Commerce paradigm begins with defining the future mode of interactions between value-seeking consumers and relationship-centric retailers/brands.
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