Solve New Commerce Challenges
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Identify new commerce challenges in a period of immense change.
- Describe how headless architecture helps businesses pivot quickly.
- Explain why businesses are adopting data and automation strategies.
New Challenges (and Solutions) Emerge
You’ve probably heard this one before: Inflation and supply chain issues are on the rise—challenging businesses and shoppers alike. As a result, commerce leaders want solutions that enable agility, speed, and automation.
The new State of Commerce report illustrates how commerce professionals are finding success as they navigate current market challenges. Ready to see the data and get insights for your business? Let’s go!
A Need for Speed Fuels the Rise of Headless Commerce
If the past few years taught commerce leaders one thing, it’s the value of pivoting quickly. Customer expectations, market trends, and business needs change fast—and that’s especially true in the midst of economic uncertainties and a global supply chain crisis. More than ever, leaders recognize the need to adapt at a moment’s notice. That’s one reason why businesses are investing in headless architectures.
Changes to digital storefronts shouldn’t be a time-consuming bottleneck. A slow, complicated back-end experience can wreak havoc on your teams’ productivity—and your customer experience. According to the report, 34% of organizations say it takes weeks or months to make changes to their digital storefront. That makes it harder to stay agile online—an unfortunate consequence, given challenging macroeconomic conditions and changing consumer preferences.
However, 77% of companies with headless architecture agree it gives them increased agility, such as allowing them to make changes to their digital storefront faster. In fact, 32% said they could make website changes in hours compared to 19% of non-headless companies.
Aside from speed and agility, businesses implementing headless commerce cite several other benefits. They report excelling at digital commerce at greater rates (55%) than non-headless organizations (30%). They are also more likely to attribute their companies’ overall success to digital commerce (58%) versus non-headless organizations (37%).
If you’re undecided about making moves to a new architecture, ask yourself whether headless would solve problems impacting your customers—today and in the future. If so, consider jumping in.
First-Party Data Reigns Supreme
Another change that’s at the top of every commerce leader’s mind is a new era for data. First-party customer data is critical to generate actionable insights, but access to this data is getting more difficult. The seismic shift to greater privacy regulations and a cookieless internet concerns even the most data-literate organizations. In fact, 63% of digital leaders expect the loss of third-party cookies to have either a major or moderate impact on their data strategy.
So, what are businesses doing to prepare? Over the next 2 years, 32% of consumer sellers and 40% of business sellers plan to invest in a first-party data strategy. For some, this means prioritizing direct to consumer (D2C) channels for the first time. For others, this means activating the data they’ve already collected.
By collecting, managing, and activating first-party data, businesses create the infrastructure that powers intelligent decision making. First-party data strategies are often the difference between digital success and floundering. In fact, 53% of digital leaders (self-reported organizations achieving a high degree of success with digital commerce) say that they are very effective at using their data to understand customer behavior. This rate is 3.5 times greater than digital laggards, which are companies not currently achieving a high degree of success with digital commerce. Digital leaders are also four times more likely to be using their data to deliver personalized buying experiences.
While much about the future remains unclear, one thing is certain: Data will be a differentiator. As privacy regulations tighten, data policies become more stringent, and cookies disappear, commerce businesses around the globe recognize the value of first-party data. In this new era, success will hinge on collecting and harnessing it to deliver better customer experiences.
Leaders Turn to Automation to Ease Budget Burdens
What’s one of the first things a commerce professional does after collecting all that first-party data? Process automation. As budgets get squeezed amidst economic uncertainties and the labor shortage continues, businesses need ways to do more with less. Automation offers a welcome solution: the possibility to lower the cost to serve while creating business efficiencies.
Respondents across industries and regions named process automation as one of their top priorities. When it comes to tasks like supply chain management and inventory fulfillment, automation can significantly cut costs and streamline business. According to the data, companies are specifically focused on automating and optimizing post-purchase journeys. In fact, 44% of commerce executives report that fulfillment optimization will be a priority over the next 2 years. Digital leaders are also focusing on inventory optimization (46%) and returns optimization (41%).
Commerce professionals listed budget and resource constraints as one of the biggest challenges, and automation stands to relieve this burden. By automating processes that have typically been time-consuming and tedious, businesses can boost their bottom line while driving efficiencies.
Ready to tackle commerce challenges with these fresh insights? Let the trail blazed by commerce leaders guide your path: check out the full State of Commerce report and drive your business forward.