E-Commerce is a Platform Business

The digital and physical worlds are merging. Voice assistants, chatbots, and IoT applications are increasingly coming into the lives of individuals and businesses. Customers expect and will continue to expect networked and personal interactions, personalized offers, and a fast, smoothly coordinated customer service.

Tragically, for many online retailers and manufacturers today, the premise is only to serve as many channels as possible at the same time.  For customers, however, marketing, sales, and service channels no longer exist side by side. The boundaries between online and offline, mobile and stationary are blurring - the demands for a cross-channel and cross-device shopping experience are increasing.

In the future, interactive retail will require digital platforms that bring together purchasing, consulting, and communication to digitally transform the entire spectrum of marketing, sales, and services. In short, by itself, a webshop is no longer the answer.

A System for Success

Shop system? ERP? PIM? CRM? CMS? Marketing automation? While it is still relatively easy to name these required systems, it becomes much harder to select the right ones for your own company. Retailers and manufacturers have seemingly unlimited choices - from smaller specialized solutions to more extensive suites.

Therefore, before choosing a system, companies should first examine the internal and external processes of their activities. Only a planning of a strategic system and combination enable an integrated system landscape and high-quality customer data. It should be top priority to be able to exchange information consistently and quickly between systems.

Data is the New Oil

Customer data, product data, order history and more - Data must be meaningfully linked to information and evaluated to automatically generate services with added value for the customer. For example, by adapting the proposed products based on the previous behaviour in the shop, whether via desktop, mobile, app, or in a branch. The system knows the user and precisely advises them or supports local consultants.

Omni-channel personalisation and marketing automation are the keywords here. The more data the systems collect, link, and evaluate via the customer, the more accurately marketing measures can be played out using artificial intelligence and their effectiveness can be predicted and controlled.

Meet dotSource at EuroCIS

Due to the multitude of systems, solution providers, their possible combination, and the promises of the manufacturers, digital projects can quickly become frustrating and sometimes, later, cancelled. As a result, retailers and manufacturers are missing out on the opportunity to provide their customers with excellent user experiences, and key strategic questions of digital transformation remain unanswered.

How can existing data be used efficiently? What content is relevant to customers and what is the best time and right channel to get them excited? Which technologies are appropriate for my strategy and organization?

Meet dotSource at EuroCIS and we will answer these questions together. At Hall 10, Stand C31 we will discuss with you the advantages of the successful combination of marketing, sales, and services and create the whole experience through the best practices.

dotSource, that's more than 190 digital natives working together on one vision: enabling companies to take the way towards the digital future of marketing, sales and services. We at dotSource have been supporting companies from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland in their digital transformation and the internet presentation of their brands since 2006. From user-centered e-commerce platforms through sophisticated customer relationship and product data management right up to targeted online marketing measures, we offer our clients a comprehensive range of services and holistic expertise across all aspects of the digitalisation of marketing, sales and services. With our groundbreaking solutions, we have been able to establish ourselves as one of the leading digital agencies in German-speaking Europe and are now among the top 15 largest companies in the industry. Companies with large, sometimes multinational online projects, such as Swarovski, Cornelsen, hagebau, Würth, and Music Store, rely on our expertise in terms of strategy consulting, development and implementation of cutting-edge digital concepts.

Further information at www.dotSource.com.