Issue 3

E-commerce Customer
Experience Management
Strategies and Paradigms

Featuring research from

Customer Experience Management

on E-commerce Sites
2
Customer Experience Management on
E-commerce Sites
8
From the Gartner Files:
Strategic Road Map for Creating a
Convenient Commerce Experience
15
About Cybage

Introduction
The E-commerce industry continues to be a fast changing one. The
traditional E-commerce setup is falling short in its bid to acquire
and retain customers. There has been a paradigm shift in the way
E-commerce is conducted today, as E-commerce has graduated
from an online purchase process to a pure shopping experience.
Merchants are no more looking at E-commerce merely as a
convenience tool; rather, there is a complete transformation of the
customer engagement strategy in the online business. Merchants
and technology providers are working on several intuitive initiatives
to engage customers in a more value-driven way that empowers,
educates, and provides a handle to consumers to make their buying
decisions through a data-driven approach. The other big shift with
E-commerce strategy has been around eradicating the thick line
between B2C and B2B markets. E-commerce merchants are realizing
that when it comes to E-commerce, both businesses and consumers
expect similar shopping experience and assistance to manage their
purchases and decision making process.
As more and more E-commerce players enter the market and
competition becomes fierce, they attract and convert visitors on
the basis of differentiators such as class of service and shopping
experience. From product search to delivery, E-commerce enterprises
strive hard to deliver exceptional experience to win customers share of
mind and enable high brand recall.
In Gartners research report, Market Insight: Three Compelling
Reasons to Update Your E-Commerce Product Strategy, the figure on
the following page shows the top priorities of the CRM Programs (U.S.,
2012). This newsletter discusses the most important ones and focuses
on characteristics which can provide a convenient and engaging
customer experience, and thus, help enterprises meet or exceed their
customer expectations.

E-commerce Customer Experience Management is published by Cybage. Editorial supplied by Cybage is independent of Gartner analysis. All Gartner research is 2014 by Gartner, Inc. All rights reserved. All
Gartner materials are used with Gartners permission. The use or publication of Gartner research does not indicate Gartners endorsement of Cybages products and/or strategies. Reproduction or distribution of this
publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy,
completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The opinions expressed herein
are subject to change without notice. Although Gartner research may include a discussion of related legal issues, Gartner does not provide legal advice or services and its research should not be construed or used
as such. Gartner is a public company, and its shareholders may include firms and funds that have financial interests in entities covered in Gartner research. Gartners Board of Directors may include senior managers
of these firms or funds. Gartner research is produced independently by its research organization without input or influence from these firms, funds or their managers. For further information on the independence and
integrity of Gartner research, see Guiding Principles on Independence and Objectivity on its website, http://www.gartner.com/technology/about/ombudsman/omb_guide2.jsp.

Enhance customer experience

Some of the examples of Omnichannel:

40.2

Increase acquisition of new customers

34.8

Increase sales revenue

32.9

Increase customer satisfaction

Customers browse products on the site and seek help to make the
purchase. When they call up the contact center, the contact center
executive has all the details of the shopper and what product he
is browsing. This, enables a quick connect with the customer and
provides a better personalized experience to the customer.

31.3

Enhance cross-sell or upsell of products and services

25.0

Create a single view of the customer

19.6

Improve lead quality and conversion

19.3

Increase customer retention

19.3

Increase customer loyalty

17.7

Improve customer data quality

16.1

Increase salesperson productivity

12.7

Reduce cost of service

12.7

Reduce operations costs

12.7

Increase brand awareness

A customer adds a product to the shopping basket through the

mobile commerce channel and suspends the activity right there.
Later, when the customer logs on to the E-commerce website, he
continues shopping from the point he left on the Mobile channel
and his browsing history is enabled on the website channel with
the shopping basket data intact.

8.5

Increase marketing campaign response rates

7.6

Increase value to citizens

6.0

Increase partner loyalty

5.7

Increase the Net Promoter Score

5.4

Reduce cost of sales

5.4

Improve pricing

2.8

Reduce cost of marketing

2.8

Increase community participation rates

2.5

Increase referrals of prospects by existing customers

Key challenges for retailers to becoming truly integrated

omnichannel are:

1.3

Others (please specify)

2.5
0

10

20

30

40

50

Organizational silos

Percentage of Respondents

Source: Gartner Inc., Market Insight: Three Compelling Reasons to Update Your
E-Commerce Product Strategy, G00249052, 15 March 2013

Multichannel/Omnichannel Access
(Convenience in accessing digital commerce site)

Difficulty of sharing information/data across systems and channels

Technical barriers and capabilities
Lack of appropriate employee training
Ways to omnichannel:

Multichannel is all about enhancing choices and convenience for

customers by offering seamless shopping experience across various
sales channels such as website, mobile, retail store, call center,
interactive chat, and kiosk.

Unify and centralize data across all touch points in such a way that
every touch point has access to customer activities and data.

Though Multichannel strategy could provide more channels to

engage customers, the emerging trends and customer expectations
to be uniquely identified across all channels seamlessly pushed the
E-commerce industry to think differently and adopt the omnichannel
strategy as a futuristic solution. With omnichannel adoption, customers
are bound to get a channel agnostic, unified, and seamless shopping
experience.

Break organization silos and train staff to service customers in a

unified way.

Shoppers view all channels offered by retailers as one business and it

is fair for them to expect that all these channels will have all the details
about them.
Mobile plays a vital role in omnichannel as various researches show
shoppers leverage their mobile and tablet devices to research and
learn about products, compare the products in the same class and
across merchants, and buy the products.
Omnichannel is now looked at as a distinguishing branding and
convenience factor within the merchant group, and E-commerce
businesses are promoting this advantage to attract customers and
providing a better shopping experience. Synchronization of information
across various touch-points is the key to omnichannel. Every touchpoint should be aware of customer activities and information.

Adopt technology for better interoperability and

intercommunication among various channels and back-office
systems.

Mobile Optimization
(Convenience of shopping through any device)
In todays mobile world, nearly one-fourth of E-commerce traffic
comes through the mobile channel, which includes smartphones and
tablets. Shoppers leverage smartphones for searching a product,
scanning the product barcode for prices, locating deals, getting
social reviews, purchasing products, and making payments etc.
The trend shows that mobile commerce is set to grow rapidly in the
coming years. Hence, it becomes a priority for E-commerce websites
to be mobile-friendly and optimized for delivering seamless user
experience.

Key considerations for E-commerce website to be mobile

optimized:

Personalization

1. Page loading time should be within 1-2 seconds. It is crucial for

getting good mobile ranking amongst search engines.

Personalization is one of the most talked about subject today in the

E-commerce world. Though most of the merchants are collecting
data about the shoppers and their activities, they are not able to
meaningfully leverage this data for the betterment of business or
consumer benefits.

2. Image resolution should be appropriate for the target device.

Content should be optimized and personalized.

(Convenience of being remembered)

3. Responsive design for better user experience and device

adaptability.

Personalization power

4. Leverage device features in case of native mobile applications for

better customer engagement and conversion.

The major objective of personalization is to provide better user

experience by knowing the consumer and consumer preferences in
advance.

Leverage Mobile capabilities for making shopping convenient for

shoppers:
1. Leverage BLE technology to discover promotion and discount
coupons that can be redeemed online/offline.
2. Leverage geo-fencing to search for deals and offers at the nearest
store or within a particular area.
3. Provide image and voice-based searches.
Ease of Checkout - Checkout process, in general, involves multiple
steps and it becomes more inconvenient for customers shopping
through Mobile devices with considerable variances in form factors.
So, merchants should make the checkout and payment process short
and convenient for the customers through payment options such as
Paypal, Google Wallet, and MasterPass.
Responsive Design - Mobile space optimization should also be taken
into consideration for the ease of use and innovative ways to perform
actions within limited space of mobile devices. Provide features such
as tap to zoom, remove unnecessary information to make the most
of the available space, and make navigation intuitive that will help
to further optimize the website for mobiles. Search suggestions and
autocorrect features make searches easier.
Social Media Integration - Provision signing-in to the site through
social media and make the site social media friendly to enable
customers like a product/shop and share information with friends or
groups.
Analytics Driven Approach - Leverage analytics tools to evaluate
performance of the website pages and analyze the generated data
from the site. Track conversion ratio and analyze data meaningfully
that might provide better insight for optimization needs.

One cannot retain the customers by simply setting up the online

store and providing standard product listing and generic product
recommendations. Even the basic personalization data like displaying
customer name and order history through MyAccount doesnt entice
the customer any more. Personalization is a strategy, which enables
processing and leveraging the data gathered through various means
and stages of customers engagement with the business. This data
driven engagement process makes a quick connect with the customer.
Personalization can be implemented at customer level or customer
group level. The initial step towards personalization is identifying
various ways in which customers interact with your website. Customer
Segmentation is a standard process to group customers into different
profiles and personalize the services accordingly.
Challenges of implementing powerful personalization
Implementation of personalization involves great amount of data
gathering and processing. This is a highly technical process and
challenges such as the following need to be addressed:
Accurate and relevant data gathering throughout the time the
customer is on the site
Processing the data, applying several business rules and getting
meaningful data for presentation
Utilizing the processed data in different stages of shopping and
providing better user experience and also utilizing the data for
marketing purpose
This is an ongoing process and, with every passing day, the data
becomes more mature and the engagement becomes even more
graceful and meaningful.

Six step process to implement personalization

Advantages
Personalization can be used for the following:
Knowing your customers
Offer products and offers based on customer behavioral pattern
Bonding with customer to increase brand loyalty
Provide incentives to loyal customers
Segmentation and targeted marketing
Implementing effective customer engagement strategy

Site Experience
(Convenience of finding products quickly)
The changing world
In todays world, E-commerce is changing faster than any other
industry. E-commerce merchants are finding innovative ways to keep
customers engaged and are regularly reviewing the merchandising
and marketing strategies.
Source: Cybage

Personalization comes at a cost and its necessary to get the most

out of it. Here is the six-step process to implement personalization
for an E-commerce store.
Find all the opportunities to gather data. These can be the
website, mailing list, segments etc.
Coupled with modern analytics and custom implementation
this can be achieved.
After gathering the data, its time to process the data and apply
business rules to get meaningful data. This can be achieved
using business intelligence tools along with custom business
rule processing engines.
Analyze the data to utilize it effectively.
Provide recommendations and personalize the data
presentation that relates to the customer.

As the online customer base gets smarter with technology

advancement and availability of several options to shop online, it
poses challenges and puts pressure on the enterprise merchant class
to revamp the websites with better user experience.
While some of the websites are changing the complete shopping
experience, others are focusing more on changing the overall
user experience. As a matter of fact, B2B merchants are rapidly
adopting similar strategy as B2C merchants when it comes to
consumer engagement and overall experience. And, the difference in
consumer experience strategy for B2C and B2B businesses is slowly
disappearing. B2B merchants are making every effort to provide better
toolset and experience to their customers to make their shopping
experience better and enable better purchase decisions.
A few of the new and innovative ideas adopted by different websites
are:
Use of hotspots as a navigational or discovery tool instead of
categories in the homepage
Voice-activated search

Measure the ROI for the investment done.

Small retailers can use the services of any of the third-party
specialized service providers to cut down costs for setting up own
personalization systems.

Suggestive search with auto-complete functionality

Extensive use of social commerce
Understanding customer navigation patterns, search behavior and
making sure that customers can view what they are looking for
conveniently

Although there are many dimension of user experience, it can be

broadly classified into the following aspects:
Usability aspect

To provide better user experience, the first and most critical step is to
know your customers. Knowing their buying habits, purchase history,
purchase trend, and comfort level with sales channels will help in
providing a better experience to the customers, thereby, building a
strong and lasting relationship.

o Easy navigation on the website

o Easy adaption to the website and quicker product search

Some of the key questions to be clarified and answered for better user
experience are as follows:

o Search relevance

Who are your customers?

o Placing and arrangement of products

Why are they visiting your website?

o Product categorization

Are they able to find the products they are looking for?

o Value addition and usefulness of the content

Why they should return to you?

o Consistency and visual clarity

How the content is appreciated and used on the site?

Sales aspect
o Customer assistance with product selection process
o Personalization

Using analytics for better user experience

Analytics provide substantial amount of information on the usage
statistics. This information along with the data captured during
different stages of shopping will help get more relevant data which
can be leveraged for better user experience and conversion.

o Recommendationup-sale/cross sale
Major data points captured from analytics:
o Promotion/discount
Cart abandonment rate
Ability to purchase seamlessly
o Upfront cost breakup
o No hidden cost
o Few steps and quick data entry
o Easy payment options and faster checkout process
o Point and coupon redemption
o Quick confirmation

Most viewed vs. less viewed products

Conversion funnel
Bounce rate
Average time spent by shoppers
Usability acceptance
Navigation path
Page load and performance
Traffic source and channel diversity

Customer Service
(Convenience of shopping without hassle)
Customer service in E-commerce has been a key focus area and a
very critical part of the business setup. While the traditional brick and
mortar offline businesses do have the luxury of interacting with the
customers in person handling concerns, and providing assistance with
a degree of personal and emotional connect, it becomes difficult for
the online businesses to provide the same. However, with technology
intervention and maturity around customer service products, there has
been a change in the customer service landscape. With every data at
their fingertips and a passion to serve, the contact center executives
understand the customers very well and retain them at every stage of
the sales life cycle.
The following sections explore various aspects of customer services
before, during, and after a purchase.
Before purchase
During this stage, a customer has the intent to explore and buy a
product that he is looking for. He looks for enough description, images
and supporting videos along with relevant reviews and ratings of
the product to enable and influence his buying decisions. Customer
service desk plays an integral part at this stage by providing enough
details about the product, playing the role of an advisor and educator
in terms of product usage, and answering any specific query the
customer might have on the product.
During purchase
At this stage, customers have zeroed in on the product that they
would buy and expect a very quick and hassle-free checkout process.
Customer service desk proactively engage the customer here if the
customer takes more than an average time on the product detail
or basket page. Click to call or contact center chat option should be
automatically invoked to assist the customer. Additionally, customers
might have questions around taxation, cost breakup, shipping,
warranty, return policies, and gift packing. Service desk should have
ready responses available to help the customer to quickly check out.
After Purchase
The customer service desk is more engaged during this phase. While
customers wait for their shipment or need assistance post-delivery,
their curiosity level is very high and any assistance at this stage has
a high and lasting impact on the customer in terms of his overall
experience about the merchant and service. Customers require
assistance from the service desk with the following:

Apart from customer self-service tools, enough documentation and

content around the post-delivery product support is the key to win
customer confidence.
Content availability on do it yourself (DIY) details help customers
to assemble or utilize the product in a prescribed way. Rich
content such as step-wise guide images, and videos help even
more to gain customer interest and confidence.
Actively listening on social media.
Understand what is the general opinion and feedback about your
business on the social channel. Seek mileage out of the positive
feedback while promptly address any concern or negative
feedback.
Tracking customer interactions
As the multichannel and omnichannel commerce are on the way,
customers do expect their concerns and queries to be tracked
and addressed in a channel agnostic manner. This warrants
merchants to create unified customer data in the backoffice and
make it available to all channels in a seamless manner.

Flexible Delivery
(Convenience with product delivery)
Delivery convenience is all about the wide range of options available
for product delivery as per the consumers convenience. With
changing times, delivery is no more monotonous, rather it is quite
diversified with its model and reaction time. At this time, customers
enjoy several options such as home delivery, delivery redirection,
store pickup, one-day delivery, and preferred time delivery. This
flexibility has changed the way consumers are used to receive
product deliveries and it is used as a distinguishing factor among
merchants. These methodologies elevate customer delight and
retention; however, it brings additional backend and logistical
challenges for the merchants. Merchants must have a data-driven
strategy on purchase forecast at the regional level and a sound
logistics team for last-mile delivery.
Source: Cybage

Order tracking
Last mile delivery
Return or replacement of the product
Assistance with modular product assembly
Troubleshooting
7

From the Gartner Files:

Strategic Road Map for Creating a

Convenient Commerce Experience
Customers want more convenience at each
stage of digital commerce journey. Digital
marketing leaders need to understand
customers perception of convenience to
improve experiences on existing digital
commerce sites.

Key Findings
Among U.S. digital shoppers, 42% prefer
online shopping because of convenience.
B2B customers also want marketers
to deliver a better digital commerce
experience that is similar to the one
delivered by B2C marketers.
A significant number of organizations have
initiated revamps to improve experience
on digital commerce sites. Gartners 2013
Digital Marketing Spending survey found
that digital commerce experience was the
No. 1 priority for marketers in 2013.
Most digital commerce experiences fall
short of meeting customers expectations.
Unexpected delivery costs, inadequate
information on the site, complex
navigation, and lack of online customer
support remain common complaints.

Recommendations
Experience your digital commerce site. If
it takes more than five minutes for you to
complete a purchase through a mobile
device, then conduct a full site assessment
for accessibility, user experience, delivery
options and customer support.
Use past purchase history, cart
abandonment data and Web analytics
to know your digital shopper. Specifically,
identify where they abandoned the cart,
why they came to your digital commerce
site, what their expectations were from a
digital purchase experience.
Develop a tight definition of convenience
based on digital consumer requirements
and digital commerce site objectives.
The definition should encompass priority
convenience attributes rather than a broad
set of nice-to-haves.

Strategic Planning Assumption

Through 2017, the digital shopper
experience will be a major driver of
customer retention and a key differentiator
for brands.

Analysis
Convenience by definition is the ease of
doing a particular task. E-commerce was
developed to provide the convenience of
purchasing goods and services online at
any time, from home and at competitive
prices. Today, this definition of convenience
does not suffice for digital consumers
their needs evolved with the proliferation of
mobile devices.
Digital consumers are highly connected
across multiple devices, make informed
choices and have an insatiable appetite
for experiences that augment the ease of
digital shopping. They want convenience
beyond an elemental online transaction
and at every stage of the purchase
journey. Even B2B consumers want
suppliers to move from traditional catalogbased ordering system to an online
ordering system that offers convenience
of anytime order placement, complete
product information, and order-tracking
facilities essential elements that B2C
consumers already expect.
For organizations, digital commerce
is a critical capability that will enable
differentiation in a digital world. Retail
giants Walmart, Amazon, Burberry and
the like are setting new standards for
digital commerce experiences. However,
after observing recent developments in
digital commerce site initiatives, we found
that a substantial proportion of B2B and
B2C organizations are still in the process
of laying the foundations for a convenient
commerce experience either through
setting up a digital commerce site or
revamping an existing one with better
experience. Consequently, there is a gap
in current customer expectations and
delivery of a convenient experience.
For a convenient digital commerce
experience, Gartner sees five key
characteristics expected by digital
customers today:

Access Easy access to digital commerce site

anytime, anywhere and from any device
Site experience Simple navigation and
search, rich content, intuitive user-interface
Delivery Flexible product/service delivery
options
Customer support At all stages of digital
commerce site journey, compatible with device
types
Personalization Product/service
recommendations, offers and customer
support
Digital marketing leaders planning to revamp
their existing digital commerce site experience
can use this strategic road map to understand
these attributes in detail, current practices in
convenience delivery and future state of digital
commerce site experience (see Figure 1).

Few marketers have complete responsibility for

digital commerce experiences today, although,
based on our research, more marketers will
play this role in the future. Some companies
have a separate business unit responsible for
digital commerce, with a dedicated marketing
team supporting activities that relate to
corporate marketing. Marketers whose role is
to collaborate with other functions to deliver
digital commerce experience; look at our
recommendations in light of your current role
and anticipated future role in creating digital
commerce experiences.

Future State
Within the next five years, advancements in
consumer technology will enable a continuous
commerce experience across multiple
commerce touchpoints physical locations,
social, mobile and wearable devices. However,
a digital commerce site that does not provide
a basic convenience experience will create a
substantial strategic liability for companies in
a highly demanding consumer-driven world.
Hence, we define the future state (next two
to three years) of digital commerce sites into
two parts: aspects that have been initiated
by organizations but require improvement
(site design, delivery and customer support)
and aspects that will become important
convenience components in the future
(personalization and multiple touchpoint
access).

FIGURE 1
Strategic Road Map Overview for Convenient Commerce Experience

Future State

Current State

Successful delivery of key

Soaring expectations from

Convenience expectations:
Intuitive user interface,
real-time customer support
and flexible delivery option

Mobile optimized design

digital commerce site

Personalization, multitouchpoint access, easy
site navigation, timely
customer support and
flexible delivery

multi-touchpoint access,
responsive designs,
location-based targeting

Fundamental convenience

Personalization in product

Organizations introducing

recommendations,
customer service and
product/service delivery

expectations unfulfilled

revamps in digital
commerce sites with better
browsing/ navigation,
simple user interface,
extended product offerings
and new delivery formats

Gap

Understanding customer's

perception of convenience

Absence of data from

multiple touch points to

create a single view of
digital customer

Lack of technology and

skills to provide
personalization

Migration Plan

Decide the purpose of

digital commerce site

Focus on delivering basic

expectations of easy site
experience, access and
delivery first

Source: Gartner (December 2013)

Multichannel Access (Convenience

in Accessing Digital Commerce Site)

Mobile Optimization (Convenience of

Shopping Through Any Device)

Personalization (Convenience of Being

Remembered)

Digital shoppers use multiple devices

at different times and do not have
a predefined or prescribed path to
purchase. They may conduct a search
on a tablet, purchase from desktop,
or begin a purchase in-store and
complete the transaction online through
a mobile device. They expect your digital
commerce site to deliver a consistent
experience on mobile devices,
mobile apps, in-store kiosks, digital
touchscreens, and other evolving digital
touch-points. In the future, affordability
of wearable computing will increase the
need for your digital commerce site to
be accessible from and compatible with
multiple consumer devices.

Within one to two years, mobile will become an

indispensable source of content consumption
and digital shoppers will search and explore
products on their mobile devices. Although today
consumers end up making purchases mostly
through desktops/tablets, they will certainly want
the convenience option to be available to carry
out a purchase through their mobile devices.
Digital commerce sites will be expected to:

Despite the sensitivity around customer

data privacy, digital shoppers are often
willing to provide personal information
name, gender, address, email, past
purchase history, loyalty points, interests
and hobbies to preferred brands in
return for customized product offers,
future purchase information, product
recommendations, personalized emails
and exclusive brand content. According
to an Accenture study, 49% of shoppers
are receptive to their favorite brands
tracking data to inform them about future
purchases and product availability.
However, 88% of shoppers agree that they
should have an opt-in/opt-out option for
tracking personal data and control how
that information is used.

Be designed to adjust to any form factor

Enable secure and simple mobile payment
process (iBeacons and NFC)
Maximize the use of mobile-specific features
such as location-based targeting, in-store
mode and geofencing to provide information
about brand, product/service and related
content that will entice consumers to visit store
or digital commerce site.

Future digital commerce sites will be

expected to know customers based on past
purchase history, social persona and opt-in
preferences and provide personalization
in content, prices, offers, product/services
recommendations and customer support.
Customer data from physical and digital
realms will need to be integrated to give a
single view of customer behavior and used to
further enhance their experience.
Retail marketers can use in-store data
to offer relevant online product/service
recommendations and delivery options while
airline, banking and other industries can
use online and offline customer behavior
to offer relevant deals, services and loyalty
programs in physical (branch banking, airport
pickup/drop, hotel room booking) and digital
locations. B2B marketers can use customer
data to provide auto-order prompts, autofilled forms, customized pricing and service
delivery.

Site Experience (Convenience of Finding

Products Quickly)
Digital shoppers often make informed, yet
quick, purchase decisions. Distinct product/
service categorization, natural language
interface, easy search and navigation,
extended product offerings and in-depth
product information (reviews and inventory)
and self-help demos make for a convenient
site experience.
As new methods of content consumption
evolve, pictures, shoppable videos, virtual
try-ons and augmented reality will become
important to provide rich experiences through
extended product information and purchase
options.
Digital commerce sites will be better
integrated with social media through social
sign-ins, social sharing buttons (Tweets, pin
and likes) and active customer support on
social media.

Customer Service (Convenience of

Shopping Without Hassle)
Although digital shoppers are getting
acquainted with online shopping, they
want to retain the customer service levels
offered by an in-store shopping experience.

10

They may need customer assistance while

searching products, navigating site, during
and post-check-out. Great customer service
implies quick issue resolution, engaged
customer service representatives, and follow
up with the same person.
Currently, customers are satisfied with the
traditional modes of customer support;
telephone, email, click to call buttons.
However, live chat is not enough and the
soon the experience baseline will include
real time support through telephone, email
or live chat during common situations like
product choice dilemma, wrong payment
details input, cart abandonment, etc. Further
in the future, customer support will occur
via virtual customer assistants with human
like personalities that will interact in natural
language with customers.

Flexible Delivery (Convenience in

Receiving Products)
Digital shoppers expect you to offer flexible
or flat rate shipping options and at different
locations. Some are willing to increase their
shopping cart size to gain free shipping and
wait for the delivery for up to two weeks.
Others are ready to pay for speed and
convenience. Online purchase and pickup in
store/ship to store, reroute packages, choice
of delivery date and time are considered
experience enhancers. The expectation will
be for your digital commerce site to anticipate
delivery option for each customer and inform
the customer about feasibility of a particular
delivery option based on geographies and
purchasing behavior.
The most recent option gaining prominence
among retail customers is same-day delivery
and soon this will hold true for other industry
segments. According to an Accenture survey,
24% of respondents want retailers to offer
same-day delivery. Gartner predicts that by
2015, top 75% of global retailers will deploy
a model for channel agnostic shopping
experience featuring same-day delivery.
This will imply for marketers that tracking
and analyzing delivery data customer
preference, feasibility assessment,
geographic and demographic preferences
will become essential components for
creating convenient experiences for digital

customers. For areas/products/cart size,

where customer expectation does not
match a feasible delivery option, clear
communication will set right expectations.

Current State
Organizations (B2B, consumer packaged
goods, media, travel, banking and luxury
retail) are setting up digital commerce sites
or revamping the existing ones to provide
more convenient experiences. In a 2013
Oracle study on B2C e-commerce, 41% of
respondents said they plan to invest in an
e-commerce platform while 38% plan to
invest in digital customer experiences.
A digital commerce site is no longer an
alternate sales channel or a transactionbased site. It is a channel through which
brands sell to customers, communicate
with them and learn about them with
the objective to create a strong and lasting
relationship. Each digital commerce site
may have a different focus: selling-direct-toconsumer (P&G, Kelloggs, and Step2), brand
extension in online channels (Disney, Fox,)
and showcasing customer centricity and
digital business focus (Citibank, Singapore
Airlines and JetBlue).
We studied the recent initiatives of companies
that have revamped their digital commerce
site experiences:
B2B (Airgas, Grainger, Step2,
CustomBoxesNow)
Media & entertainment (Fox, Disney, HSN)
Consumer packaged goods (P&G,
Kelloggs)
Travel (JetBlue, Delta Airlines)
Banking (Citibank, FNB)
Retail (Target, Fendi, Nordstrom, Walmart,
Target, Gap, Kohls, T.J. Max, Deb Shops,
Missoni, Mens Wearhouse, LOccitane,
Crabtree, Levis)
We found that these companies focus on
improving the convenience quotient of
digital commerce sites (see Figure 2).

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FIGURE 2
Current Focus Areas in Digital Commerce Site Experience
Current
State

Site Experience

Site Access

User Experience
(Intuitive, Better Search and
Navigation, Saved Search)

Mobile-/Tablet-Optimized Digital
Commerce Site

Aesthetic Appeal
(Rich Product Pictures and
Demo Videos)

Responsive Design

Expanded Product Range and

Categorization

Geofencing and LocationBased Offers

Robust Information
(Easy Language, Important
Product Details, Reviews,
Brand Content)

In-Store Digital Kiosk Connected

to Site

Current
State

Personalization (Product
Recommendation, Exclusive
Content and Personalized
Customer Service)
Flexible Delivery and Return

Current
State

Social Tie-ups

Online Shopping and In-Store

Pickup

Share Product Discoveries on

Social Media

Transparent Shipping Costs and

Delivery Tracking

Share Purchase
Experience/Product Reviews on
Social Media

Online Purchase and

In-Store Return

Social Integration (Social

Sign-In, Social Media Buttons,
Social Reviews)

Current
State

In-Store Shopping (Mobile

Devices) and Home Shipping
Low Implementation
Medium Implementation
Medium-High Implementation
High Implementation
Source: Gartner (December 2013)

Gap Analysis and

Interdependencies
Top concerns around digital commerce
site experience include unexpected
delivery costs, lack of product information,
distrust of website/security concerns,
complex navigation/product searches and
complicated login process.

Multichannel Access (Convenience in

Accessing Digital Commerce Site)
More than half of companies do not have
a responsive design or a mobile version of
digital commerce site that support all form
factors and Mobile operating systems. This
hinders the overall experience of the digital
commerce site. Londons Gatwick Airports

recently revamped site is a great example of

mobile experience. It has responsive design;
comprehensive information placed in
compact icons and buttons and shows most
important search on the opening screen.

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Site Experience (Convenience of Finding

Products Quickly)
The main gaps in site experience
are navigation, search and product
classifications, and complete information.
Few companies have digital commerce
sites that have clean opening screens and
simple navigation. The product searches
and information views are often difficult,
while overall check-out process seems
lengthy, especially for a mobile experience.
There is a huge gap between providing
textual information to contextual content
that engages shoppers and enables a quick
purchase decision.

Customer Service (Convenience of

Shopping Without Hassle)
The gap is in providing customer support
similar to an offline purchase experience.
Even B2B customers prefer a sales
representative to be available throughout
their online purchase journey. More emphasis
is needed in improving customer support
during check-out and product return.

Flexible Delivery (Convenience in

Receiving Products)
The gap is in providing package rerouting,
choice of delivery date, lack of delivery
tracking, and hidden shipping costs. While
organizations have begun offering online
purchase and in-store pickup, that poses
a potential channel conflict in the incentive
systems for online and in-store employees.

Personalization (Convenience of Being

Remembered)
Although, marketers know the value of
delivering personalized experiences, they
are less aware of the how to offer it to digital
customers. Lack of technology to integrate
data from various customer touchpoints, lack
of resources and lack of skills constitute major
reasons for implementing personalization.

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Migration Plan
Spread out your planned improvements
over a three-year period. These stages will
not be in same order for all companies
some industries/organizations may have
already reached a stage, while others are just
beginning. However, the stages will hold true
for all organizations and can be used to plan
the progression from one level to another.
Time taken by each phase may vary
depending on implementation and current
state of digital commerce site. For the first
phase digital commerce site assessment,
six months may suffice to analyze gaps
and build a strategy to revamp the digital
commerce site. However, the second and
third important phases may take more than a
year to reach their goals.
The following section puts each stage in a
priority order only to indicate a logical
flow of projects and not to attach high/low
importance to any aspect.

Higher Priority
Digital Commerce Site Assessment
Decide the Purpose of Digital Commerce
Site
Ask yourself two key questions: Who are
you designing the site for, and what do your
customers want from this site?
If the main purpose is to sell directly to
consumers (consumer packaged goods and
retail), then focus on product offerings, quick
search/navigation, and information (product,
shipping costs, comparisons, delivery options)
and price. If, like Gatwick Airport, the main
purpose is to use information to comfort
customers in a physical setting (in this case,
airport), while monetizing the opportunity,
then focus on key content placement (flight
information, terminals, weather forecasts)
and visuals that ease customers overall
experience. If the objective is to use the digital
commerce site as an extension to existing
physical brand presence (Fox and Disney),
then focus more on creative and exclusive
website content and custom product
offerings.

Gather Experience Delivered

Derive insights from cart abandonment data
and previous purchase history to assess
customer satisfaction delivered on key
convenience criteria: access, site experience,
customer service, flexible delivery and
personalization. Create your convenient
commerce delivery plan based on digital
business goals and digital shopper behavior.
Optimize page load times and pay careful
attention to processes that can result in long
spinning wheel intervals. Where delays
cant be avoided, be sure to fill them with
engaging content to cover the wait time.
Resource Planning
Digital commerce design and
development You may choose to
outsource the design and development
of digital commerce site to third-party
providers and agencies while your
marketing and BU teams provide
guidance on experience design.
In-house innovation labs Large
wholesalers and retailers like Grainger,
Best Buy and Walmart have created
innovation centers that facilitate creation
of superior digital commerce and mobile
experience. However, with a limited
budget, it is not imperative to begin
with an innovation lab. Create a core
project team comprising contributors
from marketing, IT, sales and business
unit teams and customer support
that brings together different facets of
customer journey and create the desired
convenience experience
Measurement Metrics
Decide the key criteria to evaluate the
performance of the revamped digital
commerce site on critical parameters.
Parameters may include customer
conversions, basket size, abandonment rate,
social shares and total visits. Work on shortterm targets first.

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FIGURE 3
Strategic Road Map Timeline for Convenient Commerce

Decide the purpose and customers of digital

commerce site
Gather experience delivered on existing digital
commerce site
Design convenience experience based on two
statements above

Cognitive analysis of customer

purchase data on digital
commerce site
Combine customer data from physical
and digital channels
Keep customer aware of their personal
data use

Focus on fundamental
convenience expectations:
Access, site design
and information
Introduce enhancements in
above areas and focus on
real-time customer support
and flexible delivery options
2013

2014

2015

2016

Drivers

Drivers

Drivers

Assess existing
experience

Introduce
improvements

Personalization

Increasing need for

digital commerce
site to better
engage with digital
shoppers
Unmet customer
expectations from
digital commerce
site

Need for
convenience at
each stage of
digital purchase
journey
Proliferation of
mobile devices

2017

Increasing
expectations for
personalization in
purchase
experiences
Increasing comfort
in sharing personal
information with
preferred brands

Timeline indicates when to begin

Source: Gartner (December 2013)

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Medium Priority

Lower Priority

Digital Commerce Site Revamp

Personalization

First, focus on existing fundamental

convenience aspects that need improvement:

Social personas, purchase history and

device usage data will help create detailed
customer profiles and hence identify the
areas for personalization product/service
recommendations, customer support and
delivery. Gather data from traditional/
physical sales channels and integrate with
online data to get a single view of digital
customer.

Access Mobile optimization

Site experience Responsive design,
navigation and search
Customer service Improve existing
support
Information Simplify language and
structure overall content to reduce screen
clutter
You can use rapid prototyping and A/B
testing to ascertain the interface and features
(click to buy options, product categorization,
content placement, etc.) that appeal most
to customers. Once, you track customer
behavior on the revamped site, introduce
enhancements:
Site experience augmented reality
(virtual try-ons, virtual mirrors), self-help
videos, shoppable videos and click-to-buy
buttons, and expanded product range.

Be vigilant about personal data privacy

policies and expectations and carefully
inform the use of personal data to digital
shoppers through opt-in/opt-out messages.
Keep track of experience provided at different
stages of digital commerce site, to ensure a
single consistent objective convenience.

Evidence
Hybris Study Finds B2B Purchasers Demand
Consumer-Like E-Commerce Experience,
Hybris, 15 November 2012.
Digital Marketers Escalate Investments to
Support Commerce Experiences, March
2013.

Customer Service Assess the viability of

adding live chats and real-time customer
support

A global in-depth study of the online

customer experience, LivePerson, January
2013.

Delivery Multiple delivery and return

options, delivery tracking and package
rerouting

2013 UPS Pulse of the Online Shopper,

comScore, 2013.

Conduct pilots for new applications and site

enhancements, especially while introducing
augmented reality, personalization, in-store
tie-ups, and other such critical features and
track progress. Once, each enhancement
achieves success, promote it through your
digital shoppers, especially on social forums.
Evaluate the performance against set criteria
and plan further improvements based on
digital shopper response and evolving
consumer technology.

Shopper Preferences, Accenture Interactive,

November 2012.
Accenture Study Shows U.S. Consumers
Want a Seamless Shopping Experience
Across Store, Online and Mobile that Many
Retailers are Struggling to Deliver, Accenture,
15 April 2013.
B2C Commerce Trends for 2013, Oracle,
April 2013.
L. Fretwell, J.Stine, H. Sethi, and A. Noronha
Catch and Keep Digital Shoppers, Cisco,
January 2013.

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Note 1
Digital Commerce Terminologies
This Strategic Road map caters only to the
experience derived from a digital commerce
site and not digital commerce as a whole
(social, mobile or wearable devices). Gartner
will publish additional strategic road maps
for combining various digital commerce
channels and to creating a continuous
commerce experience.
E-Commerce
Buying and selling of goods and services
over the Internet via electronic devices with
the sole purpose of completing a transaction.
Digital Commerce
Different online commerce channels
woven around a digital commerce site, not
necessarily interconnected, offering multiple
touchpoint access for information and
purchase and with high emphasis on site
navigation and aesthetics.
Digital Commerce Experience
This is a highly interconnected process
of searching, evaluating and purchasing
products and services across digital and
physical sales channels without a predefined
path to purchase. The experience thrives
on the necessity to access product/service
information throughout the buying journey,
flexibility to make the ultimate purchase
from a variety of commerce routes, alternate
delivery between online-offline channels and
ability to share/receive experience across
customer networks.
Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00252535,
Aparna Bajaj, Allen Weiner, Laura McLellan,
19 December 2013

About Cybage
Founded in 1995, Cybage Software is a leading offshore software services company, offering
solutions that accelerate, simplify and enrich business processes to give its clients an edge
over competition. We are an SEI-CMMI-DEV v1.3, Level 5 and an ISO 27001 company based
in Pune, India. Our success is built on a pool of 4,800 software professionals. Based on a
remarkable record of quality, consistency and outstanding technological prowess, we have
partnered with more than 200 global software houses of fine repute. Our array of services
includes Outsourced Product Development (OPD), enterprise business solutions and valueadded services. Cybage specializes in the implementation of the Offshore Development model.
The domain expertise of Cybage spans across several business verticals such as Media and Entertainment, Travel and Hospitality, Healthcare
and Life Sciences, Retail and Distribution and Hi-Tech. Cybage has eight defined technology focused Centers of Excellence (CoEs): E-commerce,
Enterprise Mobility, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Business Intelligence (BI), Enterprise Content Management (ECM), Cloud Computing,
E-learning and Supply Chain Management (SCM). Our unique model of operational efficiency, ExcelShore, helps de-risk our approach and
provide the best value per unit cost.

About Cybages E-commerce Center of Excellence

Cybage has built a deep understanding of the domain and expertise with years of focused knowledge assimilation and extensive experience in
providing full lifecycle e-commerce and e-business enabling solutions and services, to an array of customers that span across various verticals.
The E-commerce Centre of Excellence at Cybage comprises domain and technology experts to provide end-to-end offerings for development,
customization, testing, and maintenance of E-commerce solutions across industry verticals.

E-commerce CoE Quick Facts:

800+ person years of experience in building business aligned, scalable & cutting edge solutions
500+ domain experts comprising Solution Architects, Business Analysts and Functional Experts
Specialized expertise in other complementing segments including Retail, SCM, Logistics, BFSI & Security
Extensive experience in core commerce platforms and merchant solutions

Headquarters:
Cybage Software Pvt. Ltd.
Cybage Towers,
Survey No. 13A/1+2+3/1, Vadgaon Sheri
Pune 411014 India
Phone: +91-20-6604-1700
E-mail: ecommerce@cybage.com
Additional Development Centers:
India, Pune, Hyderabad, Gandhi Nagar
The United States, Redmond, Washington
International Sales and Engagement Offices:
Edison, NJ | Atlanta, GA | Austin, TX | Fremont, CA | London, UK | Frankfurt, Germany | Sydney, Australia
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