On Wednesday, February 21st, a large group of digital brand leaders came together to share insights into the emerging trends and strategies that will define ecommerce in 2024. Taking a deep dive into our Digital Trends Report 2024, we discussed how to harness the potential of AI and the latest digital trends to impact your ecommerce strategy significantly while remaining authentic.

AI as a topic has many layers, but we brought together five leaders in their respective fields, from Head of Product Marketing to Global Head of Experience Design, to hear about digital trends from multiple angles. Keeping the focus on AI in ecommerce, the conversation included insights on dynamic personalization, conversational commerce, composability and reusability.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dynamic personalization & data management

With the phasing out of third-party data, it will be tricky for ecommerce and marketing teams to manage dynamic personalization going forward – unless you utilize AI. AI can automatically build profiles that skip around some cookie-related problems and focus on the next generation of commerce driven by hyper-segmentation.

But how do brands stay relevant?

Staying relevant has its challenges when consumers’ behaviors are constantly evolving and changing. Companies face significant data cleansing and collection obstacles, which pressure teams to enrich data at scale. Addressing these challenges is vital for businesses striving to harness the power of data in today’s highly competitive global market. Implementing robust data management solutions is imperative to overcome these obstacles and unlock the full potential of their data assets.

The automotive industry is a perfect example of the complexity that needs to be managed daily. Supply chain management, manufacturing and assembly, product customization, regulatory compliance, after-sales service and support, integration of digital technologies, and global market dynamics are just some of the complexities behind the automotive industry’s operations. What seems like a seamless, simple journey for the customer has millions of inter-relational components behind it.

But how does AI play into data management efforts?

You can leverage AI to clean and enrich any product data accurately, including de-duplication, data extraction, and product categorization and classification, all at scale and in a centralized way, relieving your teams from lengthy manual data work.

Conversational commerce: Bridging AI with human intelligence

What do you want to do today? Where do you want to go? How can I help you? When they land on a page, these are all questions brands may ask customers, a conversation they will most likely have with a bot.

How can brands deliver seamless customer service when, in reality, many organizations are cost-cutting in this area?

Many people have had a less-than-optimal experience using chatbots; overall, they have not yet matured enough and aren’t always ready for the tasks we give them. You can ask a simple question and get back random suggestions, leading to a frustrating experience. So, how do we resolve this?

We must consider bridging the gap between AI and HI (Human Intelligence). It is crucial to connect the two and find their strengths and weaknesses and how best they work together. This isn’t something that will happen overnight; therefore, instead of reacting quickly to trends, it’s about delivering value in the current format and ensuring the technology stack and partners you choose today have the options for the future. Start incrementally from where you are and think about what you’re trying to achieve and why that makes sense for your business—leveraging the technological advances with a human touch for your customers.

Looking ahead: 2024 and beyond

In terms of trends, a few are continuing and becoming more reinforced as we move forward. Authenticity and transparency are all about showing the story of a product, sharing the sourcing of materials and being clear on the brand’s ethical practices to gain consumers’ trust. Patagonia is an excellent example of a brand living its values.

Purpose-driven storytelling is another clear trend gaining strength in 2024, where brands must show more than just profit –aligning with a cause and truly connecting with their customers. This is important not only for socially conscious consumers but also for motivating employees and fostering a sense of purpose within the company. TOMs is a fitting example of this with their “one for one” model, a pair of shoes donated for every pair purchased.

Thirdly, there’s, of course, sustainability, which isn’t a trend at all but rather a shift in consumer consciousness. There’s no Planet B, so we have to act, and ecommerce overall isn’t always viewed kindly.

However, plenty is being done, notably within returns, a huge driver of additional deliveries, packaging, and even wasted products. From informing consumers on the effects of their choices and adding more eco-responsible delivery options, there’s an ever-growing number of technical solutions to help mitigate. According to McKinsey, 70% of returns are due to poor fit, where we can already find solutions like the Nike Fit App, ensuring a correct fit for your shoes across their collections.

Consumers are driving innovation in terms of a more conversational and playful experience to demand more environmentally aware brands with purpose, so change is on the ecommerce horizon. These are exciting times!

For businesses aiming to capitalize on AI in 2024, it’s crucial to reflect on its unique value and opportunities, whether in enhancing customer experience through augmented reality (AR) services or improving efficiency with AI assistants and bots. The success of AI hinges on the ability to manage and interpret unstructured data and understanding the importance of the underlying technology.

Download the Digital Trends Report & connect with our partners

As we look at the potential of AI in ecommerce, we invite you to learn more about these insights and strategies by downloading our Digital Trends Report 2024. This comprehensive guide offers a closer look at the future of digital commerce and provides actionable advice on navigating these changes effectively.

For personalized guidance on implementing these trends within your organization, we encourage you to get in touch with our team. Together, we can explore the vast possibilities of AI and digital innovation to drive your ecommerce strategy forward.

Speakers

Sandra Domeij – Global Head of Experience Design, Vaimo

With nearly two decades of design experience within media, branding, and telcos, Sandra brings a wealth of expertise to the panel. As a previous global design lead for a major telecommunications company, Sandra is adept at managing complex projects and cross-functional collaborations and is a constant evangelist for design thinking and human centricity.

James Barlow – VP UKI, Akeneo

James is an ecommerce expert with the experience and know-how to help organisations of every shape and size automate and improve their product information management to accelerate their overall ROI.
Before Akeneo, he worked with some or the largest companies in the world to increase their online sales and improve productivity.

Mike Saar – Director of Sales, Vue Storefront

Mike has been in the tech industry since the 1990s, working across various sectors such as Customer Service, Speech Analytics, and Customer Experience. Since 2011, he has been dedicated to ecommerce solutions, mainly focusing on frontend experiences for web and mobile. Mike created a data analysis platform for business metrics on IBM Tealeaf and now contributes to Vue Storefront, optimizing ecommerce platforms with efficient frontend strategies.

Dasha Cherniavskaia – Head of Product Marketing, commercetools

Dasha leads Product Marketing at commercetools. Software engineer by profession but creative at heart, she found her happy place in marketing. With 15 years of experience in tech, she specialises in SaaS B2B product marketing, leading product launches and building high-performing marketing teams.

Jonathan Jones – Regional Director UK, Contentful

Jonathan brings over a decade of experience leading growth and business development teams within fast-growing SaaS companies. The past five years have been helping to grow Contentful in the UK market. Contentful is the market-leading composable content management platform, offering companies of all sizes a modern and scalable way to manage their digital content.