This year will see the smartphone evolve into a mobile shopping experience. Content is a vital contributor to brand experience, and in recent years the lines between content and commerce have become blurred. Shoppable content includes videos, articles, reviews, or photos, from which consumers can buy the items featured within it directly, without being redirected to another site.
New technology is weaving together content and shopping. Consumers can take pictures of items they like and search visually online. Machine learning helps to deliver a personalised shopping experience while universal shopping carts recreate the functionality of e-commerce sites without consumers having to create new accounts and provide credit card details for each new site they visit.
Consumers respond well to shoppable content, finding it persuasive and easy to navigate. By creating a unique content experience, brands can gain invaluable consumer data and insights, which can then be used to target consumers on multiple channels. Transforming brand-centric content into a personal shopping activity gives the shopper an exclusive experience they are likely to remember and tell their friends about.
Both brands and content providers are beginning to wake up to the potential of shoppable content. It is now possible to purchase items from Vogue’s Instagram account through the LikeToKnow.it application. Publishers such as BuzzFeed, Business Insider and Gawker have employed e-commerce editors and specialists to produce content that can be more easily monetised. Most publishers, though, still think of content first, with shopping as an afterthought.
What does this mean for brands?
Today’s shoppers enter and exit purchase decisions at various points during a site visit, so strategies need to be planned around a circular consumer decision journey rather than a linear sales funnel. Both advertisers and publishers can keep consumers on their owned sites and editorial platforms rather than forcing them to go elsewhere to buy. To drive more consumer action, content has to be instantly shoppable – a great combination of visually compelling images and interactive features. Brands need to make the route from discovery to purchase as easy as possible, and provide a great purchasing experience.