One theme that emerges loud and clear in our interview, featured in today’s InternetRetailing newsletter, with Bruce MacInnes, chairman of BrandAlley UK, is the importance of meeting customer expectations. Whether that’s when shoppers order or take delivery, use the mobile website or forthcoming mobile app – or even shop at a potential future store – it’s important, says MacInnes, that the customer understands what to expect, and gets that experience. He makes the point that customer expectations in themselves haven’t changed dramatically in recent years: what’s changed is that retailers are getting better at hitting the mark.
That’s underlined in today’s newsletter where we hear from a range of retailers on the importance of the delivery experience.
All of this is important at a time when shoppers seem to be venturing into shops less often, and at a time when the industry is moving into new areas such as the use of artificial intelligence where it’s less clear what’s to be expected, and how retailers should respond. The House of Lords’ committee on artificial intelligence argues that it’s important to develop an ethical approach to AI that will help underpin the UK’s position as a world-leader in this areas.
We also report as Quiz trials a menswear collection and ecommerce site. Today’s guest comment comes from Guy Chiswick of Webloyalty who considers another expectation of today’s customers: that shopping must be convenient.
The 6th Ecommerce Cup
The new-look expanded event – now able to cater for up to 50 teams – is to be held on June 21. This is the sixth annual Ecommerce Cup, in which Tamebay is joined by sister publications InternetRetailing and eDelivery to host the event.
The expansion comes after the cup was last year oversubscribed, with so many players taking part that the pre-match briefing had to be held on the pitch.
This year’s 2018 Ecommerce Cup will again be held in Shepherd’s Bush – where the entire venue has been booked out – and is now open for bookings, with places allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Click here to find out more and sign up.
Webinars Find out more about upcoming InternetRetailing webinars and register for free on the InternetRetailing webinar page. You can also catch up with past webinars on the page: recent sessions have come from IBM Watson on using AI to improve the customer experience, and from SmartFocus and The Entertainer on using social to reach digital customers.
