Companies need to invest in Digital Business Design to participate in Digital Commerce. Digital commerce is growing rapidly, and according to market research company Statista, it will reach $9 trillion in value with an average transaction value of $1660 per user by 2027.
According to our research, the adoption of Generative AI will be a game-changer in how businesses design and deliver their services. In this article, we’ll delve into the concept of Digital Business Design for Digital Commerce Services, exploring the transformative power of Generative AI through real-life use cases.
Understanding Digital Business Design:
Digital Business Design encompasses conceptualization, experimentation, development, delivery, and operation of innovative value propositions and business models using digital capabilities and channels to create end-user value, enhance customer experiences, and drive new revenue streams and growth. Intelligent Services play an integral role in Digital Commerce, and Generative AI plays a pivotal role in designing and optimizing these services for maximum impact.
Gen AI has immense potential to transform how we search, shop, transact, and consume in a new age of commerce. GenAI is not a technology; it’s an entirely new capability and a paradigm, just like electricity, the internet, and e-commerce.
Traditional E-commerce is on the verge of disruption, and intelligently crafted, deployed, and managed GenAI services will be at its center. This is why all digital companies are investing in generative AI, and recently, Visa pledged $100 million in a venture fund to nurture innovative and disruptive venture-backed startups building across generative AI, commerce, and payments.
Example: Live Streaming Commerce Revolution:
Live Streaming commerce has emerged as a phenomenon that seamlessly blends entertainment with shopping. Live Streaming is already a $512 Billion market opportunity in China. According to Coresight Research, US livestream sales will reach $32 Billion by the end of 2023. The first 𝟑𝟎 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐬 of Alibaba’s Singles’ Day pre sales campaign on Taobao Live generated $𝟕.𝟓 𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧.
This trend, popularized by platforms like Alibaba’s Taobao Live and Amazon Live, provides a real-time, interactive shopping experience where customers can engage with hosts, ask questions, and make purchases—all within the livestreaming environment.
The AI generates personalized livestream events hosted by human or virtual stylists for customers by analyzing past purchases, browsing history, and style trends. These stylists showcase products that can be tailored to individual tastes, creating an immersive and personalized shopping journey.
Montreal-based footwear brand Aldo piloted their inaugural live streaming shopping with celebrity stylist Mimi Cuttrell and Los Angeles-based entertainer Nate Wyatt to host the event. The duo shared their style tips on how to wear various styles of Aldo shoes and accessories. The Aldo website saw about 17,000 page views in the first five days after the event, with an average viewing time of 12 minutes and six seconds.
Example: Subscription Commerce
According to The Business Research Company, the market for subscription commerce will reach $1.48 trillion by 2027. Amazon.com generates approximately $25.21 billion yearly from membership services like Amazon Prime.
The main types of subscriptions in the subscription e-commerce market are service subscriptions, subscription boxes, digital content subscriptions, and others.
Subscription boxes offer auto-replenishment services for different categories, e.g., grocery, health, fitness, beauty, and pet care, that are shipped to customers at regular intervals. According to a survey by manufacturing firm Jabil, 79% of survey participants were interested in auto-replenishment services.
A Direct-to-Customer (D2C) beauty retailer, Ipsy offers Glam Bag Plus bag subscriptions. In 2020, a Glam Bag Plus Bag costs up to $350 a month but cost members $25. The Glam Bag gives subscription members five “deluxe” samples for $12 per month, while the Glam Bag Ultimate gives members eight personalized full-size products and four deluxe samples for $50 per month. With these offers, Ipsy’s customers grew 60% month over month from mid-March to the end of July 2020.
Principles for Digital Business Design
Digital Business Design requires an entirely new way of thinking about customer experience and journeys in Digital Commerce. Here are some critical components of this framework:
A coherent and consistent Digital Business Strategy:
Digital Businesses need a mix of radical customer-centric innovation and seamless orchestration of service operations to deliver successful outcomes and experiences. Therefore, all elements of business – marketing, technology, supply chain, finance, sales, and procurement must work in tandem to support the digital business.
Customer-centric innovation
Understanding your customers’ preferences and behaviors is the basis for digital business. Digital solutions must align with the customer’s life areas, purpose, maturity, and constraints. Solutions must be based on an in-depth data-driven customer understanding and optimized for delivering meaningful outcomes, experience, and need-based solutions with the least friction across all touchpoints.
Agile ways of working
All elements of digital business must be developed in short iterations based on first-hand customer feedback. It applies to customer value propositions, product and service development, pricing and commercials, marketing, and all elements of business model design.
Experimentation, Data, and decision intelligence
Data and data-driven decision-making are the lifeblood of digital businesses. All strategy and design a hypothesis until proven by experiments. In-depth behavioral and performance data analysis and rigorous experimentation to validate assumptions ensure the business is built on a solid foundation.
Value-based Solutions and Pricing
Digital Business relationships must be based on data-driven value exchange instead of transactional product/service monetization. Digital business aspires to help customers progress in their problem areas, grow and nurture the community, and grow along with them.
Platform and Automation
Digital business is delivered through platforms and automation capabilities. Automation enables employees and managers to focus on the customers and identify better ways to understand, acquire, serve, and retain them rather than spending time executing repetitive operational steps.
Technology-led Innovation
Digital technologies are evolving at breathtaking speed, and new capabilities are being created daily. Continuously assess emerging technologies relevant to the business domain and foster a culture of continuous learning to keep teams updated. It is crucial that technology is perceived as an enabler of business strategies instead of its driver.
Ecosystem-wide Collaboration:
Digital Businesses cannot survive in siloed organization units. Collaboration and co-creation is a key to continuous value delivery. Encourage collaboration between different departments, breaking down silos to ensure a unified approach. Instead of solely relying on internal capabilities, establish a rich ecosystem of partners to deliver personalized services and outcomes.
Experience Design
Customers crave meaningful experiences from interacting with products and services and are willing to pay a premium for them. Align products and services to serve emotional, social, and contextual needs in addition to functional needs. Implement responsive design principles to ensure a consistent, meaningful experience across various touchpoints.
Security and Compliance:
Security builds trust. Implement robust security protocols to protect user data and ensure the integrity of digital solutions. Regularly conduct compliance checks to adhere to industry standards and data protection and privacy regulations.
Performance Monitoring and Optimization:
Digital businesses must be constantly adapted and tuned to be relevant and efficient through the changing business and customer landscape. Define and refine key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor digital initiatives ‘value contribution.’ Regularly find opportunities to improve performance metrics and iterate on digital solutions for continuous improvement.
Scalability and Future-Proofing:
A business that doesn’t scale doesn’t survive. Target achieving a critical mass of customers early and design digital solutions with adaptability and scalability to accommodate growth in users and data.
Benefits of Digital Business Design with Generative AI:
Enhanced Customer Engagement:
Generative AI-driven personalization, interactive features, and adaptive content boost customer engagement, fostering a sense of identity, connection, and community.
Increased Conversion Rates:
Personalized recommendations, intelligent assistants, and dynamic pricing increase conversion rates as customers find relevant products and receive real-time assistance.
Optimized Inventory Management:
Predictive analytics powered by a combination of traditional Machine Learning and Generative AI enables digital business managers to ask simple questions in natural language about current inventory trends and potential ‘What-If’ scenarios for stocking and replenishment decisions.
Seamless Multichannel Experiences:
Multichannel accessibility ensures customers enjoy commerce experiences across various touchpoints and devices, increasing accessibility and convenience.
Data-Driven Decision-Making:
Generative AI enables data-driven decision-making, providing actionable insights into customer preferences, market trends, and the effectiveness of easy-to-understand language and graphics for complex datasets.
Conclusion:
In the rapidly evolving digital commerce landscape, Digital Business Design is not a luxury but an imperative for success. Data and Generative empowers businesses to design and deliver services in innovative ways. New Commerce models like Livestreaming commerce demonstrate the changing customer behavior and the need to redesign business models and processes. As businesses embrace the Digital Business Design framework, they are not just adapting to change—they are leading the way in shaping the future of digital commerce.
References:
- https://www.statista.com/outlook/dmo/fintech/digital-payments/digital-commerce/worldwide
- https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/43051/visa-creates-100-million-generative-ai-venture-fund?
- https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/09/livestream-shopping-booms-as-small-businesses-hit-social-media-.html
- https://www.scmp.com/tech/e-commerce/article/3107667/alibabas-taobao-live-hits-us75-billion-first-30-minutes-presales
- https://retail-insider.com/retail-insider/2021/06/aldo-pilots-livestream-shopping-as-the-asian-trend-expands-into-canada-expert-commentary/
- https://www.thebusinessresearchcompany.com/report/subscription-ecommerce-global-market-report
- CONNECTED PACKAGING PERCEPTIONS AND ATTITUDES A Consumer Insights Survey
www.jabil.com JULY 2021 - https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2020/08/05/ipsy-grows-subscription-beauty-memberships-60-during-pandemic/
- Amazon Prime Statistics 2023: How Many People Use Amazon Prime?
https://earthweb.com/amazon-prime-statistics/ - The state of subscription commerce 2022, www.rechargepayments.com
