But one area where bricks-and-mortar shops still trump online is the social experience; e-commerce operators have not been able to recreate online the experience of a leisurely stroll through the mall on a Saturday afternoon with friends. While online retailers are looking to create a more social experience by engaging customers through entertaining content and social media, the ability to get feedback from peers on an outfit is an area that currently remains lacking.
This is an area that online retailers are working to develop at the moment. The most significant launch in this area is Net-A-Porter’s the Net Set app, which will run across the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch platforms. The online retailer describes the venture as its first attempt to unite its social media, fashion and shopping communities in one place. It will link fashion-savvy consumers, per-sonalities, style leaders, curators and brands. They will be able to share their style, loves and inspirations instantly. It is fully shoppable, and will allow luxury brands to manage a real-time social dialogue with Net-a-porter customers.
Net-A-Porter group founder and executive chairman Natalie Massenet said the move was driven by the “rise of social media and style blogs” which have shown that “women around the world are inspired by each other’s styles and their closets.”
Harnessing Social Aspects
While Net-A-Porter has always been hugely innovative in its approach to creating an enhanced shopping experience, with its content-driven strategy that led to the launch of a standalone magazine last year, other retailers are looking to harness social aspects without creating their own social networks.
“Previously online focused on price and product comparison. The high street is a much more social experience because you can go with your friend and make a day of it,” said Boohoo e-commerce head Rebecca Smith. “Online now, the social part is becoming a big part of every day life--it’s showing things to friends, comparing outfits, showing things on Instagram, sharing boards on Pin-terest. It’s becoming key in fashion retail and we’re looking at ways we can embrace that and allow people to become more involved in the product from a social point of view.
“We also want our customers to be advocates for the brand, to pull the outfits together, be the stylists, be the ones that will recommend the latest trends, rather than us. That’s one of the big things for us--we are looking at how we can strengthen our relationship with our customer.”
Shopping Online Together
As mobile becomes increasingly important, retailers are starting to suggest that consumers will shop online together, but not necessarily in a bricks and mortar store. Christian Drehkopf, head of mobile apps and consumer engagement at German e-commerce clothing retailer Zalando, said it is seeing consumers share outfits via their mobile devices.
“E-commerce has deeply changed the social aspect of shopping but it didn’t eliminate it, quite the contrary. The people’s shopping behaviour itself is changing heavily these days, especially through mobile commerce, which enables them to shop anywhere, anytime. Meanwhile traffic to the Zalando website happens predominantly from mobile devices, not desktops. And it is not only that the people want to shop 24/7 from wherever they are.
“The same goes for giving advice or sharing inspirations with your friends or family. Mobile is the perfect channel for this because in their core, mobile devices are still interpersonal communication devices that enable us to share content via channels like WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, etc. We found out that opinions and advice from friends and family are highly important factors when it comes to final purchasing decisions and we will be investing even more into the combination of mobile and sharing in the future.”
Beyond this, the retailer is set to unveil a series of initiatives that will enable consumers to share styles and collections with their peers.
“On a long-term perspective it is our utmost desire to become the starting point for fashion acting as an admired fashion expert for our customers to help them to build a personal lifestyle over time,” Drehkopf said.
Bringing The Shop Assistant Online
While online retailers may never be able to completely recreate the in-store shopping experience from a social perspective, they are working to find ways of bringing the perspective offered by an in-store shop assistant online, both to their own platforms and social media ones.
For instance, Zalando says that through chat mechanisms, customers can tell its online stylists that they want a bag similar to one pictured in a famous blogger’s Instagram feed; the stylist will then tell them who made it and point them in the direction of something similar on its site.
The company is also working on an app called Project Amaze that will be tied to Zalando but will not be connected to the retailer by name. Bloggers will be able to post outfits on the site, which then can be bought by its customers using a Tinder-style swipe mechanism, with links driving customers to purchase products through Zalando.
“You probably know this feeling from the offline world where you stroll the streets and get inspiration. We would like to take that experience online by focusing on exploration and influencing, then we can widen the pool,” said Zalando VP of customer experience, Christoph Lütke Schelhowe.
Go Where The Customers Are
But Barney Worfolk-Smith, director of social content company That Lot, suggests that rather than reinventing the wheel through creating new apps and social networks, it’s important for retailers to go to the platforms where their customers are already present.
“If you, as a brand, create a walled garden experience for consumers of your product, you’re swimming against the tide of the big social platforms,” Worfolk-Smith said. “What strikes me as the most effective way to get consumers socialising around your e-commerce experience is to hook into the big social platforms and try to emulate the parts of that retail experience that people enjoy. For example, things like “how do I look in this” - that’s very easy to replicate in Facebook, Twitter or Instagram using their native video applications.”
The future remains uncertain, as these nascent technologies develop rapidly, but Worfolk-Smith says that despite retail changing “fundamentally” over the last decade, it will still continue.
“People, especially young people, will still want to hang out at the mall. What is happening is that the experience is less about shopping and more about getting feedback on outfits, or eating. Retail is almost the backdrop. It's about that experience of hanging out at the weekend. That experienc
