OMO Consumer Era E-commerce Marketing Essential Techniques

        During the epidemic, physical retail operations were greatly impacted, and in order to break through the difficulties, many channels began to launch online shopping services. However, simply listing products cannot guarantee door-to-door business. The business thinking, knowledge, and required skills for online shopping are different from those of physical channels. In order to assist Far Eastern Group's retail system in operating online business more quickly and avoiding unnecessary detours, the group's comprehensive efficiency and retail planning headquarters has specially arranged practical training courses to help colleagues become Sense e-commerce professionals.

                Due to the assistance of Covid-19 and the rise of the stay at home economy, e-commerce has achieved unprecedented growth during the pandemic; With the lifting of the epidemic restrictions, physical retail channels have regained momentum, and although e-commerce growth is gradually slowing down, consumers have developed the habit of online shopping. The online sales of Taiwan's retail industry increased from NTD 25.7 billion in 2018 to NTD 50.35 billion in 2023 (accounting for 11.7% of the total retail sales), a multiple growth in six years. Looking ahead to 2024, the global e-commerce market is expected to reach a scale of USD 6.4 trillion (accounting for 20.3% of overall retail sales), with an annual revenue growth rate of 9.4% (estimated by eMarketer), indicating that despite the diminishing benefits of the pandemic, the global e-commerce market still has the opportunity to expand further.

        Mobile interface becomes more important in mobile commerce

        I believe that most people wake up every morning and check the messages on their phones first, rather than turning on their computers. This shows that the usage rate of mobile phones has surpassed that of computers and become the main tool in people's daily lives. Therefore, in order to improve the experience of online shopping users, it is necessary to pay attention to the operation on mobile devices, especially the optimization and improvement of the mobile interface.

        Understand the e-commerce formula and formulate strategic goals

        In the process of operating e-commerce, understanding the definition and calculation formula of Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) is also an important part. It can calculate the total transaction amount of the website during a specific period of time, including the total amount of paid and unpaid orders.

        The Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) is composed of four indicators: monthly traffic, conversion rate, average unit price, and repurchase rate. The formula is "GMV=monthly traffic x conversion rate x average unit price x repurchase rate". Therefore, to improve GMV, the following four strategic directions should be listed first.

        1 Increase traffic

        There are many sources of traffic, such as pipelines--

                Search engines: Consumers who usually enter e-commerce platforms through search engines have a strong "purpose" orientation. For example, entering 'baby snacks' indicates a demand for baby snacks. To increase the traffic imported from search engines, one needs to make their webpage appear on the first page. To appear on the first page, one is to do a good job of "SEO" search engine optimization on the website, and the other is to use "SEM" keyword advertising marketing.

        Member email: Proactively contact users who have made previous purchases via email to notify members of exclusive discount information.

        Advertising placement: If you don't want to passively wait for consumers to come to your door, you can place display or audio-visual advertisements. However, consumers who are motivated by advertisements are mostly impulsive buyers, so in order to promote "impulse", the correct product selection is extremely important. It is recommended to divide products into nine grids based on their price and discount levels. Products that fall in the category of low price and high discount are more likely to stimulate consumers' shopping impulse and are suitable as the main products for advertising.

        2 Improve conversion rate

        To improve conversion rates and enable consumers to find reasons to purchase, it is key to start from several aspects, such as offering discounted prices, highlighting product features, launching limited or timed promotions, free shipping discounts, using photos or videos to create a shopping atmosphere, and providing services that are superior to competitors (such as convenient return and exchange policies). In addition, the FAB rule (Features Advantage、Benefit Identifying the characteristics, relative advantages, and benefits that can meet consumer needs of a product will help marketers develop more attractive communication strategies.

        Feature: Each product has its unique features that can be reflected in design, functionality, or quality.

        Advantage (the advantage of a product compared to its competitors): may include aspects such as price, service, brand influence, etc.

        Benefit (the benefits that a product can bring to consumers): whether it is solving problems, meeting needs, or adding fun.

        After understanding the FAB rule, it is necessary to further consider how to apply it to attract consumers. What is the most concerning part for consumers, F, A, or B? In fact, in most cases, consumers are more concerned about their own interests and want to know what benefits the product can bring. Therefore, instead of constantly boasting about one's own strengths, the communication model of B → A → F from the perspective of consumers will be more likely to succeed.

                3 Increase the average unit price per customer

        The ways to provide unit price can be considered from combining products, cross selling, full amount gifts, additional purchase plans, free shipping thresholds, etc., so that consumers can consume more at once and the e-commerce performance will be more impressive.

        4 Raise repurchase rate

        It is necessary to operate membership to determine whether consumers have repurchased. The RFM (Recency, Frequency, Monetary) model can be used to track member behavior and tailor corresponding solutions.

        R (Recency): Recent trading time, the closer it is, the more active it is.

        F (Frequency): The frequency of purchases in the past period of time, the more times it is made, the more valuable the customer is.

        M (Monetary): The higher the transaction amount, the greater the customer value.

        Based on the above indicators, members can be divided into four categories: high contribution users, general users, potential customers, and customers who need to be retained. For high contribution users, we may offer the first wave of trial and discount services when the new product is launched. As for retaining customers, we can moderately send discount codes and care letters to remind members of our existence.

        Overall, although the status of various industries and brands varies, detailed records and data tracking should be conducted after implementing any action plan. After long-term accumulation, the key factors driving revenue growth can be identified.

        Combining reality and virtuality to create comprehensive effects

        Today's consumers are no longer limited to online and offline consumption, but cross channel consumption. In order to leverage the synergies of the group and build the sustainable competitiveness of the group's retail system, the group's synergies and retail planning headquarters will work with related enterprises to continuously promote virtual and real integration, digital upgrade solutions, and make good use of the economic scale of the group's 6 million retail app members to increase monetization and diversion opportunities. By grasping the consumption footprints of members online and offline, we will strengthen customer stickiness and leverage the benefits of OMO (online merge offline) full channel integration to create a long-term growth blueprint.

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