E-commerce has won the battle for efficiency. But at what price?
Optimized for conversion, calibrated for performance, online commerce has sacrificed what physical retail knew how to produce: Emotion, surprise, attachment. If we believe the latest data collected by Criteo from 7,000 consumers worldwide, 76 % judge the online buying route not very exciting. A third of them go further: shopping online is now in chore.
This observation signs the failure of a model exclusively turned towards transactional logic. By dint of favoring algorithmic relevance, platforms have emptied the act of purchase from its share of intuition and pleasure. THE digital trade has become mechanical, silent, without roughness. In contrast, the physical retail continues to seduce by its ability to Place the product, to play on the five senses, to create moments.
Digital has not replaced physical experience. He narrowed it.
The initial promise of e-commerce was simple: Make the purchase easier, faster, more fluid. This promise was held. But it caused a standardization of experience. On the majority of sites, the product pages are alike. The recommendations are repeated. Customer relationship is limited to an interface. The interface, precisely, is not experience.
In store, each detail counts: light, arrangement, temporality, human relationship. These elements are not accessories: They make perceived value. Physical trade creates a sensory framework where the customer projects himself. It does not only sell a product, it writes a universe.
Reconciling the two worlds does not consist in importing the codes of the retail. The effects must be translated.
The question is therefore not to reproduce an online physical store. She is to know How to digitally transpose the emotional mechanisms of the retail : surprise, game, staging, rarity, visible personalization.
Digital allows impossible things in store: asynchronous interaction, large -scale personalization, real -time analysis. But he does not use them to create magic. He uses them to create performance.
It’s time to reverse logic: Put the technique at the service of enchantment.
Three principles to recreate the magic of retail in e-commerce
1. Stage discovery
One of the major attractions of retail is the possibility of fall on an unexpected productto stroll, to associate freely. Digital has stifled this logic of serendipity by over-optimizing the routes.
Creating a real online discovery experience is:
- Introduce editorial and visual content in rupture;
- Propose contextual thematic selections, linked to moments of life or emotions, not to navigation history;
- Develop interactive formats: quiz, live shopping, mood recommendation.
2. Reintroduce the relational dimension
Physical trade is based on a form of human interaction, sometimes brief, but often decisive. Conversely, the digital relationship is reduced to transactional follow -up. The customer is a number, the dialogue a form.
Alternatives exist:
- Highlighting advisers via video modules or messaging;
- Visible and embodied customization (e.g. nominative messages, recommendations signed);
- IA integration not as an optimization tool, but as Personalized and scripted exchange interface.
3. Treat the staging of the product
The physical product can be touched, tried, compared. Online, it is seen from a single angle, frozen, technical. You have to reinvent your digital presence ::
- Immersive videos, interactive zoom, dynamic situation;
- Scripted client testimonies as real useful stories;
- Use of UX to create a Emotional reading rhythmnot only informative.
Digital can do better than the physical, if it is released from purely utilitarian logic
The solution is not in nostalgia for retail. She is in the reinvention of an enriched digital trade : narrative, sensory, contextualized. This implies reintroducing a long-term vision in e-commerce strategies, now suffocated by immediate KPIS. The conversion rate says nothing about a brand attachment. The memory of a purchase, yes.
Reconciling the magic of retail with the power of digital is not a luxury, but an emergency. The future of online trade does not only depend on technology. It depends on His ability to re -enchant the ordinary.
