Introduction

Digital commerce (D-commerce) is a type of e-commerce used by an organization that delivers and sells
products online. D-commerce is used by companies that sell news, subscriptions, documents or any
form of electronic content, and the digital commerce company collects payments, handles customer
refunds and billing and manages other accounting functions for online publisher clients.

Ecommerce involves commercial transactions done over internet. E- Business is conduct of business
processes on the internet. Ecommerce is subset of E-business .E-business is superset
of Ecommerce. Ecommerce is use of electronic transmission medium that caters for buying and selling
of products and services.

Definition

The buying and selling of goods and services using the Internet, mobile networks and commerce
infrastructure. It includes research and marketing activities that support these transactions, including
the people, processes and technologies to execute at all touch points throughout the customer buying
journey.”

Digital commerce goes well beyond a simple online transaction. It also includes research, development,
marketing, servicing, selling and buying products (the entire customer experience) for all devices and
platforms including desktops, mobile/tablets, social networks, etc.

For example, a manufacturing company needs to do more than just B2B e-Commerce for their
customers. They need to provide branded and consistent content to their customers, allow
their customers and sales reps to interact online through tools such as portals and give the end-user
(or consumer) tools to find the right product or content and a place to purchase it.

Social/ ethical aspects

 Privacy and anonymity: This social aspect is very important in Digital Commerce. It refers to how we
must be aware that privacy online is required, anonymity is involved as to who should be allowed to be
anonymous in network interactions and under what circumstances. It also refers to consumer privacy,
especially when buying online. Thus privacy is required because the implicit dangers are enormous and
can easily affect anyone of us.

 Security: This social aspect is very essential, security is necessary when it refers to buying items online, it
is required because we must ensure that our private information doesn't go everywhere and that the
pages we are visiting are safe.

 Policies and standards: There are always questions that pop up when someone is shopping online. Am I
protected online? Is my credit card number safe? How can I keep my credit card number safe? There are
many different tools and tricks you should know to buy and sell correctly online.
5 Key Strategies for Digital Marketing Your E-Commerce Website

1. Email marketing

 Email marketing is still one of the most powerful ways to communicate with your customers. It
is still the primary tool for business communication.

 Email before big data and sophisticated technology was all about just blasting your database
with a blanket email. In fact this is still the way most ecommerce businesses use email.

2. SEO

 Many companies are used to paying to appear in Google’s search results but achieved via
AdWords. Often not enough attention is paid to optimizing websites for search through tactics
that were not considered a couple of years ago by many.

3. Social media marketing

 Social media is still often considered a plaything for teenagers and the immature adult. The baby
boomer generation is now one of the fastest adopters of social media. So the reality is much
different.

4. Content marketing

 Content is a two syllable word that has become an online marketing strategy that has far
reaching effects that belies its verbal simplicity. It impacts search engine results, drives online
engagement and can create brand awareness at velocity when it goes viral.

 With Google’s recent updates the role of content has increased in priority. The search giant is
now rewarding sites with higher rankings that offer unique content that delivers a quality user
experience.

5. SEM

 Often ecommerce start-ups have a limited budget. All the money is spent on the design and
website development and they expect the buyers to just “show up”! It is not a build it and they
will come. 550 million plus websites and counting makes for a crowded web. You need to buy
some attention especially when the website is launched.
E-commerce is dead, long live digital commerce

Technology has changed the face of retail, shifting the power from brands to consumers who are well
informed and have more options. It has shaken up the marketplace, allowing the most determined
competitors to emerge as the new leaders.

By 2020, digital commerce in ASEAN is expected to grow exponentially to reach US$32 billion in the next
3 years. But what is driving this exponential expansion?

Demographics play a key role in driving this growth. 50% of ASEAN’s population is under 30 years of age,
and are coming into their prime spending years.

High usage of mobile devices and the internet continues to grow unabated, with 800 million mobile
connections and 480 million internet users expected by 2020. Increasing affluence, supported by rapid
GDP growth in excess of 5%, will see 70 million households become new consumers.

Governments across ASEAN are projected to invest US$200 billion between 2015 and 2020 in digital
infrastructure, putting pressure on the private sector to step up its game. Between 2014 and 2016,
companies in ASEAN invested US$3 billion in digital commerce and in the next four years, this amount is
forecasted to increase by more than triple, to US$10 billion.

The changing Asian consumer

The driving force behind all these changes is the consumer. As life in Asia gets more hectic, consumers
want to be rid of time-consuming activities and engage in activities they value most, for instance,
spending time with their families.

With the best technologies literally in the palm of their hands, consumers expect seamless customer
experiences online and offline. Almost one in four online purchases are now made on smartphones and
by 2020, 65% of all transactions will be carried out online.

Falling brick-and-mortar sales are also testament to how savvy shoppers have shifted to using smart
devices. Consumers seek information and make informed buying decisions by reading crowd-sourced
reviews and comparing prices across apps and websites to find the best deals.

This form of e-commerce is expected to change in 2020, as technologies evolve to prepare us for the
next stage – shoppers’ nirvana – where consumers can get what they want, before they even want it.

By then, the marriage of the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence will finally make smarter homes.
Smart refrigerators will automate the entire shopping process as they anticipate and provide alerts
when the stock of food items is low. Voice assisted devices will serve information predicatively and help
complete purchases via seamless payment methods.

Shopping can then be fully integrated into current life moments, allowing us to spend our time however
we want it without being bogged down with tedious chores.

The new age of digital commerce

So why is e-commerce dead? This is because what has worked in the past no longer does. Simply
featuring your products on an online platform and spending money on marketing is not enough to
attract the evolving Asian consumer.

This semi-active mode based on the current e-commerce paradigm is lagging behind what consumers
want. Leading companies have shifted away from such traditional methods of online selling in the last
18 months as it offers limited activations, customer experience and data.

Many have embraced digital commerce as a more holistic way of doing business online. Digital
commerce allows them to generate demand, control the supply chain, enhance the customer
experience and provide sufficient data to analyze how to more effectively direct their marketing efforts
in an integrated way.

Fashion house Ralph Lauren has adopted this integrated strategy while creating a deeper emotional
connection with its customers. At its Manhattan flagship store, interactive fitting rooms recognise the
items that customers bring in to try through radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology. The smart
mirrors automatically render the items on the screen, as well as available sizes, colours and
recommendations. Other features of the mirror include six language options and a tap on the “call an
associate” button to summon a sales associate. At the backend, the RFID data are analysed to aid
retailers with future merchandising decisions, such as information on items that are frequently tried on
but not purchased.

Victory to the brave

To catch up with the needs of today’s and tomorrow’s consumers, companies need to build up their
digital commerce and marketing playbook, and evaluate their current online strategy and level of
technology. This can be achieved through technology enablers such as data analytics, product and web
content management systems, payments, order management and logistics planning to deliver a best-in-
class customer experience.

Digital commerce is not e-commerce

E-commerce is online selling – set up a website and sell your products and services.

Gartner defines digital commerce as:

The buying and selling of goods and services using the Internet, mobile networks, and commerce
infrastructure. It includes the marketing activities that support these transactions, including people,
processes, and technologies to execute the offering of development content, analytics, promotion,
pricing, customer acquisition and retention, and customer experience at all touch points throughout the
customer buying journey.

Merging the physical and digital commerce worlds

Digital commerce also takes into consideration the offline sales experience as well as the online
experience. The two are inextricably connected, thanks to the high usage of mobile devices in the
shopping experience.
In the demand ware Shopping Index, which analyzes the activities of 250 million shoppers worldwide,
it’s clear that the mobile phone is taking over as the device of choice for digital commerce.

The index shows that while the desktop is still the primary device at 48 percent of traffic, phones are
close behind at 41 percent. Also interesting to point out that tablets only have 11 percent traffic. Cross-
device shopping is up 14 percent year over year with the path typically desktop to phone.

Here’s why the phone is taking over so quickly in digital commerce. Consumers carry their phones with
them everywhere, and they use them all the time: standing in line at a checkout, waiting for the doctor
or the mechanic, riding on the train or airline. Shopping happens in those moments as well as on the
couch at night, or away from the desktop on lunch break. Phones are even used in physical stores to
price check, read reviews, get more product information, and sometimes even make the final purchase
(and not at the store they are in). As per Demand ware:

Retailers take note, phone-first is not a luxury, and it’s a requirement. The experience must be designed
for mobile, which means quick load times, full-feature sites as well as symmetry across devices and into
both your marketing and commerce experiences.

The demand ware Index talks about the “high degree of interruption when phones are used.” What does
that mean? It means your mobile shopping experience needs to be frictionless. Your site must be easy to
navigate, easy to read, and your calls to action must be right there with a single click.

IBM research corroborates this thinking. It found that consumer attention spans are shrinking. Average
session length for October this year was 6:49. Two years ago it was 7:33. That’s a 10 percent decline that
is only going to grow. IBM also found that bounce rates on mobile phones were 39.1 percent compared
to 32 percent on desktops.

The Digital Commerce Cycle

Advantages:

Not such a long time ago, people used to travel great distances to meet both their needs and desires.
You would make a journey to the Orient if you were in need of spices or silk, or even closer in time to us
was travelling abroad if the prices there were lower than in our vicinity. Travelling to acquire goods was
eliminated by the surge of e-commerce.

E-commerce is global. That is a whole lot of space which it covers. With the rise of the delivery drones, it
is also becoming a lot more convenient than driving to a store, browsing merchandise, waiting in a line,
buying a product, and driving all the way back whence you came. Herein lies the power of electronic
commerce and its websites. Instead of doing this (mostly) tedious routine day in, day out, you could hop
on your phone, browse for nearby shops and restaurants with delivery, and order everything you need.

All of these advantages mostly pertain to your typical Homo sapiens consumer. If you are a wise
businessperson, it will not take you a long time to see all of these benefits as an opportunity to expand
your empire. Once again, e-commerce is global. There is no possible wider audience, at least for the
moment.

With a global reach, comes a global access. You can operate and manage your business all the time, 24
hours a day, and seven days a week, all year long. In turn, as you can get orders faster, you get to enjoy
faster transactions. A true win-win situation if I have ever seen one.

 Much faster transactions available 24/7.

 Products and services are easy to find.
 Easier time managing a business.
 Doesn’t require much (if at all) physical space.
 No geographical limitations translates as a bigger customer reach.
 Higher quality of services and lower operational costs.

Disadvantages:

For the third time, e-commerce is a global marketplace. You can order various products and services
from nearly anywhere in the world. Sure, you can use e-commerce websites just to order a pepperoni
pizza, but imagine how long it would take if you ordered it from across the globe. Of course, you will not
be ordering pizza from the polar opposite of your current standing point. As common sense dictates, the
farther you and your order are, the longer it takes for it to arrive. This particular disadvantage does not
affect services such as content creation, web development or web design, but it does massively affect
products with a shorter shelf life.

Even though e-commerce offers a lot more information about a product or a service than traditional
retail, it does not allow you to experience any of it before buying.

Another disadvantage that we often see pop up here and there is credit card or identity theft. Although
both are severe issues, we could argue that a lot worse could happen the next time you carelessly run
over the street to grab that delicious Popsicle.
Popsicles melt. While it might not be a direct disadvantage of e-commerce, the delivery of certain
products is at the moment cost inefficient. However, we do hope that drones carrying ice cream in little
refrigerators will be the next big thing of the future!

 No guarantee of product quality.

 Customer loyalty becomes a bigger issue as there is a minimal direct customer-company
interaction.
 Inability to experience products beforehand leads to more checkout dropouts.
 Anyone can start an online business, which sometimes leads to scam and phishing sites.
 Hackers target web shops more often than you think.
 Mechanical failures can get quite more punishing.