Last updated: Emotional shopping experiences will drive third wave of e-commerce

Emotional shopping experiences will drive third wave of e-commerce

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We’ve ridden the first two waves of e-commerce—commodity commerce and digital commerce—and now it’s time to prepare for the third wave.

That’s emotional e-commerce, according to Jason Goldberg, founder and CEO of Fab, a shopping site that combines aspiration with compelling content strategies to create a consumer experience that is, indeed, highly emotional.

In an editorial for BetaShop, Goldberg writes:

The third wave of e-commerce is all about bringing emotional purchases online. Non-commodity products. More thoughtful purchase decisions.  I like to call this Emotional Commerce. This is categories like furniture, home accessories, home textiles, fashion, art, and jewelry. These are categories where people care about having something special in their lives.

The three key drivers of successful emotional e-commerce are:

  1. Exciting merchandise
  2. Outstanding shopping experiences
  3. Excellence in brand building

Retailers that are able to offer interesting goods that create emotional excitement will win over consumers bombarded with homogenized products in a busy marketplace.

Offering up those products in an online environment that echoes the best of luxury shopping is certain to create a bond with customers overwhelmed with choices.

Last but not least, there must be an emotional component to the consumer-brand relationship, says Goldberg. Customers want to be associated with brands that are aspirational, brands that build a reputation not only of quality and trust, but offer a lifestyle ideal that is colorful, interesting and edgy.  He points to the success of Kate Spade and Apple, based not only on excellence in products but also on the image the two companies convey—brand messaging that is consistent across every channel.

This isn’t a small niche market, either. The market for furniture alone in the U.S. was about $63 billion in 2012, he adds. “That’s a whole lot of disruption waiting to happen,” writes Goldberg.

We couldn’t agree more. Is your brand ready?

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