Connected Commerce for Small Businesses

Connected commerce offers an integrated online shopping experience, allowing customers to find brands across a variety of channels. In the digital era of today, businesses big and small must provide a consistent, user-friendly consumer experience on a variety of platforms, online and off.

In this guide, we’ll take you through connected commerce's meaning, some examples of it, as well as an overview of some of the key benefits it offers small businesses.

What is connected commerce?

Put simple, connected commerce means that your brand is accessible across multiple channels. This entails that customers can find you online via your website, social media platforms and various marketplaces, as well as in-person via pop-up shops, brick-and-mortar stores and potentially even your market presence.

Connected commerce basically means that all these platforms are connected through consistent branding. This means that marketing is similar across channels and your operations are all connected.

Ultimately, connected commerce pertains to the customer experience and brand awareness. Do your clients feel like there is a consistent brand image and character on social media as there is in-person? And is the same tone matched in a tweet as it is in product descriptions and customer support emails? If the answer is yes, then your company has mastered connected commerce.

Connected commerce examples

Connected commerce is more and more ubiquitous in the modern digital age. Some excellent examples of the commerce strategy in action include the following:

Buy online and pick up in store

A great example of optimal connected commerce is the trend of ordering online and picking up in store. For shoppers who prefer not to wait 3-5 days for delivery, but equally enjoy the ease of browsing and choosing items online, buy online and pick up in-store options are ideal. With a tool to find your nearest store and orders often ready within hours, this option is the perfect example of the convenience connected commerce can provide customers with.

Amazon Go/Amazon Fresh

Bringing the convenience and speed of online shopping to physical stores, Amazon Go is innovating the customer shopping experience. With no queues, digital receipts and automatic billing, customers can just walk out without having to check out items at the cash register.

Amazon Go is currently only present in the US and the UK (where it’s branded as Amazon Fresh), however, there are plans for it to be launched in Australia soon.

Benefits of connected commerce for small businesses

Connected commerce is the future of effective digital commerce. Some of the benefits of adopting the strategy are outlined below:

Enhances customer experience

With connected commerce, overall customer experience can be drastically improved. This is largely due to enhanced accessibility and convenience. For example, a customer may come across your brand on Instagram while on their smartphone, and then later checkout your website to order products on their PC. When a customer has a consistent and positive experience on these different channels, they will grow to trust a brand and likely make repeat purchases, becoming repeat customers and aiding your customer retention efforts.

Improves customer satisfaction

Connected to a positive customer experience is high customer satisfaction rates. When brands can meet consumer demands to shop from multiple locations and across multiple channels, customer satisfaction inevitably rises. This will help build stronger relationships with customers and lead to brand loyalty.

Consistent brand experience

With better connection across channels, it is far easier to keep your branding consistent across platforms. This can help you build a strong brand image and facilitate more effective customer marketing campaigns.

We can help

GoCardless is a global payments solution that helps you automate payment collection, cutting down on the amount of financial admin your team needs to deal with. Find out how GoCardless can help you with one-off or recurring payments.