How brands, retailers, and service providers can defeat commerce anarchy

It's a sign of the digital times. Facebook analytics say your response rate is top-notch, but your conversions are low. Or maybe there’s a trending brand demanding to be featured on your marketplace, but you’re beholden to their formatting for product details. You are not alone if you’re suffering from general fatigue at the pace of change in ecommerce over the past decade. 

If any of these scenarios sound familiar, you’re likely struggling to navigate the increasingly complicated paths between products and consumers — a phenomenon referred to as commerce anarchy. Driven by factors such as disparate datasets unfit for ecommerce, a lack of visibility, and an inability to keep pace with ever-increasing channel opportunities, commerce anarchy can create chaos in business operations.

Today marketing and sales execs engage more channels today than ever, leaving brands and retailers struggling — and often failing — to manage omnichannel B2B, B2C, and D2C processes. You need a fresh strategy to create the customer-centric experience today’s consumers demand.

3 steps to gain control over your commerce chaos

Connecting more deeply to your customers to cut through the chaos of the crowded ecommerce space requires a change in mindset. The challenges facing many retailers today can only be solved by transforming relationships and leaving outdated ecommece practices in the past. With that in mind, let’s take a look at three steps you can take to overcome commerce anarchy.

• Stop optimizing for individual routes. Historically, brands and retailers have taken a fragmented approach to digital commerce. Optimizing small parts of information value chains (e.g. tweaking a product description here and there) contributes to chaotic brand experiences and disconnected buyer journeys. The same goes for optimizing for a single channel, country, or market sector: It risks gradual loss of control and brand power.

• Leave traditional ecommerce routes and rules behind. It’s time to face and embrace today’s ecommerce complexities — with technology at the core of your business strategy. Today’s product-to-consumer paths can’t be traced effectively with outmoded tools. Continuous buyer feedback loops are critical in improving processes, and capturing this data is only possible with a better technology backbone.

• Act globally. You need to gain full control over your global value chain to thrive in the chaotic commerce space. In practice, this means unifying product data management across departments and regions. Implementing centralized value chain strategies across all your channels and products — simultaneously and through a single platform — will enable you to quickly adapt to changes and swoop in to embrace new opportunities. 

A centralized approach is critical

No matter how digitally savvy your business is, without an updated approach you risk losing loyal customers. A centralized strategy can enable you to focus on what matters most to your customers while providing them with a cohesive brand experience — ultimately leading to loyalty and revenue growth. Fix the platform problem and you can start to rein in commerce anarchy.