{"id":4269774,"date":"2021-04-01T13:12:18","date_gmt":"2021-04-01T11:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.deptagency.com\/insight\/branded-commerce-the-logical-next-step\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T13:43:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T11:43:10","slug":"branded-commerce-the-logical-next-step","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.deptagency.com\/en-au\/insight\/branded-commerce-the-logical-next-step\/","title":{"rendered":"Branded commerce: the logical next step"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\n\t<\/svg>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tBack to all articles\t\t<\/span>\n\t\n<\/button>\n\t\tBranded commerce: the logical next step\t<\/h1>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/picture>\n\t\n\t<\/div>
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\n\t\tKristin Cronin\t\t
\n\t\tHead of Marketing US\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\tDate\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t1 April 2021\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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\n\t\tIf you\u2019re a brand that sells online and can\u2019t get across who you are and what you stand for, you\u2019re nothing but a shopping basket. If you do the opposite and just tell (yourself) how wonderful you are, you\u2019re a hot air balloon. But when you let those two extremes come together, you\u2019re practicing branded commerce. For (fashion) brands that deal directly with their customers, it is ideal to let their brand and commerce go hand in hand. That is more difficult when you sell different brands; then you have the additional question of what you\u2019re doing about e-commerce in order to be a differentiator yourself. Are you focusing fully on service? Do you give the best advice? Do you offer the most exclusive items? Do you carry the biggest portfolio or do you have the fastest delivery?\t<\/h2><\/div><\/div>\n\n
\n\t\tUp until now we\u2019ve been living in two separate worlds: that of the CMS and that of e-commerce platforms. This separation is not only found in technology, but also in the organisation of personnel. There\u2019s the marketing and communication department on the one hand and the IT and e-commerce departments on the other. The first is, of course, marketing oriented, the second focuses on technology. That separation between the departments existed before \u2013 even before the digital age \u2013 and technology has followed this dichotomy. From then on the separation grew and it became increasingly complicated for both parties to understand each other.\t<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\n
\n\t\tBrand preference\t<\/h2><\/div><\/div>\n\n
\n\t\tI recently spoke with a large travel organisation that is constantly working on the optimisation of their website and the booking flow. During that process they discovered: less is more. So no pictures and as few reviews as possible. But the problem with applying that learning is that all travel sites, including their competitors, end up looking the same, all working in the same way and offering the same kind of trips. What defines\u00a0you<\/em>\u00a0then as a travel organisation? Why would someone choose you over another? Of course you can be aware of all the things you do well, but the average customer goes through a funnel, books a vacation and then forgets who you are. You somehow have to ensure that people want to come back to you. Customers should have a brand preference. But how do you create that?\t<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\n
\n\t\tGuarantee to the front door\t<\/h2><\/div><\/div>\n\n
\n\t\tAn example of a chaotic, brand unfriendly site is the\u00a0bouwmarktshop<\/a>. Yet I\u2019ve developed a brand preference for them by pure coincidence. Their expertise, fast customer service and logistics are absolutely excellent. It nevertheless takes more effort than necessary to recommend them or revisit the site and that has to do with the miserable experience that the site offers me.\t<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\n
\n\t\tAll (fashion) brands face the same problem: they sell stuff, but the brand doesn\u2019t come across. You\u2019re welcomed on a homepage, the portal to a beautiful brand, decorated with stunning animations and convincing calls-to-action. On a typical page there is often a button saying WEBSHOP. Clicking it brings you to a grid with nothing but products. All the emotion of the homepage is gone. You sit in a dry tundra of filters and categories, hanging under a search bar. We see this \u2018solution\u2019 in many of the cases. The challenge in branded commerce is to make those two worlds one. To have the WEBSHOP and ABOUT US buttons disappear and have the website be an integrated world in which inspiration and conversion go hand in hand.\t<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\n
\n\t\tAbout you\t<\/h2><\/div><\/div>\n\n
\n\t\tA first sign of branded commerce on a large scale is the fashion store About You, daughter of the German Otto, the second largest webshop in Germany. Looking with a critical eye you can see that this is not the ultimate example of branded commerce yet, but when I log in via Facebook \u2018About You\u2019 changes to \u2018About Max\u2019. The shop takes my preferences into account. There is a battalion of influencers on the site who wear the clothing and tell stories about it. You can click \u2018shop-the-look\u2019 and are guided through relevant products. They have linked the hard side of commerce to a story that doesn\u2019t stop when you click a button.\t<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\n
\n\t\tNet-a-porter\t<\/h2><\/div><\/div>\n\n
\n\t\tOne of the forerunners of branded commerce is NET-A-PORTER, a mash-up of stories, editorials and shop-the-looks, with designers and influencers who set the tone for new outfits. The brand sets and follows trends in the high segment. The site has been working in the same way for a while now and you can be sure they\u2019re working on a next iteration. As a trendsetter they clearly understand where branded commerce has potential.\t<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\n
\n\t\tBranded commerce as the solution\t<\/h2><\/div><\/div>\n\n
\n\t\tBranded commerce is combining brand value \/ identity with pure commerce. There are two solution directions:\t<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\n
\n\t\tThe hard solution requires a turnaround in technology, a better integration of current e-commerce and CMS systems, or starting over. It sounds nice, bringing these worlds together. And it is, but it\u2019s also costly, because the big platforms on which all these webshops run are either a CMS or an e-commerce platform. There are CMS\u2019s that offer e-commerce modules \u2013 and vice versa \u2013 but they both have some work to do. We\u2019ll soon see that the CMS of Salesforce will have a better integration with Commerce Cloud and other suppliers will have the same outlook. So start the conversation today with your team, agency and supplier(s) of your platform and put it at the top of your development roadmap.\t<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\n
\n\t\tThe soft solution is about your differentiators. An important result of your brand differentiator is brand preference; you want to have people talking about your brand, otherwise you\u2019ll lose attention and need to constantly generate it. That is so expensive that at a certain point you\u2019ll no longer make a margin. So you have to nestle your brand in people\u2019s consciousness. A catchy slogan or amusing virals aren\u2019t enough. As soon as a customer enters the platform where you want to convert as a brand, that feeling must continue. You can immediately start with a personal campaign, offer better service and good conditions. Think of influencers, socials or re-targeting. Make your service smarter, see it as a priority to respond quickly and ensure all product information is up-to-date and complete. Make it possible, for example, to easily return items and make every moment of contact a valuable one. And look for these solutions in the things that make your brand stand out.\t<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\n
\n\t\tIn other words: work together\t<\/h2><\/div><\/div>\n\n
\n\t\tThis all takes time, a lot of time. For every big A-brand bringing together these two worlds is at the top of their agenda. It\u2019s their spearhead to unite e-commerce with brand. It\u2019s a requirement, not because companies or agencies want it so badly, but because the customer asks for it. If companies want to accelerate, they have to transform. Separated departments must work together. \u00a0And don\u2019t forget to connect your agencies and suppliers in the process.\t<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\n
\n\t\tIf there is an important takeaway from branded commerce, it\u2019s this: no longer have separate meetings about brand, marketing, technology, data, customer contacts, conversion, logistics and your various suppliers \/ agencies. Combine all these elements in a branded commerce team, with regular integral meetups. This costs nothing, delivers immediate, positive results and you can start today.\t<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\n
\n\t\tFor the sake of completeness: the examples mentioned in this blog are not relations.<\/em>\t<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n\t