Commentary

Forget e-, m-, s-, f-, and t-: Introducing i- [infinite] Commerce

Last year, I was riding the bus and reading the first Hunger Games book on my Kindle. I finished the book during my bus ride, clicked through to the Amazon store, bought the second book and started to read -- all before I reached my final stop. Years ago, I would have had to make a note to buy the next book when I was near a browser or (gasp!) a physical store. Instead, I completed my purchase while traveling 35 mph on First Avenue. It was a seamless experience. 

I share this story not to expose my choices in novels, but to highlight today’s unprecedented connectivity. Each one of our devices is a window into "the cloud" (which, as a friend of mine once said, is basically the Internet rebranded). We are now afforded the ability to access limitless information instantly (let's assume perfect bandwidth). This access easily and often leads to a purchase decision -- without the wait. We have seen e-, m-, s-, f- and t-commerce. But think of this as [infinite]-commerce -- the ability to execute a transaction at any time, in any place.

Web Site No Longer the Destination

We used to be in the business of creating destination Web sites. Remember the late 90s, the browser wars”? Back then, sites were launched, and users visited. Mission accomplished.

Today, it’s a different battlefield with endless possibilities. Now, the Web site is no longer the destination. Instead, it's one of many opportunities for the consumer to experience your brand. Consumers can browse, consider, purchase, and jump effortlessly between devices. An item can be viewed on a desktop, selected on a tablet, and purchased on a phone. No matter what device a consumer is using, the brand experience can be there in a contextually relevant way, offering an opportunity to engage.

Instead of creating destination sites, we now create an experience platform that can manifest itself across devices. This connectivity between devices presents a new set of challenges.

Let’s call it the resolution wars.” With hundreds of screen sizes to choose from, we need to be able to respond accordingly in order to tailor the experience to the consumer’s device of choice.

The Top Three Infinite Commerce Techniques

In this complex landscape of opportunity there are technologies that help bring the brand experience to life. Here are the top three techniques that are enabling infinite commerce by tearing down the barriers between the consumer and a purchase decision:

- Adaptive Web Design: with the advent of HTML5, we now have techniques that allow us to develop the front-end design in such a way that it can adapt the experience to -- and take advantage of -- whatever device a consumer happens to be using.

- Single-Page Applications (SPA): when a consumer is in the mood to purchase, we want to tear down any barriers we can. One of the most cumbersome is load time. Using a combination of good experience design and coding techniques, a consumer can navigate the purchase journey seemingly from a single page.

- Infinite recognition and clickless transactions: our devices now have the ability to recognize where we are (geolocation), what we're looking at (audio/video recognition) and take us there without even clicking a button (QR codes, NFC).

The conclusions? Today, the consumer is in control of the interactive experience, from viewing options to picking purchases. The possibilities for seamless transaction and conversion are truly endless. And readers, like myself, can rest assured knowing that the next novel is just a click away as a result.

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