• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, September 27, 2022

Still waiting for that new ecommerce tool with email integration? It may take time if the naysayers in your firm have their way.  

Decision makers often block tech-stack improvements out of sheer arrogance: 26% believe failure to adopt emerging commerce solutions won’t affect them at all, while 40% claim customers never experience frustration when purchasing from their brand, according to Who’s calling the shots — you or your tech stack?, a study released Tuesday by commercetools, a “headless” commerce platform.  

Both beliefs may be delusional. Of the marketers polled, 75% feel adoption of new technologies will deflect the focus from existing ones that work just fine. And 46% fear that the offerings they are being pressured to adopt will hurt their brand.

But 50% admit that their own reservations about their company’s technology have limited their ability to innovate as quickly as they need to. 

Email specialists, who drive ecommerce with promotional, transactional and triggered messaging, often do not have a seat at the table in these debates. 

Consider the top five trends that respondents plan to adopt in the next 12 months:

1. Cryptocurrencies — 26%
2. The metaverse — 25% 
3. NFTs — 23%
4. Voice-activated commerce — 21%
5. Web3 —  20%

But you have to wonder whether they’re ready for any of this, given the state of their tech stacks. They say: 

• We rely on traditional options and haven’t adopted any modern commerce solutions — 21%
• We rely on traditional options but have also added some modern commerce solutions — 41%
• We have fully blended traditional options and modern commerce solutions — 38%

Again, email teams are going to be largely responsible for getting people to the metaverse or to buy NFTs:

Here are the top commerce features firms are now offering:

• Multiple payment methods — 45%
• Purchasing within social media channels — 38% 
• Purchasing within a branded mobile app — 32%
• Next-day shipping — 25% 
• Purchasing within subscription models — 23% 
• Loyalty program — 21%
• One-click checkout — 18%
• Buy now, pay later (BNPL) — 16%
• Same-day shipping—16%
• Buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS) — 16%
• Cashback — 14%
• Purchasing via streaming services — 13%

And the remaining companies (the laggards, if you will)? Many want to offer these commerce features: 

• Multiple payment methods —28% 
• Loyalty program —26% 
• Buy now, pay later (BNPL)—28%
• One-click checkout — 24% 
• Next-day shipping — 16%

The answers are similar when they are asked about digital purchasing options. They would like to offer:

• Purchasing within a branded mobile app — 39% 
• Purchasing within social-media channels — 36% 
• Purchasing within subscription models — 27%
• Purchasing via streaming services — 26% 
• Purchasing within the metaverse — 20%

But here’s the challenges: Companies fail to offer more commerce services for these reasons:

• The required technology is too expensive—38%
• The required technology is too difficult to integrate with our existing solutions—31%
• We lack the internal knowledge about how to use new solutions—24%
• We lack the internal team to manage and see through these investments—22% 
• We’re unsure if our customers really want new commerce features—19%

It’s the same with digital purchasing options:

• The required technology is too expensive — 39%
• We lack the internal knowledge about how to use new solutions — 37% 
• The required technology is too difficult to integrate with our existing solutions — 21%
• We’re unsure if our customers really want new digital purchasing options — 24%
• Implementing new options takes too long — 18%

Commercetools surveyed 300 decision makers in March of this year.