Inbox Innovation
The two most exciting innovations in the world of eCommerce are WhatsApp and AMP. Both are happening outside the US. This is from WhatsApp in April:
People across Brazil will be able to pay their local small business right within a WhatsApp chat. This seamless and secure checkout experience will be a game-changer for people and small businesses looking to buy and sell on WhatsApp without having to go to a website, open another app or pay in person. We’re rolling out today to a small number of businesses and will be available to many more in the coming months.
In Brazil you can search for a business, browse goods and services, add them to your cart, and make a payment all with just a few taps. We’re excited to finally unlock this ability for people and businesses right within a chat.
It’s now possible to pay for goods and services using Mastercard and Visa debit, credit and pre-paid cards issued by the numerous banks participating in the service. Small businesses using the WhatsApp Business app can link a supported payment partner – such as Cielo, Mercado Pago or Rede – and create an order within the app to securely accept payments from their customers.
WeChat in China has had support for payments for many years.
For me, the more exciting future is what can happen in email. This matters for Netcore because we are one of the largest independent email service providers (ESPs) globally. More importantly, email remains the highest RoI channel. Email so far has been largely one-way: send a list of items or an image (poster) and hope that consumers will click through to the website or app. It is this friction that has kept action rates low. From our early campaigns using AMP in India, the increase in actions has been astounding across the customer journey.
AMP in emails can be used across the ecommerce customer lifecycle:
The transformative solution in eCommerce is to think of websites and apps inside emails – where the entire journey from search and browse to purchase can be completed right inside the inbox. AMP makes this possible. These “email shops” are the next storefronts – and one which marketers can control because they can “push” these messages to their customers rather than relying on them to remember to visit their properties. Combined with Atomic Rewards to incentivise opens and other non-transactional actions, email shops have the potential to increase conversions exponentially, thus reducing the need for expensive and continuous new acquisitions to drive revenue growth. Email shops can thus become the profitability drivers for brands.
This will need a mindset shift – from thinking just about retention, engagement, and personalisation to making revenues, costs, and profits as the key metrics to track.
Email shops can beautify every broken profit-killing customer experience to help brands in their journey towards exponential, forever, profitable growth and eventually to a “profipoly’ (profits monopoly).
