Magento Embracing Anticipatory Commerce
Magento has just launched a new architecture, which it believes will help to provide consumers with the immediacy that they are looking for when dealing with online merchants. The increasing trend for bricks and mortar store owners to move towards the online space is something that is causing significant changes to the way in which merchants work. And Magento believes that anticipatory commerce is going to be the next major change.
Mark Lavelle, Magento Commerce CEO, told the Magento community that the latest release of the platform takes functionality that users have added along the way, and includes it as standard. It has re-architected the basics that made Magento successful in the early days, and has added elements that improve the immediacy and convenience of the platform.
Lavelle says that when it became clear that users were spending a lot of time shopping on their phones, it was obvious that responsive design was essential. If you want to beat Amazon, he explains, you have to delight your customers. Whether that means using a website or an app, the experience has to be “have the product, get the product”. Ecommerce is highly competitive, and there is no room for companies that cannot deliver.
He also cites the example of Pinterest, to explain the kind of tailored shopping experience that people want. While there are some shoppers who enjoy the serendipity of wandering around a shopping mall, for most, the preference is to have items suggested to them that are precisely what they “didn’t know they wanted”, but which will make them happy.
Magento 2.0 aims to provide users with a frictionless shopping experience, saving them time and money, and making their lives far more enjoyable along the way. It is no longer enough to simply know who the shopper is because you have saved their account details. The most successful stores will also know what they want. Brand loyalty will become increasingly based upon the premise that the brand knows the user and cares about them, rather than simply being based upon what the brand can provide for the user.
There is an amazing community for Magento users and developers who are using the platform to create great customer experiences. And now that the company is operating independently from former parent eBay, this can only improve as it is now in a position to focus upon improving and refining its solutions.