The On-life Consumer

The pandemic has radically changed not only our habits but also our needs. And the much-awaited return to normalcy doesn’t necessarily mean a return to the commerce landscape as we knew it a few months ago. Online and offline are merging into a single experience, with consumers now living in a continuum between the digital and physical worlds, pushing companies to rethink their strategies.

Even before the pandemic, consumers expected consistency and continuity throughout their “customer journey,” using all possible touchpoints to fulfill their interaction needs with the brand.

Today, we are dealing with “hyperconnected” customers, connected 24/7, blending “virtual” moments with real-life ones:

• Browsing a related website while watching a TV show
• Checking product reviews while considering a purchase in-store
• Sharing pictures of shoes with friends/family during shopping
• And many more examples

With the changing behavior of customers connected 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, online and offline blend together. The most appropriate term to define this type of consumer behavior is “onlife,” coined by philosopher Luciano Floridi in his The Onlife Manifesto, a perfect definition of the hyperconnected user who does not live a clear separation between online and offline.

To focus on the customer, it is essential for companies to adopt an omnichannel strategy, reshaping their organizational structure and embracing new methods of evaluating business performance, such as omnichannel metrics and KPIs. Omnichannel represents a challenge for companies, but if pursued correctly, it opens the door to numerous business opportunities.

Humans at the Center of Digital Strategy

In a historical period in which the awareness of the inevitability of digital has taken hold of strategic business choices, the current vision strongly focuses on designing the Digital Strategy not around Technology but around Human Behavior, shaping the omnichannel consumer Experience (or that of those we hope will become one).

After a transitional phase dominated by technological solutions, modern Strategic Business Development disciplines are once again asserting the centrality of the human element and processes as starting points not only in defining strategy but also in reshaping the company’s organization and workflows.

The human element takes center stage on two different fronts:

• External
  • rebuilding the consumer’s decision-making process, which Richard Thaler (2017 Nobel Prize in Economics and one of the fathers of Behavioral Economics) defines as “Predictably Unpredictable”;
  • identifying the so-called “Touch Points” within this behavior;
  • designing a communication and engagement strategy that works on the skillful use of Touch Points and on the client’s state of maturity.
• Internal:
  • developing a strategy “designed” based on behaviors, rather than top-down as was done in the past within industrial organizations, implies the need to review the internal processes of the company and the connections between the various departments that must structure a linked work process and dismantle a traditionally siloed approach;
  • it is clear that, following this type of approach, there is a need to revisit the internal competencies of the organization in order to adjust them, supporting management in this process of deepening and learning, which is essential to be prepared for this significant change.

To support this “human” and design-oriented process, technology must be “enabling,” meaning it should fit in without forcing the human process but instead allow for its maximum expression and openness.

Physical, Digital, “Phygital”

In the “on-life” context described above, the ways of interacting between the consumer, as a human being, and their interlocutor become continuous; in a seamless space between physical and digital that blend together to create a new world called “phygital” (physical + digital) where the “24×7” consumer constantly lives in parallel between the physical and digital worlds.

Awareness of the new habits of life and consumption is leading to a new type of retail experience where the scenario of the three intersecting worlds described above becomes real.

Digital and physical, online and offline now converge in multiple contexts and scenarios like “Virtual Try-On” (e.g., Wanna Kicks – App on Google Play) and Virtual Showroom (a scenario that saw a strong acceleration in the fashion world during the pandemic).

However, we should not only think of virtual and augmented reality scenarios; online and offline converge into a single experience, even in more traditional settings where we observe a convergence of languages and communication.

In the following images, we see the experience of Walmart, which began redesigning its stores well before the pandemic, with the goal of providing a unified shopping experience where the APP and the store itself speak the same language. “People walk through the store with their smartphones in hand, and we want to integrate these elements so that while they look at their phone, they can find the same things in the store. The Walmart app, after searching, will indicate and guide the user to the exact location of items in the physical store with aisles and lanes labeled with letters and numbers to help customers navigate better.”

(Photo: Walmart)

Small vs. Big

The most forward-thinking companies are now solidifying their “data-driven” strategy. By collecting, organizing, and analyzing data, it is possible to extract insights to support decision-making or, even better, automate parts of it. We are in the realm of Big Data, which is now complemented/opposed by Small Data.

Are we, however, sure that processing vast, undifferentiated amounts of data, typical of Big Data, can truly provide the correct information? How much of this data and related information can be useful for properly defining a business strategy?

Online generates “Big Data,” large volumes of data to interpret; Offline is tied to SMALL DATA, small clues that can hide significant trends.

After the “hype” phase of Big Data, we are becoming aware of the difficulty in interpreting it; hence, it becomes important to return to observation:

• The refrigerator of a Siberian family
• The shoe rack of a Japanese family
• The bedside drawer of a single person
• The items in the trash bin of an American family
• The cartons outside a supermarket
• The play area of a German child
• And much more…

In this context, it is essential to reference Martin Lindstrom’s book Small Data. In many cases, a “hybrid” approach that takes the best of both the Small Data and Big Data worlds is advisable.

Conclusions

Even from this (apparent) dichotomy and the opportunity to leverage the best of both worlds, a kind of “fusion” between online and offline emerges, which is the subject of this article.

From any perspective, it is evident that, in the medium/long term, there will be a convergence between these two worlds: online and offline, between the “old” and the “new,” between the “big” and the “small.” All possible scenarios must and will continue to support services and add value for people as customers, consumers, parents, and citizens.

References

Walmart’s new store design proves browsing is dead