At the 2023 D2 Retail Edition Conference, Zak Stambor, senior analyst for Insider Intelligence, led the panel discussion on designing Web3 e-commerce engagement for the omniverse. He was joined on stage by Steven Moy, CEO of Barbarian, and Claudine Patel, chief marketing officer and head of marketing for the pharmaceutical company, Sanofi.

Among the questions Stambor asked the panelists was how marketers can optimize their current e-commerce strategy to unlock growth and enhance customer experience. Moy noted that, “Direct-to-consumer is a boardroom conversation. You have to have a direct relationship with your consumer.” He says that Generation Z—those under 30 years of age—want to communicate with brands, calling it a direct-to-consumer mindset. He adds that directly conversing with the consumer allows you to capture new data. “IBM estimated a couple of years ago [that] 90% of the world’s new data came from the last four years [alone],” says Moy.

Patel says testing to learn is an important part of her Web 3 journey. She often looks to see what other countries are doing. She dived into live streaming when it was growing in popularity in China and Japan, but in its infancy in the U.S. Her campaign combined the worlds of fashion and pharmaceuticals, and she admits she received a lot of push back because the campaign wasn’t particularly driving revenue. But what she learned from that experience was invaluable. “The idea that snackable content works, and the idea of edutainment as a concept. Because science, I mean it goes over my head sometimes…so making it simple to understand, making it easy for consumers to appreciate and making the content immersive and experiential helps with driving your sales and your product. So for me, while we walked away from the idea of live streaming because it was so early on in the forefront, I got a lot of benefit out of that particular initiative that we did.”

Additional Panel Insights on Web3 Ecommerce:

• Meet your consumers where they are: TikTok has become a major first touchpoint for consumer brands, with 19% of the general public using it as a first touchpoint to discover products and brands. That percentage rises to 43% for Generation Z. And the average time that the U.S. adult user spends on TikTok is 55.8 minutes a day, with the key demographic group of 25 to 34 year olds spending 52 minutes per average every day on the social media platform.
• Because the retail ecosystem within the omniverse—from where a product is first discovered to where it is ultimately purchased—can include both online and offline touchpoints, it’s important to create a cohesive experience from your social media to your website to your call center to your retail location.
• Web 3 offers the promise of bolstering customer loyalty and retention because of its ability to capture more first-party data through direct-to-consumer conversations. You can find out why they are buying your product and why they continue to come back, allowing you to balance the emotional and functional needs of the consumer.

Throughout the discussion, the two panelists shared real-life insights and experience-informed predictions. To listen to the panel in full and learn more about Web3 ecommerce, click YouTube Video.