When the power shifts to the customer
AI is shifting power from platforms and consultancies back to the customer. But it takes domain knowledge, sound architecture and consultants who actually consult.
Author
Tobias Bergström
Founder & senior e-commerce strategist
With 25 years of experience running e-commerce and digital development, both as a client-side buyer and digital director at some of Sweden's most successful global companies and as a strategy consultant within e-commerce, there are few problems, challenges and opportunities that Tobias has not already discussed and cracked. And that is true whether the context is B2C, B2B or DTC. Digital organisation, KPI-driven e-commerce development, platform and product selection, digital business modelling, sales analytics and optimisation, board coaching, product information strategy and more are Tobias' daily work. 360-degree e-commerce, quite simply.
Articles by Tobias · 6
The billable hour is dead - Long live the fixed price!
If your e-commerce agency became three times as efficient, would your invoice shrink to a third? Probably not. AI is killing the billable hour as a business model, and suppliers are caught in a squeeze between shrinking hours and uncertain AI costs. Tobias Bergström walks through the pricing models you'll encounter, explains why a fixed price with AI built in is probably the best choice for you as a buyer, and lists the questions you should ask your agency.
E-commerce for B2B companies: an attempt to look ahead
Tobias Bergström at Commerce Mind was recently interviewed by the e-commerce company Litium for their newsletter. As a fully independent e-commerce expert, he was asked how he sees the development of B2B e-commerce over the slightly unreal horizon of 5 to 10 years. We thought we would share his thoughts here.
E-commerce requires meaningful product relationships: here are the four most important ones
Research has shown that one of the (rather few) things that gives us humans happiness and better health is meaningful relationships. The amusing part is that what applies to human relationships also applies to product relationships in e-commerce. Meaningful relationships may not make you happy, but they give you more sales through higher customer satisfaction, average order value and conversion rate.
Black Week: BLACK FRIDAY CANCELLED!
We had a chat with André Ihlar, Online Sales Manager at Lyko, about how he approaches Black Friday after all these years. Both ahead of and during the campaign, you have to factor in that impressions, clicks and conversion rates rise sharply during these days, and you should monitor both spend and results actively to a much greater extent. Lyko runs hard campaigns throughout the week every year, so they must have taken some hits and learned along the way.
Insourcing e-commerce development. Or not?
If we view e-commerce as core business, why are we so inclined to hand the entire responsibility for developing it over to external vendors? We very rarely do that for other sales-critical or operationally critical activities. Taking control over your own e-commerce destiny and starting to lead development yourself, with employees or hired-in expertise, is a clear trend in the market today. The alternative can be too embarrassing for those who understand what it means. Here I try to give some background on the phenomenon of 'insourcing e-commerce development' and offer a few concrete tips and tricks to take with you if you are thinking along those lines.