Shopmacher generate ideas in e-commerce through impulsaption

The mattress finder in the Mattresses Concord online shop

INNOVATE OR DIE! HOW WE MAKE INNOVATION A METHOD

The big top dogs in e-commerce continuously invest enormous resources in the development of new features to further develop their enterprise platforms. Ultimately, the goal is always to promote sales and reduce costs at the same time. And the middle class? Does he look down the drain because he usually lacks the financial means to keep up here? It doesn’t have to be. We have developed a way to implement creative and sales-boosting e-commerce solutions without having to invest a great deal of effort each time, which is unrealistic for many medium-sized retailers. We call this way impulse aption.

THE “COPY AMAZON” PRINCIPLE DOES NOT WORK

Anyone who really wants to break new ground in e-commerce faces a rocky, complex and investment-intensive path. In the run-up to the implementation of a real innovation, a lot of energy has to be invested in focus groups, market analyses, consumer surveys and test series. Even if the financial resources are available, there is always the risk of a bad investment if the innovation does not go down as well as hoped. Blessed are the retailers who can afford it. Only the big players can do that.

Large parts of the middle class have therefore resorted to copying the big ones. But this principle of “Copy Amazon” does not work – or at most very limited. Because on this path, medium-sized companies always lag a step behind the market leaders. Copying Amazon and copying their own direct competition is something far too many retailers do out of necessity. And the result is usually sobering for retailers: too few new ideas and innovative sales promotion instruments are created. As a result, shops stagnate and their sales development falls far short of their actual potential.

IMPULSAPTION IS THINKING THOUGH THE BOX

Impulsaption is a clever way of thinking outside the box. It describes the adaptation of fresh, promising impulses, preferably from other sectors. This procedure has proven to be particularly effective in practice. It is a handy, comparatively inexpensive and low-risk way for retailers to come up with really new, fresh approaches.

The adaptation of proven solutions from other industries and contexts is simple and clever because they have already proven themselves. They work! But such a solution can be something completely new for your own industry. This means that a retailer would be the first to use the adapted tools, processes and techniques in his market environment – and that puts him one step ahead. That’s very efficient. And for agencies, this is a smart way to be able to constantly provide fresh impetus.

FLESH ON THE BONES: PRACTICAL EXAMPLES OF IMPULSAPTION

Anyone who has thankfully persevered up to this point will perhaps think: “Now let’s get down to business – what is impulsaption all about in practice?”.

Let’s take a look at Mattress Concord’s multi-award-winning e-commerce platform. In addition to other innovative features, there is the mattress advisor. With this tool, customers are guided step by step to their dream mattress. does this seem familiar to you? Maybe from Modomoto or Outfittery, where customers are also guided to their desired outfit by a wizard? Yes quite right. This successful approach was adapted for mattresses and, together with mattresses Concord, provided an important impetus. Very easily! No mattress retailer has done that before. This adapted impulse was innovative and unique for the mattress industry.

Another example is the very successful “pig in a poke” sales campaign run by our customer Zippo. With this adapted impulse, Zippo was able to sell items to a considerable extent for which demand had previously been rather subdued. We have simply adapted the concept of the piñata here.

Zippo sales campaign “Pig in a poke”

ALEXA, VR GLASSES, AI & CO ARE (IRR) DETOURS

A German proverb says: “Why wander into the distance, where the good is so close?”. We agree and implement it with Impulsaption. We regularly advise medium-sized retailers in particular to stay on the proverbial carpet and within what is realistically feasible. In concrete terms, this means not panicking and bringing complex AI solutions, robots, Alexas and VR glasses into the shop just because these pigs are being herded through the industry village. These are perhaps not necessarily wrong paths, but at least detours. This is very important for building a long-term successful digital strategy. But we also recommend looking at what really converts quickly and efficiently. Not only according to our philosophy, but also according to our experience, this is the shortest way to success.

IMPULSAPTION IS THE CONCRETE IMPLEMENTATION OF COMMERCETHINKING

CommerceThinking is an approach that simply postulates always considering at all levels how the respective customer can earn more money and where the fruits are comparatively low. Impulse action is the concrete action that is derived from this: This is how we proceed in order to provide customers with regularly tested, effective impulses that can also be implemented promptly with reasonable means.

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