The pandemic has bought with it a decade's worth of digital transformation in just two years. It's led to a complete change in the way demand and supply cycles work. Consumers have become mindful of what they buy as well as selective with the brands they interact with.

With abundant choices available for customers, the competition among brands is fierce and customers are quick to switch brands if their expectations are not met.

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"Around 76 percent of customers who were surveyed during the pandemic experimented with new shopping behavior. Of these, 37 percent tried new brands and 26 percent tried private-label brands. (McKinsey, COVID-19 US Consumer Pulse Survey)."

Why Customer Experience Matters?

Pandemic has impacted customers economically and culturally. They are coping up with job crunch, salary deductions and home-borne lifestyle, all of which are driving them towards a permanent change in shopping behaviors.

Challenge? Customer behavior is unpredictable, fluid and changes dramatically over time.

Expectation: Customers expect brands to know them, recognize them, curate experiences exclusively on the basis of their browsing history, purchase pattern and lifestyle across all touchpoints.

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Welcome to Pandemic Shopping World

The pandemic might get over soon but the convenience it has brought with it is here to stay. If you will look at the shopping behavior of customers from March 2020, you will understand how they are inclined towards brands that understand their search intent, analyse their online and offline preferences and offer contextual omnichannel commerce experience.

Customers do more online research than ever now. The pandemic has changed customers’ outlook towards life and they are building a healthy lifestyle. Limiting wastage of food and health consciousness are the top two priorities of customers, followed by making sustainable choices:

What Sets Digital Native Brands Apart?

Born and grown in the ‘cloud’ world, Digital Native Brands (DNBs) have a distinct advantage over retailers. Their focus on fulfilling customer expectations and quick service at a lower price sets them apart. Digital Native Brands such as AllBirds, Away, Bonobos, Burrow, Casper, Everlane, Glossier, General Mills, Parachute, Warby Parker have gained incredible popularity for offering direct-to-consumer services.

How Digital Native Brands Gained Customer Attention in Pandemic?

During the pandemic time, stay-at-home culture boomed and increased consumers’ willingness to spend more money on health and improving their home-borne lifestyle. They prefer interacting with brands that are sustainable, suit their lifestyle and offer services round the clock. Here’s how DNBs are gaining an edge over their retail counterparts:

1. Focus on Customer Centricity: DNB leaders consider themselves customers and curate experiences that place customers at the top. In case of conflict between profits and customer experience, they seem to prioritize experience, which is why brands like Warby Parker sends five pairs of sunglasses to customers for them to decide what suits them the best.

   Source: Warbyparker.com

   
   
   Casper’s Dreamery is another example where customers come first. The brand offers a 45-minute power nap to customers with a sound environment, comfort wear, skincare products and meditation music by headspace app, all for $25 before they decide if they want to make a purchase.


Source: Casper.com



2. Convenience: Digital Native Brands offer experiential shopping to customers and bridge the gap between online and in-store shopping. Brands such as Bonobos and Glossier are synonymous with convenience because of the way they help their customers. These brands make everything simple to match the stay-at-home comfort of shoppers. Navigating through the store with an associate, browsing products in the mobile app, real-time cart updates across multiple touchpoints and smooth payment options attract customers more than anything and DNBs take care of that!



3. Interaction Strategy: Digital Native Brands attract customers through social media. Their interactions with customers are real-time and human, which wins customers. DNBs also have the art of compelling storytelling which creates inclusivity. They use video marketing, influencer marketing to spread their values.
   Brands like Universal Standard that make contemporary clothing for women for sizes through 10 and 28 let you replace pieces due to size fluctuations under their Universal Fit Liberty Policy.


Source: www.Universalstandard.com

4. User-Friendly Technology: 53 percent of customers will leave a mobile site if it takes more than three seconds to load, as per Think With Google. Digital Native Brands know that their entire business depends on technology. They create high-value landing pages, leverage virtual assistants and use AI-powered bots to make the experience user-friendly.
   Get insights into digital experience platforms to enhance CX
   
5. Reduced Time to Market: DNBs generally outsource their operational activities to companies that are perfect at their job. With lean structures and no technological baggage, Digital Native Brands have mechanisms to deliver quickly and safely with no compromise on customer experience.



6. Competitive Pricing: Digital Native Brands have the ball in their courts when it comes to pricing. Since these brands function online and have no middlemen, the operation cost is budgeted and that’s how they keep the cost down for their customers.
7. Quick Response Time: DNBs get in touch with their customers directly through AI-powered chatbots, Email and social media to understand the roadblocks, solve them, and maintain cordial relations with customers. As a result of this, they get instant feedback to improve and innovate their processes.
   Here’s how you can respond to customer’s queries effectively

The Future of Digital Native Brands

Pandemic has forever changed how customers and brands look at each other. Customers have given space to Digital Native Brands in their lives because of the convenience, safety and value they get. As per Tinuiti, companies that started online are expanding to physical stores, with 850 digital native brick-and-mortar stores expected to open in the next five years. DNBs are a source of great inspiration for retailers for fulfilling customer expectations and building a seamless and connected shopping landscape.

You can get in touch with our experts to know more about how the retail industry is changing in post-pandemic times and how some brands are already on their journey of digital recovery. Drop us a ‘Hi’ at marketing@altudo.co and we will schedule a call with our team.

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