Ecommerce has gone from strength to strength across Australia off the back of the COVID-19 global pandemic and rapidly accelerated digitisation in 2020, several new reports highlight.

Learning fast and adapting quickly have become catchcries for Accent Group’s customer experience (CX) team as it gathers lessons from 2020 to take into the festive shopping season and beyond.

Putting the emphasis on customer and employee experience has not only been Mecca’s most powerful marketing lever to date, it’s led the brand to open its biggest physical store yet in Sydney.

Consumer shopping habits formed in lockdown are here to stay, according to Opinium Research, which was commissioned by payments platform Adyen. While COVID-19 has been a huge catalyst for change, it’s also solidified our preference for certain activities, including shopping in-store.

It’s a problem many brands have been working for years to solve: Growing interest in digital engagement and commerce and a need for greater capability to meet it. But in Farmlands New Zealand’s case, the timeframe for a response was shortened to just three weeks after the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown struck antipodean shores.

Contactless payments, 2D and 3D visualisations allowing consumers to better experience products they want to order, B2B consumerisation and live and experience-led commerce are here to stay post-COVID crisis, a new report claims.

The companies winning the consumer race are the ones proactively engaging in digital transformation with aggressiveness, vigour, rigour and a commitment to continuous improvement.

There’s no doubt COVID-19 has accelerated the shift to digital channels and transactions for Australian retailers. Here, Cue Clothing’s CIO, Shane Lenton, shares how the iconic Australian fashion brand adapted to the new normal of retail presented by the pandemic, the virtual and digital offerings it’s rapidly created, and the longer-term innovations they’re helping inform.

Needing to revamp its online presence, high-end fashion house Aje tapped Shopify to improve its online metrics, which came at just the right time for the sudden reliance on ecommerce with the Coronavirus pandemic.

As recent months have clearly shown, having a strong digital marketing and commerce capability has been one of the defining factors of those organisations that have best coped with the COVID-19 crisis.

The digital habits of consumers have skyrocketed during the coronavirus pandemic, although many still prefer to shop in-store, the latest Toluna COVID-19 Barometer has found.

A physical mascot for customers in meetings, ruthless prioritisation, cross-functional teamwork and employee camaraderie are just a few ways Australian retail group, Super Retail Group, has ridden through the COVID-19 crisis.

An experiential campaign created for Procter & Gamble in ecommerce is about bringing the physical shopping experience for relatable goods to the digital realm and a reflection of how consumers are seeking fresh engagement in new channels, the brand’s regional ecommerce chief says.

The launch of IGA’s online grocery delivery service is a lesson in developing minimum viable product that responds quickly to the needs of customers during a rapidly evolving crisis, its shopper engagement leader says.

Athlete’s Foot owner, The Accent Group, has promoted its head of marketing to a general manager’s position as part of an executive reshuffle.

Commonwealth Bank has launched a service in direct competition with AfterPay and Zip, as the Australian Financial Industry Association (AFIA) announced a new Code of Practice for buy now pay later (BNPL) providers.

Total Tools, a professional tool retailer, admits it was a little behind the eight ball when it come to marketing. But since overhauling strategy over the last two years, the company has caught up to the tune of a 1100 per cent growth in online.

Automated campaigns that didn’t exist 12 months ago have generated 16 per cent of a total 37 per cent digital marketing revenue growth for the team at Sheike in the past year.

​Price Attack has overhauled its brand strategy, re-evaluated its partner network and instituted a data-led customer lifetime value and retention transformation program in order to jump-start company growth.

Knowing consumers intimately, leaning in to brand ‘superpowers’ and digital capability, and disrupting from within have helped digital beauty retailer, e.l.f, buck category sales decline and chalk up 13 percentage point growth this year.

Shifting to evolving and intent-based customer journeys, automated product recommendations and re-engaging dormant subscribers are just some of the ways leading retailers are tapping artificial intelligence (AI) to lift their customer strategies.