The Importance of All-Channel Commerce over multi-channel or single point E-Commerce

As I write this I am currently sitting at a high top table, in a pretty standard dining establishment, on their wifi, and utilizing my Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5. I am on a mission. I am searching for some components and parts that I need to complete my latest hobby build. For reference only, I am building a new large scale quadcoptor to add to my fleet of RC aircraft.

I need motors, speed controllers and propellers. You would think that this task wouldn’t be all that difficult, however being that I am on a mobile device, where I don’t have a lot of time, I need to find these parts quickly, and be able to purchase them right away. Or do I….

On my mobile deviceI browse by category to find brusless outrunner motors. I finally, after scrolling through about fourty, find the one that I need. My burger comes, I eat, and now I’ve forgotten the specifications on the motor i just selected. I now review the specs, now i need to select a controller. I head over to the category of controllers, so many specifications, i have to keep flipping back and forth. And now lunch is over, the bill is paid, by one of my less patient co-workers.

So lets imagine for a minute, a perfect commerce world, like one of those futuristic television commercials about some future technology. What if once i selected a motor, it now suggested compatible controllers based on my application, perhaps it could ask me a few questions, perhaps it would care that I made the right purchase. Lets call this our Intelligence Channel of our new All Channel commerce model.

So what about my shopping experience when I finished my meal. Over right, well yes and no. Any e-commerce solution can persist a shopping cart to an account, or even a cookie. But that does me no good, by the time i’m back at work (I mean home), and can get on a computer, I’ve alredy forgotten most of the fine details that I researched to assemble two of the three pieces for my requirement. The is where the need for an Endurance Channel or Persistence Channel is needed. How can i say that these are channels you ask, we’ll it’s quite simple. Lets compare it to the Mobile Channel, or the Social Channel, both are simple methods of delivering a catalog to a customer and recieving an order back from that customer. Well Endurance and Persistence are no different. I as a consumer want to be able to stop and start my shopping expierience right where i left off.

So i’ve transistioned back to a desktop computer using a typical  Web Channel, my cart is still intact. So now for me to find a propeller, back to the category navigation and opening two other tabs for the controller and the motor. This is quite a bit easier on my tablet at lunch. At least I can quickly flip back and forth between the items to ensure compatibiltiy, but i’m still not sure that is all going to work. So i head over to the forums, copy the specifications for the controller, motor and propeller, and I ask the community for assistance. The Feedback/Validation Channel, other customers in a store are often better sales people then the employees themselves.

So, lets think for a minute about these three new channels. Intelligence, Endurance and Persistence, and finally the Feedback/Validation channel. They may seem like pipe dreams, or the ever elusive snype that boy scouts have been hunting for year, however, they are both real and achievable. Over the next few weeks i’m going to touch on the requirements, methods, and possible solutions for each of these these three channels.

Please tune in.