The core of mobile e-commerce thinking: packaging shopping into entertainment

The mobile e-commerce industry, which is groping forward, has not yet found a complete clue. In judging the trend, American venture capitalist Jeremy Liew recently expressed his own views. He believes that the most important experience for users when shopping on mobile terminals is to feel fun during the shopping process. Because for the general public, the role of mobile phones is to kill time or entertain themselves to a large extent.

The following is the main content of his article published on the technology media Pandodaily to explain this point of view:

When I predicted the tech trends for 2011, I said that e-commerce companies would make shopping fun. The first generation of e-commerce companies, from Blue Nile to Amazon, made it their mission to make shopping as easy as possible. The second generation, a few years ago, saw the emergence of Gilt, Group, LivingSocial, Zulily, and others. They all used the “push” method to push products and offers through emails, similar to the concept of mailing a beautifully crafted catalog to a consumer’s home. Many people would sit on their couch and look through such catalogs for fun, and these emails reintroduced that fun into the online world.

As mobile devices become an increasingly important shopping channel, this trend has been further expanded. The fun of shopping has been further enhanced and even repackaged as a form of entertainment. Mobile phones have become entertainment devices, filling a lot of boredom. For many people, shopping has become a hobby, and social shopping apps such as Wanelo and Poshmark have indeed achieved impressive growth.

But the main difference now is that people are no longer content with products and offers pushed to them, but are actively looking for them. They will actively open shopping apps and look for products. They do this as a pleasure, many times a day. This shows that consumer behavior has changed significantly, and it is even changing the entire e-commerce market landscape.

The traditional e-commerce model is to convert visitors into customers. The focus of the whole process is conversion rate. E-commerce has become a sales channel for enterprises. Everything is to get visitors to put things into the shopping cart and then place an order and check out.

The new model takes a very different approach. It doesn’t matter if a user becomes a customer right away; it matters that he or she comes back often, uses your app often, and searches for products often. Increasing engagement becomes the primary motivation. This is because many companies have discovered that if a user likes to look at pictures of beautiful shoes, clothes, and home furnishings, that person will eventually find what they want, and then naturally become a customer. It’s a customer-level perspective, not just a conversion rate.

This model is no longer limited to product-based e-commerce. Tinder is a great example of a company that has moved away from the “workflow management” model adopted by the first generation of dating sites and turned online dating into a form of fun.

On OK Cupid and Match.com, new users looking to date need to first refine their profiles, a process that can be so tricky that a team of people has emerged to help people optimize their profiles. Consultants can help you choose the best photos and better describe your interests to make you stand out from the crowd. The result is a cookie-cutter profile—all of whom like to walk on the beach.

Next, users spend the entire night adjusting search parameters, searching for potential matches, and crafting an attractive and witty message. After that, they wait anxiously for fear of being rejected by the other party. The whole process is not fun at all. Perhaps this is why, while many people like the results of dating sites, few like the process of dating sites.

But Tinder has completely changed this model. Like the fashion shopping apps mentioned above, Tinder is fun from the beginning. Users can quickly browse potential partners and choose what they like and don't like. Looking at photos of handsome men and beautiful women is fun in itself. When you find someone you like, you will feel an instant heartbeat - someone you find attractive also finds you attractive.

The whole process is thus a light-hearted one, with low expectations. No need to craft an email, just a simple text to start a conversation. Since the investment is so low, the expectations are low, and any response is fun. And because it’s fun, Tinder users keep coming back to the site, sometimes multiple times a day. If you’re constantly looking for someone, the odds of a match are high. Even the waiting is fun.

With the rise of mobile platforms, I think this "fun first" e-commerce model will gradually replace the traditional process model. I don't know if the purchase process of mortgages and car insurance will be so fun, but I believe that everything from home furnishings to games and restaurants will gradually integrate into this trend.