E-commerce, while hardly a nascent industry, has yet to meet peak maturation. Like most grumpy teens, it’s still communicating in monosyllabic grunts — but this won’t cut the mustard in a landscape dominated by rapidly evolving technologies, sustainability issues and ethics concerns. It’s time for e-commerce businesses to step up their comms strategies to cement their places as the future of retail. All in, e-commerce platforms should rethink their core purpose in a circular economy, one which is rooted in ethics and sustainability principles. It is critical for brands to not only listen to their consumers but to respond — whether that be through investment in technology to improve the customer experience, or to hang some big brand goals around sustainability. In a world where culture is currency, the ones that can’t keep pace with shifting demands and expectations won’t survive.

Is Retail Really Innovating?
Investment in technology went into hyper speed as brick-and-mortar stores shuttered in the face of COVID-19, and it shows no sign of slowing. Innovation and transformation that previously would have taken years, happened overnight. While this has helped spur the next generation of multichannel touchpoints, it presents its own problems. The everyday consumer has yet to truly understand the benefits technologies such as chatbots, analytics and AI can bring them. Consumers expect seamless interactions that ultimately benefit them; whether it’s personalized recommendations, loyalty programs or easier, more efficient check-out. The businesses that can articulate their brand promise will, ultimately, be the ones that win out.

E-commerce businesses need to be clear about how and why they are using technology to improve the customer experience; they need to think about what true innovation is. It could be argued that solutions are tacked on without any real thought, just a simple application of technology that already exists — we must question what the real revolution in e-commerce will be in this era of digital transformation.

Commitment Issues
This piecemeal approach to e-commerce needs an overhaul – one that is cemented in the commitment to become vital to consumers through far deeper levels of connection, both online and offline. Delivering on this vision requires companies to put e-commerce strategies at the center of their organizations so they can choreograph experiences that meet customers’ ever-rising expectations.

But this is no pipe dream. Some brands are generating vast amounts of revenue through a continued commitment to digital transformation and they’re doing it quickly. And it isn’t just legacy players doing so; newer entrants lack the burden of disparate, siloed systems and can, therefore, be much nimbler in attaining their goal of being true customer-led, digital-first platforms. However, many others continue to languish in an innovation no-man’s land for fear of cost, change and concerns — or more accurately, a combination of all three.

Know Your Consumers
The consumer experience is rapidly evolving from a transactional process focused simply on shopping and buying, to a model built on deep, enriching relationships at every step of the customer journey. Retailers and brands must become a key staple in their consumers’ lives. But first, they need to build a sophisticated understanding of the way consumers live, eat, shop, work and play — and use this knowledge to provide value in the right place, at the right time, via the right channels.

An experience-led consumer journey is no small feat. It will require a consumer-centric view of the entire business, from supply chain and operating model to content and marketing, all the while being propped up by technology ecosystem powered by real-time consumer data. With a marriage between infrastructure and brand, the e-commerce of tomorrow is ripe for the taking today.

Given time, tech finds a way to disrupt. And the real estate industry is a great example as it’s in the midst of its own disruption. However, what’s behind it – property technology or “proptech” – isn’t easily defined in a way that the savvy communicator can leverage for maximum media impact. A situation in which many emerging technologies and disruptive industries find themselves these days. In the case of proptech, it’s presented as an agglomeration of many different types of tech used in different ways within the space for a wide variety of purposes. Last year, for example, BuiltIn cited Forbes contributor Mike Shapiro’s definition: “The underlying technology that real estate professionals, underwriters, developers, property managers, title companies, banks and others use to manage and improve real estate transactions from start to finish.” That doesn’t help us as much as that would-be data, which is what every forward-looking technology needs these days. After all, data accessible through the internet is pretty much the underpinning of everything tech. So, how might we define proptech in a way that better represents what it sets out to accomplish and reinforces why others need to pay attention to the proptech sector?

Let’s start by looking at some of the other definitions that come a little closer to ones that might help with positioning the industry. Instead of focusing almost exclusively on the transactional component, for instance, it might be more accurate to think of proptech as “a set of technologies that transforms the way we design, build, sell, inspect and operate real estate.” [Source: NYCEDC] While that’s better, it also comes with the risk of pigeonholing proptech as everything technology-related that enhances real estate. The Pratt Institute, which recently hosted a proptech award ceremony, went a bit further in one direction related to this description, focusing on how proptech “manages the building life cycle” and for that, you need “Smart Building Technology.” If you combine the two, proptech then might be considered the interactions that take place around property that has been enhanced through technology. However, that’s still not entirely accurate as there are other elements that need to be represented if proptech is going to be seen as a technological force in its own right. Let’s consider what else should be part of a definition.

What is proptech?

Proptech is a new way of thinking about real estate: It’s the developers who have sketched out a new platform for property management on a napkin at the diner where they’ve hatched their business plan.

Proptech is leveraging innovation to make what’s old new again: It’s figuring out ways to retrofit pre-war buildings with technologies that make the last mile of package delivery more seamless or reduce carbon emissions by replacing the stalwart steam radiators.

Proptech is creating financial connections between members of the real estate ecosystem: It’s re-setting how owners and tenants interact from a monetary standpoint – from how payments are made to connecting payment to a rewards mechanism.

Proptech is making management for transparent: It’s replacing the manual way of handling things with interfaces accessible from multiple devices and available to those who are a part of the maintenance process.

So, it’s obvious that proptech requires easily understood and comprehensive definition in order to communicate its value more accurately to the various stakeholders that will use it. If it’s not clear who the intended audience is and how it’s defined is too fluid, there’s not going to be much confidence in it as a force in the marketplace. In other words, while it’s ultimately going to be used by everyone from property owners to tenants and everyone in between, it’s not just data, nor about the money spent, nor about a rent check paid, etc. How can we do that in a way that makes it accessible and useful simultaneously?