1.1.1.1 Searching
Searching is the most basic information tool in the Internet. By taking new search engine technologies, digital information can be accessed with ease. Using a search engine to explore can help enterprises and consumers locate target information within seconds, largely improving business efficiency. Keyword searches are one of the most elementary applications of online searching. With the better performing computing power, storage capacity and network speed currently available to us, we have access to advanced methods in searching. For example, users can search information by voice or visual search. Customized searching results can be offered by combining personal searching history and positioning information, etc.
From the perspective of enterprises, for many years, people from digital marketing have been continuously optimizing search engines. In fact, search engine optimization (SEO) has always been one of the important tools to increase online views for enterprises. However, with higher processing speed and upgraded machine-learning technologies as well as searching technologies, search engine service providers (Google, Baidu, etc.) have gradually enhanced the ratio of advanced searching technologies like semantic search. For users, they have access to more accurate information in line with their own needs. However, effects of traditional means like optimizing the webpage and buying keywords may be waning.
Semantic search technologies originated from May 2012. Launched by Google, “Knowledge Graph” service is a semantic search engine with some artificial intelligence technologies. Compared with traditional searching technology, Knowledge Graph’s search target is real “things” rather than a “character string”, and it can gather valuable information from the searching behaviors of users. Knowing the connection between over 570 million entities and over 18 billion facts, it continues to improve the searching experience. It is noticeable that semantic technologies are not only limited to external search engines like Google or Bing but also applied in social media. Image search is a search engine system of Facebook similar to Google’s “Knowledge Graph”, which further blurs the boundary between searching and social activities. If search engines can identify and understand a personal problem, it can offer personalized results. In conclusion, a search engine is starting to think and act like human beings.
The development of cloud computing, semantic searching technologies and data collection enable the learning capacities of computers to grow by leaps and bounds. Computers understand users’ intentions better, deeper and faster. In some cases, computers can even estimate the searching requirements of users without further user information.
Mobile technologies, voice recognition and big data can help computers retrieve a mass of the Internet, social media and geo-location data. Based on the filtration and categorization of the data, computers can more accurately predict the future requirements and behaviors of users.
1.1.1.2 Brand website
Brand website (official website of a company) is a critical battlefield of brands on the Internet. Visits, such as search engines, introduced by channels are most likely targeted at brand websites which are the main source of information for digital consumers and possess some real business functions including attracting clients, performing marketing services and offering client services as well. As a digital flagship store, information demonstration center and online distribution system of a commercial organization, brand websites must play multiple roles, cultivate new sales clues and maintain the existing clients.
1.1.1.3 E-commerce
As an extension and supplement to the brand’s website (official website of a company), e-commerce is an important function furthering the digital revolution of enterprises. It provides clients with a very convenient way of knowing, comparing and purchasing goods and obtaining services. In the past, perhaps many enterprises regarded e-commerce as just a supporting channel, but with the booms in recent years and new business giant Ali Group riding the e-commerce wave, enterprises can hardly ignore a fact: e-commerce has subverted the traditional business model, representing an upgraded version of the traditional model.
Nowadays, clients expect that all channels of the enterprises are consistent, strongly connected, easy to be interconverted and competitive in user experience. Against such a background, enterprises must ensure that their e-commerce platform not just offers online trading services but also needs to integrate e-commerce, social media and mobile ends into a unified experience. Or further, they integrate online and offline channels, which provides an all-round buying experience for clients.
E-commerce websites with a good visual presentation can help users sort out the best product, compare different price solutions of products in short terms and provide a safe and efficient means of payment. Users can easily comment on their shopping experience and this can also help enterprises build brand trust. Generally, e-commerce consumers may just be a group of younger people more familiar with digital technologies, but the fact is that number of e-commerce users is expanding in every age group.
A new trend in e-commerce is mobile e-commerce, which benefits from the rapid popularity of smartphones and tablet computers in recent years. In 2015, more than half of the mobile phone users went shopping on mobile ends for at least once; GMV of mobile e-commerce for the first time exceeded that of the PC port, indicating that e-commerce on mobile ends would become one of the main trading channels. By the end of 2015, the number of mobile shopping users in China reached 364 million, up by 23.8%. By 2018, this number is likely to be close to 500 million. For businesses, this change means that e-commerce users use different screens and often move from one screen to another. Even many users use mobile means to make comparisons in physical trading. Forward-looking companies have begun to actively use mobile e-commerce to better the physical trading experience. The mobile payment based on near-field communication technology (NFC) is the one being promoted. Leading players of mobile payment in China, WeChat and Alipay, have invested tremendous resources in cultivating the user habit of mobile payment and now they also have to face the competition with Apple Pay, a global leader in mobile payment products.
Mobile e-commerce helps physical stores to collect more trading data to better optimize user experience, provide a more personalized shopping advice, which reduces the gap between the online and the offline trading experience. E-commerce blurs the boundary between the physical and the virtual worlds and encourages online and offline integration, leading to a highly integrated, omni-channel shopping experience.
1.1.1.4 Mobile payment
Mobile payment, even at its very early stage, has received widespread attention and popularity. According to mobile consumer survey data released by Adobe in 2015, 18% of the consumers are using mobile payment and the figure for young people is even higher, reaching 25%. A total of 83% of the respondents believe that the mobile payment experience is more convenient than credit card payment. It provides two competitive edges: convenience and safety. Consumers can obtain details regarding the payments by cell phones and their financial information does not get stored in a physical entity, but on a highly encrypted cloud server.
Mobile payment has multiple technologies to support its function, among which message authentication code, QR code and NFC are the three most common solutions. With NFC technology, credit card payment can be easily completed by placing the merchant’s credit card POS in close proximity to the consumers’ cell phones. Square and PayPal in other countries and Alipay and WeChat in China are the common NFC solution providers and we definitely cannot ignore the rapid popularity gained by Apple Pay. This approach of the virtual card payment is indeed similar to the digital version of the physical credit card. When a user sends out a payment order, the cell phone app recognizes this order immediately and provides a scannable barcode or completes the credit card transaction using the NFC.
1.1.1.5 Internet word-of-mouth reputation
Internet word-of-mouth reputation is the positive or negative information of an enterprise or a brand