Lider's Marketing and Sales by Numbers conference

Our own Davor Španić took part as a panellist at the Marketing and Sales by Numbers conference organised by Lider.

At the beginning of July, Zagreb hosted the sixth edition of the business weekly's conference. This time it was a hybrid event: a substantial professional audience attended in person, while anyone interested in marketing and sales could follow the live stream.

The growth of online shopping in Croatia after the coronavirus crisis

Davor Španić, Shipshape's director and one of the creators of the Shape Core eCommerce platform used to build our online stores, joined the panel on the growth of online shopping in Croatia after the coronavirus crisis.

The panel was moderated by Ivica Kruhek of Marker. It also featured Sandro Baričević, Chief Executive of the EQUESTRIS consulting and communications agency, and Marcel Majsan, president of eCommerce Croatia.

During an engaging 40-minute discussion, the speakers examined retailers' reactions to lockdown, the sudden arrival of new online shoppers, changes in their habits, and the future: how to retain those customers and keep online retail effective.

One specific question concerned online retailers' requirements during the pandemic and how they adapted. According to Španić, businesses could be divided into four groups:

• Companies with an established eCommerce operation that responded well to lockdown, reassigned employees to meet increased online demand and achieved substantial online sales.
• Companies with a functioning website shop but without a fully developed eCommerce business. Lockdown prompted them to take the channel more seriously and develop it further.
• Companies with no online sales that suddenly recognised the need for them.
• Companies whose products could not legally be sold online and which therefore lost their revenue when physical locations closed.

Clients with existing online stores mainly requested integrations with external systems to automate and accelerate processes previously handled manually, such as connections to delivery companies or ERP systems for invoicing.

Many businesses recognised the online store and eCommerce as a strategic direction for their development over the following years.

The pandemic brought new customers: what next?

Another important topic was retaining the new online shoppers who had appeared during the previous year. What steps were retailers taking to keep them?

Clients commissioning online stores increasingly asked for more complex and complete solutions. Loyalty programmes, more advanced marketing automation and personalised offers were becoming more common. The discussion linked this trend to the anticipated changes to third-party cookies and the growing importance of zero-party data and a business's own first-party customer information.

More companies also wanted a complete marketing service alongside online store development, recognising the channel's strategic importance. In response to that demand, our sister company Digital Reality focuses on eCommerce and digital marketing for online stores.

After a long time away from events, it was good to meet colleagues again in a relaxed conference setting and discuss the effects of the previous year's events on online retail, customers and merchants.

To conclude, one of the most important messages for businesses considering a new online store or further investment in an existing one was this:

“If you launch an online store, it will not pay for itself in the first year. It is important to understand that when the project ‘ends’ and the store starts operating, that is not the end of the story. It is only the beginning of further eCommerce development.”

Španić concluded with this point because he expected the number of online shoppers to continue growing.