OTT-Based Conversational Commerce Spending to Surpass $25 Billion in 2023

Global spending for conversational commerce over OTT channels, including WhatsApp or WeChat, will rise from $13.3 billion in 2022 to $25.1 billion in 2023, according to Juniper Research. This growth of 89% will be driven by verticals such as retail and eCommerce, which provide increased online presence and product availability as retailers refine their online customer experience.

The new research found that eCommerce and retail will account for over 35% of spend via OTT conversational commerce channels in 2023; accounting for $9 billion of spending globally. However, it identified regional fragmentation in the OTT messaging space as a key hurdle to growth. To overcome this, it urges conversational commerce vendors to onboard each messaging app individually, while adhering strictly to the varying financial regulations in each country.

Other issues for conversational commerce vendors include the varying types of payment methods in use across countries. Vendors need to account for these differences and support various digital wallets. This flexibility will enable vendors to offer a complete omnichannel experience by providing payments across OTT apps, chatbots, voicebots, and RCS business messaging.

To increase market share, conversational commerce platforms must also invest in value-added services to provide differentiation from existing conversational services. For example, digital loyalty programs can be used to provide personalized and incentivized messages to achieve increases in digital engagement. In addition, vendors must facilitate features such as link tracking and call-to-action support to monitor engagement.

“Supporting a sufficient number of communication channels is no longer enough to ensure the success of omnichannel experiences. Vendors must look to include additional value-added services into their business model to create depth within existing communication channels“ commented research author Elisha Sudlow-Poole.