What generated today’s trillion-dollar e-commerce industry? – It is predicted that global revenue will reach $6. 5 trillion in 2023. Despite the fact that the impact of the COVID pandemic is progressively diminishing, demand for online purchasing has not decreased, particularly during the busy holiday season. Online sales can be considered the future of retail trade.
Along with that, there is a growing tendency of severe competition. Unless you sell products in a very small specialized market, you will always have to compete with other businesses. Strengthening the brand in the minds of clients is becoming increasingly important, not only in the product category, but also in the purchasing experience.
Put yourself in the shoes of a customer, switching from a seller’s attitude to that of an internet purchase. What do customers value the most? The majority of people said “time”. Customers want the seller to cover the time, method, and location of shopping according on their requirements. Businesses must establish multi-channel sales strategies to assist customers throughout the full purchasing journey.
To satisfy the demands of modern times, you must make the buying experience convenient and simple for customers. A simple shopping process gives customers with the correct product, at the right time, and in the right place, reducing friction that drives customers to abandon their shopping carts and decide to buy later (or worse, elsewhere).
In this tutorial, we’ll go over five measures to make purchase easier on your website, as well as some tools to assist you optimize your underlying technology platform.
Step 1: Easy shopping
Your aim is to create a marketing strategy, encourage purchasers to visit the sales page, and when they find something they love, they are ready to buy. Have you been effective in selling?
Actually, marketing things may be more difficult than you believe. Even if an item is in the cart, that does not guarantee a payment. In reality, Baymard, a consumer behavior research institute, determined that the average cart abandonment rate (based on 44 provided statistics) was approximately 70%.
Here’s what you need to do to enhance your conversion rate and make the purchasing process as simple as possible.
1. Design the sales page interface
The shopping trip begins before the buyer reaches the checkout page. You need an easy-to-use sales interface that will build trust in your business and encourage people to return to buy things. If you are not a web developer, you can use online tools to create a visually appealing website that attracts customers.
2. Personalize the experience
Customer relevance is another important thing to consider when shopping. When customers return to the store, if they recall their previous purchase, they will be more likely to spend money. In fact, 63% of shoppers prefer brand suggestions based on their purchasing history.
3. Optimize payment experience
There are numerous reasons why buyers quit shopping carts, but one survey discovered that 21% of online shoppers in the United States abandoned their carts owing to the complex and time-consuming checkout process. The payment experience is critical in minimizing purchasing friction, and there are a few techniques we can use to improve it. The initial step is to integrate with payment e-wallets. Shoppers frequently request the ability to pay using Apple Pay, Google Pay, or similar apps. Avoid adding too many apps and focus on providing a simple payment experience.
4. Improve search engines
Another potential impediment is search engines. Buyers can discover your sales page via advertising or direct visits. In any case, the search engine should return the requested goods without causing any issues for the buyer. You can use a variety of options, including navigation-friendly platforms and tailoring the buying experience based on search behavior.
5. Convince customers
Sometimes all it takes is a little encouragement for customers to complete the transaction. Some effective options include posting articles encouraging purchases, improving the store’s ratings and review quality, and taking advantage of buyer feedback.
Existing customer reviews are an effective conversion rate tactic that is becoming increasingly important. According to a poll, 34% of consumers want to read more business and service evaluations in 2020. How should you encourage customers to post evaluations, and how should you use them to improve efficiency?
Setting up notifications to remind clients about missing products is an efficient solution. Some technologies allow users to offer clients genuine data such as which products have recently been ordered, which products are doing well, and so on.
Step 2: Inspire customer confidence
Buyers may be hesitant if they notice that the purchase page has symptoms of fraud or does not protect the security of personal data. The reason for this is that online businesses, on average, face hundreds of thousands of data intrusions per month. You must demonstrate your dependability and security before, during, and after a customer conducts a transaction. Here are some resources that can help you.
To build trust with website visitors, ensure the e-commerce platform has high processing speed, reliability, and security. Include policies for lost, stolen, and damaged goods on the checkout page. A post-purchase warranty program can also encourage customers to purchase the product if they are concerned about damage in the event of an incident.
Step 3: Create surprise and delight
Delivering things swiftly and efficiently can have a significant impact on keeping customers returning to buy more. According to a poll, 87% of customers indicated the shipping and delivery experience had a direct impact on their decision to buy from the seller again.
1. Faster, more efficient delivery
Do you want your product shipping and unboxing experience to be as simple and delightful as everything else in the process thus far? We discussed above how you may improve your delivery experience using order tracking tools, but the following allow you to leave a lasting impression on your customers:
- Find the appropriate delivery provider: According to a favorable delivery experience survey, 63% of clients want quickness and 66% want free shipping. Amazon has made it a habit for customers to receive orders within two days. Third-party logistics solutions can boost your competitiveness. Using customer order history, seasonal demand patterns, and business growth estimates, the app can offer the best solutions for product delivery, allowing you to deliver faster in the most essential locations.
- Increase delivery efficiency: The more you automate shipping and fulfillment, the more time and money you’ll save. Look for technologies that allow you to effortlessly handle all of your orders from a single platform and save time by automatically applying actions to orders depending on your preferences. Import orders via connecting to a sales channel, manually making orders, uploading to CSV, or using an API. You may also sync as many orders as you want, from as many sources as you want, and send via whichever shipping provider you choose with ease and speed.
- Branded box design: One of the advantages of running your own e-commerce site over shipping through third-party vendors such as Amazon is that you can develop your brand and begin building partnerships. Include your brand on products like boxes, shock absorbers, mailers, tape, tissue paper, and labels. Simply select the sort of box you want, specify the size and quantity, and brand it with your company’s logo, message, and colors.
- Provide order tracking updates: It is critical to keep consumers informed about the status of their deliveries. Send your customers order status updates so they know when their order is ready to ship, shipped, on its way, or delivered. Order monitoring can reduce customer support calls and emails while also providing greater transparency to your consumers, resulting in a better overall experience.
2. Provide more fulfillment options
Offering more options can be beneficial to customers who require more than just speedy shipping. Several programs have been created that enable you to convert your retail sites into pick-up stores and connect online points of sale with businesses located anywhere near clients.
Step 4: Easy returning
Providing a straightforward return process will keep customers satisfied and even encourage them to return. According to a poll, 96% of customers will return to establishments that offer a hassle-free returns process. This is a strategy for increasing client feedback and attracting limitless reviews, allowing you to immediately rectify any issues. It is critical that you make the process as frictionless as the previous ones.
Step 5: Continue to nurture the relationship
Depending on your offering, one-time clients have the potential to become long-term repeat customers if they are treated that way from the start. Continued involvement and conversations with your consumers help to deepen the relationship and keep you top of mind for future purchases. Here are a few solutions:
1. Send broadcast emails and messages
Email and SMS can be excellent ways to keep clients updated, alert them about new products they might be interested in, and communicate future deals. Marketing during the delivery process can be an efficient approach to engage shoppers on a continual basis, and many brands fail to inform customers about upsells while the box is in route, missing out on the most engaging purchasing moment.
Message optimization is one of many strategies for reaching out to consumers more successfully. According to the National Client Email Report, the average email marketing program boosts profits by 38 times. As a result, more than 59% of marketers believe that email is the most effective way to increase income.
Businesses must build memorable experiences across marketing channels such as email, SMS, web, and in-app alerts by listening to and analyzing signals from visitors, subscribers, and customers. Convert the knowledge into valuable, relevant messaging. You can combine emailing with text and cart recovery push notifications, host a series for first-time purchasers, or order confirmations and delivery with automated workflows.
2. Target potential customers
Reminding clients of things they left in their shopping carts or while exploring can be an effective conversion rate technique. You can contact customers through different channels by using apps that connect your store to Google, Microsoft Advertising, Facebook, and Instagram.
3. Reward loyal customers
To differentiate yourself from many other competitors, consider introducing some incentive programs for loyal consumers to offer them a cause to return to your store rather than moving to another one.
Look for an app that allows you to develop a rewards program for your brand. The loyalty program provides clients with exclusive benefits and tempting discounts. This is also an effective technique to interact with the brand during each visit to your store.
4. Encourage customers to come back
Customers that return frequently will develop a stronger affinity for the brand over time, creating long-term value for the sales firm. Store tracking is one technique to build long-term customer relationships. You should understand how to manage your store’s followers and present relevant options to customers based on information from previous searches or purchase history.
Conclusion
You and your consumers both want the same thing: to get to your goods as soon as possible and without any issues. Your duty is to simplify whenever possible and create ways for them to be more efficient at each stage of the trip.
In this article, we’ve presented a variety of options to assist you in identifying effective solutions from the pre-purchase conversion phase to the post-purchase phase. However, your seamless purchasing experience will not be the same for another firm, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Continue to innovate, and try ordering from your website. As you wait for your order, ask yourself if the experience made you want to return. This question will help you determine what to do next.