eCommerce consumer expectations are ever-growing, but we’ve got the answer.
Providing a seamless shopping experience is the key to driving sales for your business.
From creating an effortless customer journey to a fully optimised site, there’s a variety of things retailers can do to ensure they give their customers a great experience on-site.
Below, we discuss five ways you can create a seamless shopping experience on your site and the benefits it can have on your business.
Provide a consistent and cohesive customer experience
A seamless retail experience offers more than accessibility, convenience, and streamlined processes for customers.
It's about creating customer loyalty, which incentivises new business as well as strengthens reputation by word-of-mouth marketing.
Customers expect a clear path to a successful and satisfying experience throughout their buying journey.
Keeping it consistent and cohesive across all of your channels ensures each customer receives the same experience with your brand, no matter where they find you from.
Whether that be through your site, social media, video content or emails, providing an omnichannel experience allows customers to browse without any issues for that seamless shopping journey.
Plus, if customers feel positive about their experience with your company, they will return time and again to purchase again, strengthening their relationship with your brand.
Related: Why You Need an Omnichannel Marketing Strategy.
Remove friction for shoppers
The key to providing a seamless shopping experience on your site is making the process as quick and simple as possible for your customers, from finding the item to buying it.
Below are five ways you can create a seamless experience, all while increasing loyalty and driving sales.
1. Optimise your on-site search
Your on-site search can be one of the most important factors on your eCommerce site and can often be the difference between a conversion or a lost sale.
If your search has slow load times, inaccurate search results or is hard to find, this can dramatically affect your conversion rate and overall is not the experience your customers want to have.
There are so many variations of search nowadays - voice search, image search and previously saved searches - so there’s no excuse.
It not only keeps your bounce rate down but also improves your users’ experience.
2. Streamline the checkout process
Don’t be fooled into thinking a conversion is sealed if a customer makes it to the checkout page as the average basket abandonment rate is around 70%.
Oftentimes, this is due to poor site optimisation - but there’s a simple fix.
Making the checkout process as efficient and simple as possible is a huge part of providing a seamless shopping experience for your customers.
First things first, nobody likes a long-winded checkout process, so allow guest checkouts.
Many customers will come to your page, add an item straight to their basket and check out straight away - don’t put them off by making it a necessity to create an account.
Take it a step further by offering ‘buy now pay later’ schemes where1 in 10 millennials say it’s the best thing a retailer can do to make online shopping more convenient.
This allows customers to spread larger orders across smaller payments, making it more affordable and increasing your average order value.
3. Email retargeting with buy now links
Even with various exit-intent strategies on your eCommerce site, it’s inevitable that sometimes customers simply don’t complete a purchase every now and then.
The average shopping cart abandonment rate is almost 70%. So, with numbers this high it’s important to have a cart abandonment strategy in place.
For those abandoning customers, you can send retargeting emails with buy now links to the products in their cart to encourage them to complete a purchase.
This keeps your shoppers engaged and reminds them to complete a purchase.
4. Optimise your site for any device
More than ever customers are using different devices to browse online stores, whether it be desktop, iPads or mobile phones.
This is something to take into consideration when designing your homepage, navigation or form filling.
Ensuring your site is fully optimised means more visitors will clearly see your logo, visuals and CTAs, helping people remember your brand.
You’ll also get more search traffic as mobile-friendly sites often show up higher in search results, which makes sense considering over 1.2 billion people access the web on their mobile phones.
It’s not just about the numbers, there are many more advantages to optimising your site for any device, such as reaching more people and keeping those users engaged.
5. Simplify your delivery and returns process
Clearly showing your delivery and return options can be the final push for customers to complete their purchase.
Increase your conversion rate by offering free returns. Research shows that two-thirds of customers are deterred from shopping with a retailer if they don’t offer free returns.
You can display these incentives through Overlays on your site.
That being said, as the eCommerce industry continues to grow, so too does the number of returns.
The cost of returns, processing and refunding is a headache for businesses but keeping them stress-free and easy is the key to retaining customers and encouraging repeat purchases.
Regardless, simplifying your delivery and returns process will be a driving factor in your efforts to provide a seamless experience.
Conclusions
As consumers continue to evolve and demand, eCommerce businesses are ever-changing in their approach.
One thing we do know is providing a seamless customer experience has various benefits for your business.
It ensures you deliver a consistent experience to your customers, new and returning, helping you drive sales in the long run.
If you want to find out how Salesfire’s suite of tools can help you deliver a seamless customer experience to every customer, give us a call on 020 4505 9040 or book a free demo.
