eCommerce Tip: Think Like Your Shopper
As technology has evolved over the year, shopping has changed. For many shoppers, making a purchase is as simple as pushing a button. The growing change in the business landscape has forced business owners to shift focus to an online presence in the eCommerce world.
This can be a difficult adjustment, trying to put together the best website for your business and be in the best position to have success in the digital space. One way to put yourself on the path to success as a merchant is to put yourself in the shoes of your buyer, to get a better understanding of what an online shopper wants.
The human element in the shopping process is of great importance. A customer needs to be completely convinced by your products or services and base their decision on many factors.
One way to get this perspective is to look at the analytics for your website. What is the age and gender of the visitors to your site? Can you adjust your content to better attract this audience? How many visitors are repeat customers? What are people searching – is it a specific category or product? How much are customers spending on average?
It may seem like a lot to digest, but this information can help give an understanding as to who is coming to your website and why they are coming to you. Knowing your customers and adhering to their needs or listening to their feedback creates a connection between merchant and customer and therefore a trust in your business and products. Having a strong customer relationship breeds better results.
So how can you apply this to creating the best eCommerce website? By understanding your customer or putting yourself in their shoes, you can have a better sense of what will be attractive to customers in a digital space.
Your website should be clean and easy to navigate so that customers can easily find items. Customers want to see crisp, detailed, high-quality images of products. Provide as much information about your products on product pages to try to answer any and all questions the customer may have.
With the development of the eCommerce space, systems are able to assist in everything from inventory management to indexing. Automated indexing is helping to take optimization to the next level. Not only does this indexing help with placement on search engines, these systems can also sort through customer data and customize pages to each individual customer.
Above all, the goal for any business owner is to sell more. With all of these trends and technologies come a new way to achieve that. The personalization of pages on an eCommerce website tailor shopping to the individual, not the mass audience. The individual focus creates a connection with customers, providing a better experience.
This technology also helps with customers who may not complete a purchase immediately. Through the data, the system can recognize when a customer has spent a notable amount of time viewing a certain product. It takes that information, stores it, and retargets customers so that they are reminded of the product.
As the eCommerce space grows, the need for human interaction becomes lesser. Creating a connection through the digital space for the growing population of online shoppers is becoming more and more important. Simply having an understanding of how a digital shopper thinks and feels and knowing the ways to have your store be able to recognize the data and cater to individual customers will go a long way in your success in eCommerce.
