Preface:
As an e-commerce business, you could have retained customers by offering high-quality products at a low price 20 years ago; however, the digital commerce scenario has completely changed, and what matters today in this extremely competitive business segment is the online user experience.
Offline Scenario:
When we enter the showroom, a sophisticated salesperson usually comes with a welcome drink to inquire about our requirements. He showcases the best-suited products and provides all vital product information to help you make a call. He ensures you enjoy the experience and visit again by providing an easy payment process.
Overview:
Digital commerce businesses must do the same, offering a far greater shopping experience. E-commerce businesses need to engage with consumers and constantly communicate at every stage of the buying journey to achieve two ultimate goals: customer loyalty and customer retention.
Since e-commerce trends change more quickly than mood swings, staying ahead of the future is a massive challenge. When customers are inclined to ignore unkempt and cluttered websites and mobile apps, developing an e-commerce solution that offers an intuitive buying experience with feature-full, navigable, and future-ready design is what customer experience is all about.
What is the customer experience for digital commerce?
The days of segmentation and broad demographic targeting are gone. More than merely sending newsletters or general discount offers is needed to cut the ice with customers. The pandemic has changed the way people think and process their shopping. It has been observed that 80% of customers are inclined to buy when digital commerce businesses make their experience personal.
Customer experience is about providing actionable content, in-depth product information, and individualized offers based on customers’ online behavior, previous purchases, demography, and other personal information.
Personalization Challenges for Digital Commerce:
The emphasis on personalization is unrealistic. However, the fact is that not all but only a few e-commerce stores offer personalization at one or another stage.
According to the survey conducted by McKinsey, 95 out of 100 e-commerce stores believe that personalization is a strategic priority, and only 23 out of 100 cannot adopt these practices. Notably, e-commerce stores lose around 35% of their business due to not offering a better customer experience.
Let us enrich your e-commerce platform with ten super tips that can transform the user experience.
1. Optimize Website Speed:
How would you keep an individual glued to your website or mobile app when the usual period is 3 seconds? In this fast-paced world, people need more time, so they shop online.
Many online buyers pay no heed to the website that takes ages to load. The shoppers expect a quick response from the websites and smooth navigation from one section to another to make a quick decision.
Nobody can dispute that an e-commerce website that loads faster enjoys 70% longer sessions. Therefore, your e-commerce expert should review and minify CSS and Java Scripts. They should also remove render-blocking Javascript while streamlining HTML coding.
Does your e-commerce expert regularly review CDNs? A content delivery network reduces the time between the server and the user, thereby reducing the site loading time. Besides, optimizing the images for a mature look and quick turnaround is the easiest way to reduce loading time.
2. Mobile-Friendly Design:
Interchangeable interfaces and responsiveness nowadays play a critical role in offering maximum satisfaction to buyers. It is observed that young individuals are more mobile savvy, and therefore, they are inclined toward using mobile e-commerce stores to meet their needs.
On the other hand, the older generation tends to click the social media links that redirect to the web page of an e-commerce store. Moreover, it is evident that owning an e-commerce mobile app is an expensive affair. Therefore, small business owners prefer e-commerce websites.
Therefore, your digital commerce platform must be mobile-ready and quickly respond to mobile requests in mobile format. To keep your online shopping store mobile-friendly, keep your content short and rich with keywords. Your e-commerce store developer should keep the navigation simple and allow users to check out products at any stage.
Ensure you allow guest check-outs while being thoroughly responsive to user needs. From a technical point of view, your e-commerce expert should include viewport meta tags and place CTAs at a thumb distance.
3. Streamlined Navigation:
Navigational complexities are one of the main reasons why your e-commerce website witnesses a higher bounce rate. Customers do not prefer to surf websites and mobile apps that don’t have clear paths defined to access various product sections.
In general, a website should be decluttered. Those house e-commerce stores should have clean designs and clear navigation to ensure customers only roam around occasionally and quickly reach the section of their choice. According to a survey, poorly navigable e-commerce websites lose almost 37% of their business to easily navigable websites.
An e-commerce store developer must have all product categories on the home page. Besides, the online store should ensure that all the offerings are on the home page, with link-embedded images directing to the precise product section.
Digital commerce store developers should use only publicly recognized icons with magnifying effects. Links should change color when clicked or hovered over. The brand logo should be clickable and lead to the home page. The navigation bar must be placed across the website at the top for easy access.
4. A Clear Call-to-Action (CTA):
Once a customer, especially a new one, lands on your e-commerce store, your sole purpose is to make them buy, offering them a better user experience. Besides being beautiful, being practical is the key to success.
Your website is not a shopping mall where people come and just roam around and leave without buying any of your products. You may have beautified your e-commerce store with the best design, smooth navigation, and a wide range of cheap products, but you must provide them with a reason to take action on their product choice.
Therefore, it is crucial for an e-commerce store to provide clean and inciting call-to-action features at every stage of the shopping experience to ensure customers can check out the product whenever they wish to.
The rule that guides CTAs is that your copy and language have to be short and sweet. Another rule that e-commerce store experts should follow is regarding placement. Customers should not be forced to scroll down; the CTA should be above the fold. The best way to utilize CTA is with offers and discounts.
5. High-Quality Imagery:
However old, the adage “an image is worth a thousand words” is worth applying to e-commerce website development. Designing intuitive, relevant, and interactive graphics helps customers connect with businesses. Moreover, providing graphics without information in words is another psychological way of conveying a message.
High-quality images allow online stores to build a story around customers by designing situations they relate to. Graphics generate needs and express benefits effectively at the individual level.
There is a fundamental difference between customization and personalization. Personalization is when customers feel the images and content are talking to them directly. They should be able to appreciate the relevance of the page, images, and content, resulting in an overall personalized experience.
6. Personalization:
The smoothest way to boost customer experience for your digital commerce is to deliver a personalized experience that can create a sense of belonging for the customers. Personalization symbolizes that the brand cares for its customers. In return, brands gain loyalty. The finest way to make your customers feel they are precious is through personalizing the shopping experience. Personalization is another way to improve your customer service since you know their name, choices, preferences, needs, demography, and vital personal data to predict their needs.
Since life worldwide is extremely fast, and people hardly spend time with family, their shopping happens quickly. If an e-commerce store knows the shopping data of the customer, they can send production recommendations with inciting offers and an effective CTA to boost their sales. If digital commerce businesses invest in data collection and data analysis, they can improve shopping times and motivate customers to complete transactions in the shortest time possible.
The ideal way to start is to develop various buyer personas based on the available data. Suggesting more localized products helps prompt a decision. E-commerce stores can also provide birthday, anniversary, and festival-based recommendations to ensure customers feel at home and pick their online store for everything they need.
7. Seamless Checkout Process:
Most customers abandon the product because of the complexities they face in checking it out. Therefore, a simple, clean, and quick checkout process is necessary for digital commerce to boost the user experience.
An e-commerce store must have a checkout option at every stage. Customers should be able to purchase the product as soon as they see it. Therefore, each product page should have a checkout option. The process of signing up before checking out should also be very easy. Various options for signing in—from Apple, Google, Facebook, or Outlook—should be provided.
Look at the Amazon checkout process. You will find a “one-click check out” option on product pages to enable shoppers to quickly order the product without providing too much information.
8. Social Proof and Reviews:
Over time, customers have developed the habit of checking reviews on the product. An e-commerce platform must enable customers to have opinions on the products they have bought. The ability to review products online gives one a sense of entitlement.
Social proof is the strongest way to build trust in a brand and its products. Social proof is an ideal way to express customer satisfaction. It provides customers with a first-hand experience with the purchasing process on the e-commerce store, product quality, price range, and post-sales services.
Reviews and social proof are a great way to improve the customer experience on the online store, as they bring much-needed transparency and allow customers to contribute to the betterment of digital commerce as well as products.
9. Live Chat Support:
Hundreds of products, reviews, countless images, and varied product information can confuse many customers. Besides, there are language constraints, which may discourage a customer. If a customer is seeking precise and detailed information about the product, process, and payment, the customer should be able to interact with the e-commerce store.
Providing a live chat option on the website to interact with product executives or customer care executives is the best way to expand the user experience beyond the e-commerce website or mobile app. Allowing customers to express their concerns or grievances directly to the online store builds trust.
10. Post-Purchase Engagement:
Recently, I ordered on my favorite e-commerce platform but forgot to change the address. I tried to change the address, but I couldn’t. I requested a call from the e-commerce store, and hurray! In 60 seconds, I could talk to a customer care executive, who helped me alter the address.
Post-sales communication holds the key to retaining a customer. A customer shouldn’t feel that an e-commerce store is about selling the product and doesn’t care about delivery timing, product quality, returns or refunds, or even grievances.
Post-sales engagement is necessary for online stores to build faith in the brand and ensure customers return to shop repeatedly. Inquiring about product or service feedback, sharing news about the business or industry, offering discounts and cashback, or informing customers about new brands or products helps digital commerce platforms keep in constant touch with their customers.
How can Sigma Solve help?
Understanding digital commerce business and e-commerce store development at Sigma Solve is exceptional. Sigma Solve’s digital commerce solutions are holistic, rich in features, tailored to the customer’s needs, and technology studded to enhance and enlarge the digital transformation.
Sigma Solve offers complete access to its experienced and dedicated e-commerce store developers and experts to achieve incredible uniqueness that addresses customers’ concerns and increases customer satisfaction through customer engagement and personalization.
Sigma Solve specializes in providing eCommerce solutions, leveraging their expertise and knowledge to assist businesses in building and optimizing their online presence. As eCommerce experts, Sigma Solve offers comprehensive services encompassing eCommerce website development, integration of secure payment gateways, seamless user experience design, effective inventory management, and data analytics for informed decision-making.
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