Five Steps to a Better E-Commerce Customer Experience
By: Sarah J. Flynn | June 16, 2021 | 5 Min Read
In-store shopping has many benefits.
The joy of browsing; the ability to examine garments closely; the simplicity of comparing different colors. These are just a few reasons that customers prefer to shop in person. However, the e-commerce customer experience (CX) often struggles to recreate the in-store experience. Even the keenest online shoppers would say that their online experience often lacks many of the enjoyable features of physical shopping. Bridging this gap through omnichannel strategies is the next step towards providing the best e-commerce customer experience.
Customer experiences across multiple channels are converging. Consumers are bringing real-world demands to the online space and vice-versa. Stores are getting more tech-infused, and thanks to advances in interactive tools and visual engagement, the online shopping experience is more realistic.
Retailers need to react to this reality. They must strive to make their e-commerce CX contain all the best features of the in-person experience.
To help in that endeavor, here are five tips on how to improve the e-commerce customer experience:
1. Display Real-Time Color, Style, and Accessory Changes
Often, consumers have trouble visualizing their purchases. In person, they would just reach out and skim through a rack of available products. Online, this is harder to reproduce. Showing a single item with an array of color swatches is just not enough.
To provide the best e-commerce customer experience, enterprises need advanced, dynamic imaging technology that enables shoppers to view thousands of customization options. This transforms an encounter with a product. Moreover, a website should also allow the shopper to rotate a product 360 degrees or zoom in on details.
This enriches the e-commerce CX and also improves customer loyalty. Additionally, conversions can also substantially increase.
2. Show the Exact Fonts or Graphics that will Appear on the Item
Personalization and customization are invaluable to the e-commerce customer experience. Hence the global market for personalized products and gifts is projected to grow to $43.3 billion by 2027.
Brands with e-commerce capabilities need to double down on this fact, as wine gift retailer Personal Wine has done. Instead of showing two separate images as a proof of their personalized wine bottles, the company leveraged a dynamic imaging solution to provide a live preview of each unique customer label.
Image credit: Personal Wine Website
This increased the company’s conversion rate by 12 percent, and boosted their engagement and overall e-commerce customer experience. Personal Wine CEO Anthony D’Addeo said:
“The key is making less work for the customer. By making the buying process easier and more enjoyable, we’re ensuring customer loyalty and hopefully inspiring advocacy.”
The most important elements in personalization and customization are the capabilities to display products exactly how they will appear. Without seeing the final product, consumers will hesitate to proceed.
(Check out the white paper here for other related case studies).
3. Give Shoppers Confidence about What They are Purchasing
60 percent of e-commerce buyers need an average of three to four product images when they are shopping online. Moreover, shoppers return their purchase 22 percent of the time because it looks different in-person, compared to images online.
Customization and personalization tools make online shopping fun. A better e-commerce CX means allowing customers to play with possibilities. Experimenting with dynamic imaging triggers new ideas—and new purchases.
Moreover, by enabling the shopper to share these virtual images via email or social media, he or she becomes an influencer, making an impression on their family, friends, and followers.
Montana Silversmiths delivered a superior e-commerce customer experience this way. With a dynamic imaging solution to power their online custom configuration tool for belt buckles, the company’s business experienced a 91 percent increase, making up more than a third of their website’s intake.
4. Provide Thumbnail Photos in the Shopping Cart
A shopping cart with text but no images becomes a point of friction in the shopping process. Customers will hesitate to complete their order if they wonder, “Did I get it all? Have I forgotten anything?”
Retailers need to remove every potential stopping point on the path to conversion. They must also prevent shopper disappointment and high return rates. Enabling thumbnail images of the product on the checkout page will streamline the process.
Dynamic imaging allows automatic scaling and optimization of photos. This provides the best e-commerce customer experience possible, as shoppers can automatically check and confirm that they have everything ready in their cart through the thumbnails. Friction is removed and checkout becomes a breeze.
5. Deliver More Relevant Emails and Ads
Email, display, and media ads are major drivers of revenue. However, timing is everything. Stale emails, ads with expired offers, or out-of-stock promotions do nothing good for retailer revenue and can have a negative impact on customer loyalty. Hence, retailers need to be on top of their email and ads strategies.
For emails, dynamic imaging can play a key role in making your email offers time-sensitive and relevant. Brands can set up their email automations such that the email client or browser presents dynamic images as it calls out to external servers to retrieve the media. This allows tailor-fit, targeted offers that your traditional email marketing does not have.
Moreover, when a page takes longer than three seconds to load, most users abandon the page and look elsewhere. A dynamic imaging solution can help brands address this concern by automatically resizing images as needed and facilitating faster load times. Case in point: read about how Kid’s Creations blew their competitors’ clunky, slow tools out of the water in this white paper.
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As in-store and digital experiences continue to converge, the digital space needs to mimic the physical browsing experience. By leveraging the power of dynamic imaging, retailers enable shoppers to customize products and see fully personalized merchandise in real-time.
Advanced retail dynamic imaging brings next-gen interactivity and visual engagement to the e-commerce customer experience. Through customized interactions, personalized product offerings, thumbnail enablement in shopping carts, and dynamic image additions to emails, retailers deepen engagement, boost conversions, and streamline the experience for their consumers.
Learn more about how you can start providing the best e-commerce customer experience through dynamic imaging. Contact us here.
