We’re very soon going to enter the most active time of the retail season. Given the current ultra-competitive situation in the eCommerce market due to Covid-19 pandemic, 2020 holiday season promises to be – make or break for many retailers.
The key reason for this rush and competition is because eCommerce has entirely changed the relationship between shoppers and retailers. In the wake of current pandemic, eCommerce has now shifted its position from being an alternative to a necessity.
As sellers are increasingly shifting towards eCommerce, they are also realizing that customers have a unique preference for the products they buy. They are limited to time and typically have fixed budgets. Even though there is a significant spike in the eCommerce industry, it is observed that majority of customers visit an eCommerce website but just 2.86% convert according to industry research.
Nearly 97% don’t engage in shopping activity or abandon their shopping cart, meaning the majority of a retailer’s investment in search and online advertising to attract them is wasted.
Also read: Strategies To Boost B2B ECommerce Business During COVID-19 Pandemic
Before targeting the audience to buy online, retailers need to understand what are customers looking for and how can online retailers provide it? There are two essential needs, besides the primary factors of offering the right products at the right price:
- Customers want a great experience on the device they use to browse your website specifically mobile, meaning your digital UX has to be intuitive, appealing and seamless. And in today’s digital era your online store must fit and run smoothly in a smartphone.
- Shoppers want brands to understand their needs. They don’t want to be targeted with offers or products that don’t appeal to them. And once they land on the website, they must find a suitable product in minimum time. Customers don’t want to search through your website to explore what they are looking for; otherwise, they will give up and go elsewhere.
Online retailers can meet the above two needs through effective digital personalization:
- Effective A/B testing allows sellers to enhance the experience for all, assuring that your website UX is clean for every shopper on every platform, be it desktop or mobile.
- Segmenting your audiences provides a personalized experience to specific groups, based on their behaviour, demographics, psychographics and other vital criteria.
Personalization brings the in-store experience provided by skilled staff to digital channels. Store assistants can see what shoppers are looking at, their physical features and level of engagement at a glance, and then deliver tailored service to help them convert. Personalization technology matches this experience at a digital scale.
Also read: Key Customer Experience (CX) Strategies To Drive Conversions On Your ECommerce Website
A study by Boston Consulting Group highlights how effective personalization helps retailers. It found that 40% of customers spent more than they originally planned when visiting highly personalized websites. They bought 110% more products than from sites which had low levels of personalization.
Backing up Boston Consulting Group research, let us look at the advantages of personalization.
Increase Sales by Improving Conversions
According to a recent study, nurturing leads with targeted content produce a 20% increase in sales opportunities. Straightforward and honest, personalization helps you better target your customers and catch customers attention long enough to entice a sale.
According to a psychological concept, “Selective Attention” – an act of concentrating on a particular thing for some time while simultaneously neglecting unnecessary information that is also occurring.
Similarly, customers focus and attention is inclined towards products and content that are of value for them. The consumers today are incredibly volatile and have a minimal attention span; therefore, needless to say, your window of opportunity is also as limited.
Also read: Driving Transformation Outcomes Through Your Marketing Automation Tool
Personalization can help businesses improve conversions by presenting the information you want to share with customers, in a manner relevant to them. Adopting a focused approach, customized to their behaviour and likings, to promote a particular product will appeal to the customers and will help in a successful transaction.
Increase in Average Order Value
With specific related information flowing out to your customers, there is a higher chance of them indulging in shopping and buying more per visit. Consider this – You can easily engage a shopper who buys a laptop from your website for accessories such as the laptop bag, a mouse, a cooling pad etc. At a strategic point of nearly completing the sale, if you could throw in a few product recommendations, the chances of you being able to sell more products, in the same transaction, go up significantly. You can use this tactic this holiday season to increase the Average Order Value (AOV) of your customer.
Increased engagement with your brand
Customers feel frustrated if their connection with a website is disjointed. If your customer can relate to your website better, he or she will automatically spend more time on it and is also tempted to come back in the future.
According to recent research, nearly 60% of customers prefer it if an online store remembers their contact details and purchase information. The increased engagement directly adds to the bottom line of the company and also saves the marketing dollars that brands spend in ads to increase customer engagement. In research conducted by HubSpot, they found that Calls-to-action targeted to the user had a 42% higher view-to-submission rate than calls-to-action that were the same for all visitors.
Also read: The Future Ready Enterprise ECommerce Business
Improved Customer Experience
eCommerce personalization helps build a long-term relationship with consumers through customized landing pages, targeted ads, and curated email messaging, which allows users to find specific content that appeals to their needs. A good customer experience projects the businesses in the light of being customer-centric as against business-centric. This holiday season let your customers feel that your online store is only customer-centric.
Improved Customer Loyalty
Personalized user experience makes your customers feel special by demonstrating that your company actively listens to them and puts in the effort to make their lives easier. “A study by Exact Target and Forrester Consulting found that 84% of marketers believe that personalization positively impacts customer retention and loyalty”.
A loyal customer can effortlessly be convinced into more business and not just by the customer alone. For most brands, loyal customers are their biggest influencers and brand advocates who not only purchase the products themselves but also recommend them others.
Gives you Competitive Advantage
Particularly this holiday season due to COVID-19 the internet will be overflowing with the competition, what can differentiate your website from your competitor is the user experience you offer to your customer.
eCommerce personalization helps you arrive at just that; it is but the obvious that a friendlier eCommerce website that appeals on higher ground to the user.
While it is early in the current holiday season, the indications are that it will be hyper-competitive. Consumer sentiment and budgets are fragile, with increasingly savvy shoppers taking more excellent care over their spending.
Given these conditions, we at Apexon understand that delivering a high-quality, personalized experience is therefore crucial for retailers. By providing what consumers want, effectively and efficiently, they can boost sales, preserve margins and increase engagement, guaranteeing a Happy Holiday’s for both themselves and their customers.
