Converting online sales is a difficult task for retailers, given the fact that found that 92 percent of consumers don’t intend to buy the first time they visit a website. Instead, those customers are there to conduct research and find information for a potential future sale.
Episerver’s new report titled, “Reimagining Commerce,” notes that retailers focus too much on conversion and not enough on offering relevant, engaging content that will trigger an overall better customer experience.
The survey of more than 1,100 consumers points to the importance of relevant and engaging content that supports the entire purchase journey.
Experience-driven commerce helps shoppers complete online needs and increases loyalty and differentiation, the report says.
“The ultimate goal of any commerce site is to facilitate online purchases,” the report notes. “However, while U.S. consumer online sales will pass $500 billion by 2020, what some brands fail to realize is that consumers don’t always visit their site to buy. In fact, most shoppers gravitate to websites to do something other than making a purchase. Brands overly focused on transactional affairs too often miss out on other key engagement opportunities.”
What is the biggest opportunity for brands? Website content. Relevant, useful, and complete content serves many important purposes beyond transactions. To tailor websites to the needs of users, brands must revisit their understanding of website content and what it can do for online shoppers.
Here are some other key findings from the report:
Two-thirds of shoppers expect to make more online purchases in 2017 than they did in 2016.
Ninety-one percent of the most frequent online shoppers expect to make more online purchases in 2017.
Forty-five percent of shoppers who visit a website for the first time are searching for a product/service, 26 percent are comparing prices or other variables and 11 percent are looking for store details.
Even when visiting a brand’s website or mobile app with the intent of purchasing, a third (32 percent) of consumers rarely or never make a purchase.
Online shoppers list desktop computer(s) as their outright digital channel of choice, followed by smartphone(s) and tablet(s).
Ninety-eight percent of shoppers have been dissuaded from completing a purchase because of incomplete or incorrect content, with a third (32 percent) of consumers being dissuaded every time.
Over a third of shoppers (35 percent) feel brands do a poor or very poor job of customizing the online shopping experience, with just 7 percent believing that brands do this very well.
Nearly two-thirds (59 percent) of shoppers are interested in personalization as a part of their online shopping experience, and 43 percent are open to personalized in-store experiences.
Twenty-eight percent of shoppers chose personalized content as one of their top three contributors to a great digital user experience. One in 10 shoppers ranked it No. 1.
Shoppers are more interested in brands tailoring content for coupons based on location (44 percent) and images (31 percent) than emerging technologies like virtual reality (7 percent) and augmented reality (6 percent).
Twenty-one percent of shoppers are more likely to purchase again from brands that do more to personalize their digital experience than those that do not, and nearly the same number are more loyal (17 percent).
What should brands do?
The report advises brands to:
Conduct a site audit with user testing or conduct a focus group to give site experience feedback.
Design a new user experience if necessary based on mobile and desktop experiences.
Implement new designs that remove barriers to a successful visit.
Track pre- and post-launch average order values and conversion rates.