As customer expectations continue to rise, in the world of e-commerce, so, therefore, does the need of site owners to offer a premium online shopping experience. As e-commerce sites don?t have the luxury of tactility and interaction that physical shops offer, they must now work harder and more strategically to find a way to engage consumers and drive desire in order to ensure strong sales.
The best way to ensure consumers are staying on our e-commerce sites for longer and are making it all the way through to the checkout is by personalizing the shopping experience that we are offering. Below are our top tips on how to provide premium e-commerce environments that will ensure strong sales and steady growth.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence can sound like a rather overwhelming, confusing and somewhat futuristic term. But for anyone involved in the world of e-commerce it is not a term that you can ignore. Continued development in the field of artificial intelligence, otherwise known as ?AI?, is providing e-commerce site owners with a wealth of new opportunities on how to improve the customer experience they are offering their consumers. AI in e-commerce helps to build better connections with customers, build loyal relationships and therefore drive conversion, so it is crucial that all e-commerce entrepreneurs are getting their heads around how it can improve what we can offer.
Not only can AI improve the customer service you are offering it can also lead to increased conversions and increased customer loyalty. It can allow you to add virtual shopping assistants that can monitor and track consumer movements and therefore predict future activity. AI can allow you to send alerts to your consumer if you are offering a discount on an item they have been showing interest in but have not yet purchased. It can allow customers to chase and track the progress of their packages and allow them to feel that they can stay on top of their order. These are just a few of the ways AI can improve the quality of your online shopping experience, so as you can see it?s well worth the time investment to understand how it can help to build the quality and complexity of your business.
Influencing
With customers becoming so much more technologically savvy and demanding in their online purchasing behavior, personalizing their experience is all about understanding those growing demands and needs, reacting to them in order to be able to influence. Consumers want to feel that they are part of an online community whilst also feeling that their individual needs are being catered to. That almost contradictory balancing act is not an easy one for e-commerce site owners to get right.
Providing a cohesive and tailored experience to your consumers is no mean feat and takes careful planning and detailed consideration. Your brand should be offering your consumers, more than just products. Your brand should be offering access to a certain lifestyle, giving a sense of inclusion and should encourage consumers to engage with the brand and products in order to really become a part of that community.
Once consumers begin interacting with your products that is when they truly feel part of that desired community and their experience becomes personalized, unique and, most importantly for you, loyal.
Therefore driving your consumers to engage with your brand via social media platforms will ensure that your customers feel that the communication between themselves and your company is two-way and they can, therefore, feel important. Encouraging your consumers to begin interacting with you online will help build a community and a ton of content surrounding your products. This will, in turn, raise the profile of your brand and increase consumer confidence both of which will mean your position of influence will be radically increased.
Create Customer Loyalty Schemes
Customers love nothing more than a good deal, so creating loyalty schemes will make your customer feel that by staying loyal to your site will bring them rewards that they just can?t miss out on. However again, this should not be a one-size-fits-all approach and should be approached with that same objective of trying to personalize.
Approach customer loyalty schemes analytically and with the intention of making each consumer feel special and valued. Research the main desires, wants and needs of your customers and tailor your loyalty schemes to reflect the fact that you understand what your clients need and that you are there to deliver. Think of unique customer experiences that you can offer on your site, individualized promotions, tailored email campaigns. Maybe you can even think about how you can create a VIP offering to your most dedicated clients to make sure they feel really taken care of and appreciated. Whatever it is making sure it feels customized and really personal to each of your consumers.
Create a Varied & Layered Customer Experience
One consumer's favorite feature on your site might be another consumer's worst. Therefore, offering a multi-channel consumer experience can mean that you are catering for a wide range of tastes and preferences. Building many different interesting layers into your e-commerce site incentivizes customers to explore the various options at their disposal so think carefully about the different facets that you can bring to your site to make consumers want to explore and delve into the interesting layers of your product offerings. This will not just increase customer engagement, it will create the illusion of a more personalized shopping experience, as consumers will be approaching the site in their own unique way, in turn boosting your conversion rates.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is the best way to communicate with your customers in a one-on-one way. With the right sort of marketing message you can grab the attention of your consumers and make them feel valued and that their relationship with your brand is a powerful one. After monitoring and researching the patterns occurring on your site, think carefully about what those consumer patterns are revealing to you about your customers and their experience on your site. Then find a way to communicate that you understand their needs and offer the perfect solution to their problem. This personalized approach will make them feel that you know them, that you care and that you see them a valued individual consumer.
