More and more buyers use several channels to make their purchases: in store, in an online shop, through social media. It is therefore worth thinking about a strategy that makes these channels complementary. Buying online is a different experience from buying in store — there is no sales assistant on hand — but that does not mean you cannot guide your customers.
In the article that follows we focus on the online shop and the best practices for boosting sales:
With that knowledge of your public, you can start building your strategy and a purchase journey for your prospects. You probably have several typical customer profiles, which does not stop you adapting your online shop to your overall target.
It may sound surprising, but a site with a « wow » effect can distract people and pull them away from what they came for. Forget overly complex sites with video panels and other features. Users are already on your site: keep conversion in mind. Save your creative ideas for the marketing actions meant to attract potential buyers. Bet on simplicity and on showcasing your offers.
Beyond looks, the smoothness of your shop is essential. Amazon found that 100 extra milliseconds of loading time cost it 1% of sales. An acceptable loading time is reckoned to be two seconds; beyond that, more and more visitors leave the page they are on. A good online shop therefore starts with solid technical foundations.
The web is full of sites offering much the same products. Once people reach your shop, it is imperative that they stay. For that, they need to find what they are looking for quickly and without effort. Ideally, every piece of information should be reachable in three clicks at most. Your site should therefore be built intuitively. Internet users are used to website elements being arranged in a certain order and will naturally look for them in certain places. Here are a few simple examples to start with:
Think mobile.
55.35% of internet traffic came from mobile in the second half of 2021. Online purchases from phones keep rising, driven in particular by social commerce. You cannot afford to neglect this. Creating a good desktop experience does not mean it suits mobile: the purchase process is not the same. Look at your mobile conversion rate in Google Analytics and you will probably find it far lower than on desktop. A responsive theme is not enough; you need a dedicated journey that takes mobile usage and its constraints into account.
Reviews give a transparent view of your products. It is important to show all of them, positive and negative, and above all to answer every negative one. That shows you are listening and offer quick solutions when something goes wrong. Remember, too, to display your customer service number clearly.
The moment when users feel the most stress is when confirming their order. The answer is a reassuring checkout. Spare them any unpleasant surprise that might make them leave and abandon the purchase.
You can take inspiration from the layout below:
As mentioned above, the aim is not to distract a potential buyer but to guide them to conversion. Here are a few tools that help.
Augmented reality
It lets prospects examine products and picture them in the context they have in mind. It is much appreciated, given that people cannot touch, see or try your products.
The chatbot
You come across them more and more often online. This tool lets customers ask a question and be quickly directed either to the right resource or to customer service. It is proven that a user who has used the chatbot is more likely to complete their purchase.
The abandoned basket email
There are many reasons why a basket is abandoned. Reminders reactivate the conversion process. This solution obviously requires having the user's email address and being able to identify them. You can read more in our article « Convincing undecided visitors with abandoned basket reminders ». Going further, you can extend the relationship by sending emails presenting a selection of products based on past purchases and interests. The customer will feel understood and will trust you later to offer things that suit them. This is possible by centralising their behavioural and purchase data in a CRM platform. Arenametrix collects that knowledge and activates it directly through personalised emails and text messages.