Delighting Today’s Tech-Savvy Shopper: 8 Best Practices

Best Prac­tices for Estab­lish­ing Mean­ing­ful Omnichan­nel Connections

In the device-cen­tric world of today, shop­pers are far more aware of tech­nol­o­gy, as well as the user expe­ri­ence pos­si­bil­i­ties it allows for. As they browse and buy, they appre­ci­ate a syn­er­gis­tic approach—an effort by brands to sim­pli­fy and stream­line their expe­ri­ence across mul­ti­ple channels.

The pro­lif­er­a­tion of touch points, in con­cert with the ris­ing expec­ta­tions of the aver­age con­sumer, demands the cre­ation of per­son­alised, opti­mised shop­per expe­ri­ences that are con­sis­tent across plat­forms, result­ing in an inter­ac­tion with the brand that’s as con­tin­u­ous as it is enjoyable.

In order to effec­tive­ly plan and exe­cute strate­gies to that end, brands should focus on a few key, action­able insights. To aid the process, here are some best prac­tices to get the cre­ative wheels turning.

Best Prac­tice #1: Take advan­tage of “always on” devices

We can now say it with confidence—not all devices are cre­at­ed equal. In fact, cer­tain elec­tron­ics can pro­vide rich insight into a cus­tomers’ real intent and pur­chas­ing jour­ney. Using this data, you can per­son­alise and curate expe­ri­ences for indi­vid­ual shoppers.

Mobile search­es also auto­mat­i­cal­ly append loca­tion infor­ma­tion, mak­ing them an oppor­tu­ni­ty to boost your own search results against Ama­zon via local inven­to­ry information.

Best Prac­tice #2: Opti­mise your site for mobile devices

Mobile load times mat­ter more than many brands realise. In fact, 49 per­cent of smart­phone shop­pers aban­don sites that take more than 10 sec­onds to load. And who can blame them? In 2016, 10 sec­onds is an eter­ni­ty. That makes invest­ment in mobile opti­mi­sa­tion and load speed absolute­ly vital. The alter­na­tive is los­ing mas­sive poten­tial rev­enue, and when the prob­lem is so easy to fix, it’s a no-brainer.

Best Prac­tice #3: Break free from the grid by cre­at­ing rich expe­ri­ences that convert

By blend­ing images and con­ver­sion oppor­tu­ni­ties into one rich expe­ri­ence, you’re effec­tive­ly skip­ping the mid­dle man. Sev­en­ty-sev­en per­cent of con­sumers agree that shop­pable hotspots make nav­i­ga­tion eas­i­er. By reduc­ing the time and num­ber of clicks between a cus­tomer see­ing a prod­uct and adding it to the cart, you give your­self a bet­ter chance of con­ver­sion, and less risk of drop offs.

Best Prac­tice #4: Incor­po­rate video into your experiences

Shop­pers who view all or part of a video are twice as like­ly to con­vert. Giv­en the ease with which mar­keters can embed high-qual­i­ty video across chan­nels (par­tic­u­lar­ly social) and devices, this is an oppor­tu­ni­ty that’s as easy to imple­ment as it is effec­tive, and with a lit­tle injec­tion of per­son­al­i­ty, can yield as much in brand affin­i­ty as hard sales.

Best Prac­tice #5: With choice, less is more

When pre­sent­ed with too many choic­es or too much infor­ma­tion, shop­pers are 1/10th as like­ly to buy. Through active­ly curat­ing assort­ment and con­tent for your audience’s needs, you can present them with few­er options, and in doing so, make each more like­ly to suc­ceed. Think of the shopper’s mind like a cir­cuit board—too much choice can over­load it. Again, data min­ing wher­ev­er pos­si­ble allows you to per­son­alise and tai­lor to each shopper’s preferences.

Best Prac­tice #6: Break down your data silos

A lead­ing French retail­er inte­grat­ed omnichan­nel data expos­ing key insights into shop­per behav­iours. Using these insights, they altered their store plan­ning and mer­chan­dis­ing strat­e­gy. The key take­away? Start using dig­i­tal insights across all chan­nels. The ready avail­abil­i­ty of dig­i­tal data makes it a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to gath­er detailed infor­ma­tion on your audi­ence, then use it to opti­mise and make your brand’s mes­sag­ing con­sis­tent across the board.

Best Prac­tice #7: Test and refine, con­tin­u­ous­ly

While the aver­age con­ver­sion rate is 2.6 per­cent, the top 20 per­cent of com­pa­nies sit proud­ly above 4.5 per­cent. Part of the rea­son is their per­pet­u­al test­ing and refine­ment of the­o­ries, hypothe­ses, and con­se­quent mes­sag­ing. The more you exper­i­ment, the deep­er and broad­er your insights become, and the more read­i­ly you can piv­ot your brand’s pre­sen­ta­tion across chan­nels and devices.

Best Prac­tice #8: Make inno­va­tion sys­tem­at­ic and continuous

By analysing the world’s lead­ing dis­rup­tors, we see an adher­ence to sys­tem­at­ic approach­es to inno­va­tion. In mak­ing a con­tin­u­ous search for bet­ter meth­ods, more effi­cient com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and opti­mised expe­ri­ences the sta­tus quo, you’ll leave the sta­tus quo far behind, and the com­pe­ti­tion with it. The wheel of analy­sis, ideation, and imple­men­ta­tion allows for a con­stant pur­suit of more, a pur­suit that’s absolute­ly essen­tial for growth, be it mon­e­tary, or in the rela­tion­ship between you and your customers.

Mod­ern inter­ac­tions between brands and con­sumers hap­pen across many chan­nels, many touch points, and many jour­neys. In order to keep stride with an increas­ing­ly tech-savvy shop­ping pop­u­la­tion, com­pa­nies must ensure they pro­vide one con­tin­u­ous, con­tex­tu­al brand expe­ri­ence across the board. That’s how top com­pa­nies turn float­ing shop­pers into loy­al evan­ge­lists, and that’s what we’re all look­ing for, right?