Article

Closing the gap between shopper needs and e-commerce technology

Why dynamic content represents the best chance for snagging the online shopper's attention, and closing the sale.

May 12, 2010

By Katrina Gosek, Endeca

Finding new ways to deliver a superior customer experience keeps many e-commerce professionals up at night because, more than any other variable, the customer experience has the greatest impact in converting browsers to buyers. Shoppers want an online shopping experience customized to their changing needs, with the right tools and content to make the best decision, at that specific moment in time.

And faced with the difficult task of selling effectively in an environment where consumer expectations change at a lightning pace and become increasingly more sophisticated each day, e-commerce teams invest heavily in content and technology to optimize the user experience. Their choices are backed by the latest research by Forrester Research that demonstrates that companies who differentiate themselves with a superior online experience have customers that are more willing to purchase, more willing to recommend their sites, and less likely to switch brands. Companies in the study experienced revenue increases between $260 and $311 million in the first year alone. In contrast, the online retailers who didn’t make the customer experience a priority saw the opposite effects on their business: low sales due to session abandonment, low average order values and margins, and low rates of repeat visits and purchases.

To capitalize on the opportunity that improving the customer experience provides, retailers invest aggressively in technology and content to deliver a better online experience. As the series of Forrester Research reports entitled “The State of Online Retailing" illustrate, e-commerce teams invest in the following areas to convert more browsers to customers:

• Videos, reviews, articles, and in-depth product information that help customers identify the best product.
• Web CMS and PIM tools for consolidating, storing, and presenting content to customers.
• E-commerce platforms that provide tools for merchandising and processing transactions online.
• Recommendation engines and services that present products and promotions based on historical customer behavior and other variables.
• Advanced search and navigation sort and refinement capabilities that help customers find the best match for their needs quickly and easily.

The common thread running through all the investments outlined above is the focus on accumulating and presenting the content retailers think customers want, at the moment they ask for it.

Yet consumer surveys and analyst research show that retailers are still not meeting customer expectations for a rich online user experience, which results in lost sales and diminishing customer loyalty. To succeed, retailers need to focus on delivering a dynamic site storefront that serves up contextually relevant navigation options, search results and site content to every customer, at every step of the shopping experience.

Online shoppers’ discontent centers on not only the lack of rich content, but also on the inability to leverage that content in their decision-making. Customer surveys on what is most important to the online shopping experience report a desire for better “decision resources” — user recommendations and reviews, user guides, videos, and articles — coupled with an easier, more relevant way to interact with those resources. Shoppers also want a consistent experience and the same access to content anywhere and anytime — on a website, a mobile site, store kiosks, and in-store employee interaction.

Many merchants try to solve the problem by dictating shoppers’ paths through the site via categories, thinking better category pages will get customers to their goals faster. But shoppers want to be able to find the right product in their own way because every shopper’s needs are different, and every shopper requires different information to make them comfortable purchasing.

Developing a dynamic storefront
To date, e-commerce investments have solved the problem of how to create and store great content, but not how to allow customers to interact with this content in any way they want. As a result, the true value of these investments remains untapped and left out of the online experience.

A new strategy is required to effectively incorporate this rich content into the user experience in a contextual and dynamic manner so customers begin to realize the benefit. This new approach is called a dynamic storefront.

A dynamic storefront is a combination of best practices for improving the relevancy and the context around which customers make their purchasing decisions. To increase conversions, it leverages the principles of search and navigation technology, recommendation engines, and campaign-driven promotions.

The challenge of delivering a dynamic storefront is in determining the needs of each shopper, on each visit to the site, with every changing goal — and then only presenting the most relevant information given the particularities of that time, place, and person. But how is this done, given that each shopper’s needs are unique, their path and methods are unique, and that relevance is dictated by needs and goals that are only known by that customer, at that moment in time?

Retailers designing a dynamic storefront experience should first focus on sections of their Website where (1) they have received enough information about the customer to understand what is relevant (what links have they clicked on? are they looking for men’s sweaters or pink footie pajamas?) and where (2) they have the biggest opportunity to influence the customer’s purchase decision (where are customers spending the most time on your site?).

The place to focus efforts is revealed once you break down the customer’s shopping experience. One way to do this is to think of a commerce site as a collection of different types of pages with which shoppers interact.

Home page: The home page is a common starting point for a shopper already familiar with a retailer. Although that potential customer has a goal in mind, the retailer knows very little about it. The greatest opportunity at this stage is delivering time-based promotions or offers based on past behavior and purchases. It is also important to prominently profile any products that the retailer is widely known for, and thus, a likely reason for the home page visit.

Dynamic pages: Shoppers begin to interact with these pages from the first moment they click on a site. Whether clicking on a category, conducting a search, or refining by a product attribute, shoppers are sharing some indication of their need. With every additional action, customers indicate more details of their intent for that visit. These pages are where a customer evaluates and narrows down products based on all related, available information, and where a customer’s decision can still be influenced. These pages are also where a customer is most tempted to leave a site if not engaged. The retailer’s opportunity here is to present the most relevant content that will guide customers quickly to the right type of product, and give them confidence they have identified the best product for their specific need.

Product detail pages:Once shoppers arrive on a product details page, they have loudly voiced their intent. Here the shopper indicates that this product might be a likely purchase. At this stage, the opportunity is to present additional relevant content that confirms this product is the right choice, or to offer similar alternatives.

Shopping cart: Once a shopper adds a product to his or her cart, the retailer has a clear signal. This interaction is the ultimate point of relevance, as a customer has already made their decision. The retailer has the opportunity here to push the shopper into the transaction process with relevant offers that inspire action now, or to extend the shopping experience by promoting additional related items that may be appropriate.

Purchase process: The shopper’s interaction here should be all about speed and ease. At this point, there is limited need for relevant content, short of prompting the customer with pre-filled personal information (address, credit card, etc.) to speed the transaction.

Static pages: A shopper who might want to know more about you or contact you will look for pages that contain relatively current content.

The interactions outlined above represent clear opportunities to increase sales and customer satisfaction by presenting different degrees of relevant, targeted content. But, it is the dynamic pages that stand out — here is where the customer is still trying to make a decision, and where the retailer has enough information to deliver content that can influence that decision. This is where customers spend the bulk of their time, and where the critical evaluation process occurs. The experience within these dynamic pages can make the difference between a sale and an abandoned session.

By delivering the most targeted and contextually relevant content to every potential customer throughout the dynamic pages — the aisles and shelves of a dynamic storefront – retailers can better learn what’s motivating each unique customer visit, turning every shopper interaction into a conversion opportunity.

Katrina Gosek is director, product marketing manager of e-business solutions at Endeca. Photo by misskelly.