With more and more consumers switching to online shopping, eCommerce sales are expected to grow more than 10% in 2023, creating a major opportunity for businesses to capitalize on this growth.
In order for businesses to win over new customers and encourage them to come back, you will need to provide them with a simple, effective, and hassle-free customer buying experience.
In this post, we’ll be looking at the 7 ways to improve eCommerce customer buying experience to improve customer loyalty.
What Is A Customer Buying Experience?
A customer buying experience is a combination of elements that contribute to a customer’s overall satisfaction with a business.
It includes factors such as:
- Website design,
- Product selection
- Pricing,
- Delivery times
- Checkout process,
- and service quality.
All these are key areas that businesses should focus on in order to create an optimal shopping experience for customers.
Why Is The Customer Buying Experience So Important?
A positive customer buying experience is essential for businesses to build loyalty and trust with customers.
When the customer has a good experience with your business, you will see drastic improvements in:
- Customer retention
- Customer Loyalty
- Brand loyalty
- Revenue
- Referrals
- Customer lifetime value
7 Ways To Improve eCommerce Customer Buying Experience:
1 – Personalize The Customer Experience
Personalization is one of the most effective ways to improve the customer buying experience.
Personalizing the customer’s experience by offering tailored product recommendations, customized discounts, and other relevant offers can help increase trust with customers, encourage repeat purchases, and build customer loyalty.
Here are some suggestions on how to personalize your customer’s experience:
- Remember their product-browsing history to present them with a list of recommendations based on the items they recently viewed;
- Offer discounts on all the products or services your customers are interested in.
- Use real-time location to provide shoppers with clear information about the delivery options and shipping prices in their country.
Amazon does a great job of personalization. When you go to their homepage, they give you personalized recommendations based on your recent purchases and shopping trends.
2 – Quick & Easy Checkout
A quick and easy checkout process is essential for any successful eCommerce store.
Ensure all forms and payment options are clearly visible and simple to use so customers can make their purchases quickly and easily.
Using payment processors that customers are familiar with will ensure you avoid shopping cart abandonment. Customers are likely to not go through with the sale if they feel unsafe making the purchase.
The most common types of payment options online are:
- Credit and debit cards,
- Paypal,
- Apple Pay,
- Amazon Pay,
- Cryptocurrencies.
3 – Optimize Your Website & Mobile Site For Speed
A slow website or mobile site can significantly impact the customer buying experience.
To ensure a positive customer experience, you should optimize your website and make sure it is running fast.
This includes optimizing images and other large media files on your site, reducing server response time, and leveraging browser caching.
Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool can help you determine which areas of your website need improvement to increase loading speed. Learning from mentors and what they have done, can also further enhance the outcomes for your website.
4 – Make Shopping Mobile Friendly
With the rise of mobile usage, it is important to optimize your website and a shopping cart for all devices.
Mobile-friendly eCommerce sites are designed specifically for customers who are browsing on their phones or tablets whilst they’re on the go.
To provide an optimal experience, you should make sure that all features, such as adding items to a shopping cart and checking out, are easy to use on mobile devices.
5 – Display Customer Reviews
Customer reviews are a great way to enhance the customer buying experience.
By displaying customer reviews on your products, you can show potential customers how satisfied other customers were with their purchases and provide them with insight into what they should expect from your product.
The more positive reviews you have, the more likely it is that customers will buy from you.
6 – Display Compelling Product Images Or Use Live-eCommerce
Product images are one of the most important elements of your online store.
The downside to shopping online is that customers are unable to touch, feel and hold the product to make sure they are properly satisfied before purchase.
Having clear and compelling product images can help customers make an informed decision about their purchase and build trust with customers.
Make sure all product images are high-resolution, accurately represent the product, and include multiple angles to view it from.
Another option that is one step further than just showing your customers high-res images is live-eCommerce.
Live-eCommerce is the act of selling products online through live video while shoppers interact with the brand in real time.
To make live-eCommerce successful, in most cases, you would need certain tools like a live video shopping tool, live chat, and shopping cart integration for the ultimate user experience.
Consumers can watch, talk, and shop all from the comfort of their own homes.
7 – Create An Amazing Unboxing Experience
The unboxing experience is an important part of the overall customer buying experience.
We all know how it feels to receive a package through the post you have been excitedly anticipating, and then open the package to find your item waiting for you.
Creating a unique and enjoyable unboxing moment will help build a stronger connection with customers, increase brand loyalty, and encourage shoppers to back for more.
You can make your unboxing experience amazing by providing customers with a product that is well-packaged, adding fun or useful extras, or including thoughtful touches such as handwritten notes that are specific to their order.
Conclusion
Creating a great customer buying experience is essential for any eCommerce store.
By following the steps outlined in this article, you can create an enjoyable and seamless buying journey that will keep customers coming back again and again.
So make sure to optimize your website and mobile site for speed, make shopping mobile friendly, display customer reviews, display compelling product images, and create an amazing unboxing experience to ensure a positive customer buying experience!
This guest post was written by Craig Adam. An ex-construction worker turned multiple 6 figure eCommerce seller. Founder of craig-adam.com writing about eCommerce, Amazon FBA, Entrepreneurship, and Forex.
