For retailers, the era of designing digital experiences aiming to simply draw traffic is long over. Today’s successful ecommerce retailers have to layer an improved shopping journey on ecommerce initiatives aiming to, among other considerations, fine-tune usability and personalization features.
And, as ecommerce experts explain, future-ready retailers should also deploy more tools to invigorate their digital and offline to online shopping experiences, such as subscription models and flexible shipping options.
Designing for smooth operations
Site usability and user experience (UX) are some of the leading factors for retail success, explains Deanna Traa, Chief Marketing Officer at Bold Commerce.
“Sites can’t be a collection of boxes any longer, but now have to focus on site navigation and searchability, and perceptive ways to make it easier for the customer to access product details,” Traa says.
A widening gap between what should be in place for ecommerce experiences and what is taking place is a challenge for retailers to hurdle. As the Baymard Institute reported in their research on checkout and UX, 36% of sites offer checkouts that are mediocre while 6% of sites have checkouts that are labeled “poor.”
Reducing friction should be at the core of smoothing the buying process, and leveraging the ig database strength of best-in-breed partners for checkout, as an example, can take another responsibility off the shoulders of brands already overwhelmed by ecommerce projects.
“There are fundamental challenges retailers are up against to create an intuitive shopping experience, and they need to ensure the checkout experience is optimized for any device.”
Traa adds how creating a seamless mobile and responsive sites will help retailers brace for the continual surge of mobile shoppers, accelerated even more by 2020: numerous reports found that mobile devices have been by far the most popular device for online shopping during the pandemic, with 72% of consumers using mobile devices to shop.
Recommendations from McKinsey & Company echo Traa: “With more customers now engaging through mobile devices, retailers must ensure that all digital channels are integrated and offer consistent services (such as payment options) and experiences (such as shopping carts updated in real time across devices).