Let’s delve together into the topic related to the eCommerce and retail customer experience, talking about the Christmas period, which represents for both ecommerce and retailers, a significant slice in the volume of orders and purchases for the entire year.
Consumer behavior changes significantly during this period: purchasing time becomes extremely tight and the available budget is often higher.
Christmas therefore presents a significant opportunity to increase your sales; to make this happen, the main goal is to offer the consumer a simple and personalized shopping experience.
There are some experiences your consumer should never have to have for a good eCommerce and retail customer experience.
1. Delaying shipments of your ecommerce.
A user who decides to buy online, products to give as gifts during the Christmas season, definitely needs them to arrive in the days leading up to December 25.
There is no worse experience than a customer who will have to give up delivering their gift for Christmas Day because of a shipment that arrived late.
To prevent this from happening, in addition to arranging a proper logistics plan, it will be necessary at the time of purchase to make the customer aware of how many days the shipment will take and whether it will arrive by December 25.
For this purpose, the use of behavioral messages, or behavioral messages that will alert the user in real time, about the actual delivery date of the product they are purchasing, is perfect.
2. Unprepared sales clerk.
A customer who enters a store with the purpose of buying a product but is still unclear about which one to target will definitely seek the help of a salesperson, who can turn a given need into a purchase. A salesperson who cannot provide details of a product or who fails to come up with different items with comparative technical characteristics will be less likely to conclude a purchase. To prevent this from happening, especially during the Christmas season, an effective solution is to equip them with digital devices through which they can speed up and consequently improve their sales activities.
In fact, through a simple tablet, the salesperson will be able to access detailed product descriptions, offer special discounts (to certain categories of customers) and finally guide the customer in the final choice of the item.
3. Do not insure returns or exchanges
When shopping online, the inability to see the desired product in person exponentially increases the likelihood that consumers will want to return the product or request an exchange. With Christmas shopping, it can often be the case that both online and retail shops may have to return an item and issue a refund.
Informing your consumer of such rights through a newsletter or with a realtime message on the shopping cart page will make them feel protected and they can make their purchases with peace of mind.
4. Do not come up with gift ideas for undecided or last-minute consumers.
It will often happen that a consumer is not clear about what to buy or has little time to decide which product to focus on.An undecided customer or one who wants to complete a purchase quickly will like to be followed and advised whether it is in an online store or in a store.
Suggesting ready-made gift ideas, sending a newsletter recommending trending products ( or best-selling products to a certain segment) or using a targeted products recommandation gallery will help the customer decide what to buy, avoiding the classic last-minute gift runs and thus contributing to a good eCommerce and retail customer experience.
5. Items featured online but not displayed in physical store.
A customer who arrives at the store in order to view the item he or she is interested in person and does not find it, may decide to go elsewhere.
During the holiday season, it is important that products available online are also in-store, especially in light of the fact that more and more consumers are purchasing products online from mobile devices while in the physical store.
Find an in-depth discussion on Showrooming, Webrooming and Mobile Shoppers in this article on our blog.
