Is your online presence optimised for your customers?

82% of people wont’t buy from an outdated website or a site not optimised to work in a mobile.

COVID-19 has driven more consumers indoors — and online. Consumers are 30.6% more likely to make their purchases online in 2020 than they were in 2019 according to leading B2B payments industry authority PYMNTS.com. In June 2020 the FT reported that lockdown shopping helped boost revenues at ecommerce leader Amazon by an incredible 40%.

The coronavirus pandemic has hastened the move to digital shopping among UK consumers.

People formed new habits during lockdown, and these behaviors are set to stick beyond 2020, as the high street is unlikely to fully recover.

Growth in retail ecommerce will spike this year, followed by a slight recalibration in 2021 and strong growth thereafter. They expect ecommerce will account for an ever-greater proportion of total retail sales.

KEY STAT: UK retail e-commerce sales will account for 27.5% of total retail sales this year, and that proportion will approach one-third by 2024.

So, we know customers want to buy more online but what do they really want?

Many retailers are scrambling to invest in their digital real estate and other sophisticated tools and features as they see an increase in online shopping due to COVID-19.
But perhaps they should stop and question what the customer really wants because according to research by McKinsey & Company, it should be based on a simple principal: providing a fast, easy, enjoyable shopping experience.

Few online shoppers are actively looking for ‘bells and whistles,” such as video or expert opinions. They want clean, mobile-optimised sites with easy-to-read pages that load quickly, easy-to-use shopping carts, and smooth checkouts with all the payment options available.

How Covid-19 is transforming mobile e-commerce.

Mobile devices are the most popular device for online shopping by a wide margin. According to Forbes.com 72% of consumers are using mobile devices to shop. Online retailers supply chains, order management, and fulfillment systems are all being tested by the triple-digit order and revenue growth going on today. And best of all, more energy and intensity is being focused into improving online customer experience by many retailers.

Your desktop site will always matter in the path to purchase but the majority of your customers have a smartphone in their pocket that they use incessantly. It’s time that your online presence is optimised for your customers using mobile devices.

E-commerce time savings and efficiency are here to stay.

Millions of online customers changing their behavior at the same time to opt for more time saving and convenience puts a considerable strain on e-commerce and online retailers today.

How they choose to react will define the future of e-commerce. Many are choosing to remove the friction that stands in the way of turning occasional customers into the most loyal. Once lockdowns are lifted, e-commerce sales may stabilize at a lower growth rate than they are today. Yet, the behavioral changes are already in motion to completely change the retailing landscape and commerce overall for years to come. 

Google captures millions of website interactions every single day and has the data to know precisely what works on e-commerce websites.

Google analysed several hundred “Best-In-Class” retail sites and reported that there were certain universal user experience elements that helped create a frictionless shopping experience across the sales funnel. The most successful online retailers use this information to make sure that they provide a fast, easy, enjoyable customer experience.

The Google report focused on six key areas: Home/landing page, Menu & navigation, Search, Category/product, Conversion, Form optimisation. Each of these elements had a list of best practices which should form the blueprint of any digital channel.

We have the solutions to help your business deliver a frictionless, fast, easy, enjoyable customer shopping experience.

We help you to see an opportunity to create more value in your business than the way in which you currently do, using proven best online practices.

We help you think through the actions you need to take, the technology you need to utilise, and the processes you need to change as a part of that journey, focusing on customer experience and where the value is going to be created in your business.

And finally we pull all of the technology together seamlessly so that your website provides what your users want, quickly and easily in any device. And, your back office inventory and logistics are all integrated and automated making your operation super efficient.

So you now have a powerful digital sales channel and a slick efficient back office that is set up to succeed for your business and your customers helping your bottom line grow.

Want to find out how?