Many factors go into a customer’s decision process when they are considering an online purchase. These factors can vary widely, depending on the type of e-commerce business you’re talking about. With the right product recommendation or product discovery tool, you can make that path much shorter and easier. Which means better conversions, happier customers, and greater revenues.
Sounds like a journey worth taking, right?
Mapping your customer decision path.
The first step in creating a better e-commerce experience is putting yourself in your customer’s shoes. (Even if shoes aren’t what you’re selling.) How likely is it he will know exactly what product he wants before he arrives on your site? What are the available options? Will those options change the product substantially enough that your customer will need photography or an illustration to visualize the difference?
Think about how many decisions your customer must make to settle on the right product. It may be possible to combine some of these decisions, reducing the opportunity for them to abandon the purchase before conversion.
Eliminating obstacles to conversion.
What are the key concerns and points of friction? How sensitive to price elasticity or information security are your customers? Is one-click purchase an option, or will they need to enter their payment information each time? How likely is it they’ll be on a mobile device, so that something like Card.io would make payment simpler?
These are the questions you’ll also need to consider as you’re designing their online purchase journey.
Streamlining the purchase experience.
Once you have their purchase path mapped, along with all the key microdecisions customers will need to make to select a product, you can look for opportunities to suggest or preselect “likely suspects.” Can you pull previous purchase data and use that to guide the visitor closer to their ideal product faster?
The more time a visitor has to think about their purchase, the less likely it is they’ll complete it. If you take some extra time thinking through your e-commerce experience to make their visit faster and simpler, you’ll find you rack up more sales at the end of the road.