Visitors that are not familiar with your product, will search via search engines, comparison sites, and on marketplaces. They let themselves be inspired by social media and blogs. Hence these people get in touch with your products via different channels. You can make this customer journey insightful by creating a customer journey map. By mapping the needs of your clients, you will think from the perspective of your visitor, and by doing so you will find what their goals are. Based on the customer journey you will see which interactions the customer needs to accomplish his goals.
Visitors don’t want to think too much about achieving their goals and don’t want to be hindered unnecessarily. That is why you will have to implement usability features as much as possible when the visitors are navigating through your webshop. By doing so you can make a lot of profit by paying attention to navigation, search boxes, and buttons. These will have to be positioned in the right places throughout the webshop. In order to acquire more insight in the expectations of the visitors, you could execute a usability tests with a wide range of methods, like heat mapping or eyetracking.
Nowadays every webshop ought to be responsive
Research agency Forrester predicts that by 2016 the tablet will be the most sold device, hence your webshop should be mobile-friendly. Thus the webshop should be equipped with a responsive design, which means that the design adapts to the user situation. Whenever the webshop will be opened on a smartphone, tablet, or desktop, the look and feel should remain the same. Moreover, a responsive design makes it easier to buy goods via smartphone or tablet. Besides when optimizing the responsive design you could also make us of usability tests.
Writing relevant content is not only important for findability in search engines, but also for the appreciation for and user friendliness of your webshop. The more relevant your content is, the better products will be found and the higher your webshop will be rated. What exactly relevant content is for you depends per product and organization. However, always ask yourself during the writing process if the knowledge, information, and tools you are sharing are valuable for your target group.
The inspiration pages on Peterlanghout.nl are equipped with tips and ideas for holidays and the‘Biodore’-page at Paardekooper.nl is dedicated to natural materials
Just as with ‘offline’-shopping, your visitors first want to be inspired before purchasing. The buying process only start if it is to their liking. More often than not, online shops not only show their products, but also display fully equipped inspiration pages about a particular theme or product. The inspiration pages on Peterlanghout.nl for example, are equipped with tips and ideas for holidays and the ‘Biodore’-page at Paardekooper.nl is dedicated to natural materials.
Some ideas for creating ambiance in your webshop:
About 20% of the online consumers indicate they have a need for an online chat service. Therefore, add a chat function to your webshop, in which your visitor can easily and quickly ask their questions. This makes the shop more reliable, personal, and accessible. Moreover, this results in a higher conversion. Besides, give visitors the chance to create their own account, in which they can indicate their preferences and interests, and can see their order history. You can even choose to give every customer (group) access to an exclusive assortment and discounts. Because of this personal touch, your customer will feel more comfortable in your webshop, which will eventually result in a positive appreciation. Which brings us to the next point: customer reviews. Don’t forget to share these on your website, for they generate an increase in revenue, direct feedback on your products and services, and more insights into your target group.
The customer journey goes beyond the purchase of a product. New customers will - if all went well - stay in contact with your company. You will see that you will have to bind them to your brand, in order for them to keep coming back. For example, by sending out personalized newsletters with targeted discount campaigns per target group, or by creating entertaining marketing campaigns via social media.
In sum, there are enough possibilities to give your visitor the right customer experience in order for them to feel at home and to return as a regular customer.
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