By Richie Hecker, Chairman of inSparq
It has been widely believed that the in-store social experience of shopping with friends and asking for recommendations has been replaced with endless online page views, countless inventory and indecisive shoppers. Monetate estimates a whopping 75 percent of online shopping-cart purchases are left abandoned, due in part by the lack of encouragement and validation a shopper feels about the purchase from friends. Many online retailers lack the excitement of the in-store experience and struggle to connect customers to friends with whom they trust for feedback.
The key to building a great online shopping experience is to bring back the sense of discovery customers feel when shopping with friends at a mall and finding great products or bargains. The excitement of sharing these finds is what make shopping in the real world so much fun, and we’ve laid out five easy ways to replicate it online.
1) Bring Discovery Back to Shopping
Adding social functionality on your site also creates data you can use to uncover your most trending products. We’re a big fan of Fab.com’s live feed that allows shoppers not only to see what the hottest products are but also to filter to see what their Facebook friends are buying, sharing or “fav”-ing. Using a user interface similar to Pinterest’s visual layout, customers can browse and discover new products like never before. The results are impressive: 15 percent of all users who visit Fab.com’s live feed each day end up buying on the site. By bringing a similar functionality to your online store, you can drive the same impulse purchases your customers tend to make when shopping in-store.
2) Let Your Customers Ask for Advice
Shoppers love to discover products they think would be useful or provoke reactions with friends. They also need an outlet to ask for a second opinion on a purchase they’re not so confident about. Beauty brand Sephora has revamped the company’s digital strategy to merge online and off-line worlds together. “Have you ever tried to decide which moisturizer to use while standing in front of a wall of options?” Julie Bornstein, VP of digital asked. “Our customers love to use their devices to talk [about products] and hear what others have to say.” Sephora is revolutionizing ways to make it easier for customers to read reviews online and ask friends for recommendations. They’ve overhauled their website earlier this year with specific search functionality and a commitment to install iPad’s in 100 of its physical stores by the end of this year, making information easily accessible and allowing their customers to reach out to people they trust for opinions.
Integrating social sharing buttons on product pages allows customers to receive the feedback they need in order to complete the purchase. They key is to make sharing as quick and easy as it is when calling to a friend across a store and asking their opinion. Placing these social features on the product page will not only help the customer who needs feedback, but will also drive additional traffic when their friend visits the link provided.
3) Don’t Let Them Forget
One definite disadvantage of selling online is how easy it is for customers to ditch their shopping cart and never come back. Shoppers are less likely to ditch their carts in an outlet store after they’ve invested so much time in the trip. Seven out of 10 customers who add products to their carts fail to complete the transaction.
Network
