Jenny WesterbergMarketing and Communication Manager, EPiServer

7 lessons from the shopping cart

E-commerce is everywhere

More people are shopping online than ever beforeOnline retails market in US and Western Europe are predicted to grow 10% per year. (Forrester)

The clock is ticking for retailers.

7 lessons for a better e-commerce operation

1. Put customer experience at the centre.

2. Focus on friction - get out of the way of the sale.

3. Things happen – deal with them.

4. Reviews – power to the people (profits to you).

5. The rise of the mobile shopper – are you ready?

6. Be anal about analytics – test your gut.

7. Don’t stop at payment, unlocking the door to repeat sales.

Lesson 1: Put customer experience at the centre

Top reasons preferring one online store over another:

1. Saves time2. More variety3. Easy to compare prices4. No crowd5. Low prices

“While companies have a relatively good understanding of what customers are most likely to do on their first visit and the reasons for making the first purchase and returning to their site, they have ‘limited’ or ‘no understanding’ about why customers abandon the shopping cart (78%) or leave the site without converting (81%).”

Econsultancy, Reducing Customer Struggle

Lesson 3: Things happens deal with them

• Critical that your commerce platform is flexible to deal with changes quickly and easily.• Create tailored customer

journeys, personalising them to user needs. • Agile commerce: when,

where and how you can reach your customers and engage with them across channels.

“If I had to guess, social commerce is the next area to really blow up”.

Mark Zuckerberg, 23rd August 2010

Lesson 4: Reviews – power to the people (profits to you)

• Customers want to know what others thought of the product. Was it good value?

• Reviews do very well on search engines.• And it’s why e-commerce

sites need to think seriously about adding user reviews.• Reviews are the first step

towards social commerce

Lesson 5: The rise of the mobile shopper - are you ready?

• Mobile payments were worth $86.1bn in 2011. That’s an increase of 76% over 2010.

• EBay hit $4bn in gross mobile sales during 2011 .• Global mobile commerce

market is forecast to reach $119bn by 2015

Lesson 6: Be anal of analyticstest your gut!

Getting 20:20 insight into your customers

Test, test and test again

Answering the big questions

Lesson 7: Don’t stop at payment – unlocking the door to repeat sales

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Generating loyalty starts the moment an order is accepted.

2 critical times to follow up: - Buyer’s remorse- The honeymoon period

For long-term loyalty, aim to deliver regular moments of surprise and delight.