Shopping has been an area that has been significantly impacted by digital uptake. Consumers are becoming more self-reliant and shopping is transitioning to digital channels. At its essence, though, buying products will always incorporate a social element.

Buying is about interactions, the conversations, about asking and responding.

Purchasing anything seems unachievable without asking questions such as “Is this available in another color? What do you have available for under $100? Is there something larger but still around the same price? What other options are there?”

In the current ecommerce environment, there doesn’t seem to be anywhere to ask these sorts of questions in the way that people typically like to ask them. Consumers are first expected to refine their needs through the use of categories and filters. This process is unnatural at best and clunky at its worst. It accepts the idea that people should adapt their approach to suit the machines.

But the tides are turning.

Conversational ecommerce has landed and it allows businesses and consumers to have a conversation again. The journey toward a purchase becomes a conversation. This can be achieved through a number of channels and avenues. Examples might be a chat bot, product finder and many other tools.

So how are we able to shop without being able to actually look at and touch the products that we want to purchase? Technology usually steps in to achieve the unachievable and it is a matter of time before we will be able to shop by talking to an AI powered program or by texting a chat support bot.

The typical challenges remain.

Preparing for conversational ecommerce requires a complete structural redo. Being able to develop voice powered consumer experiences involves rethinking the way that things have been done for decades.

Shopping is intrinsically different from the many other tasks that we do online. It’s not a straightforward process – rather a convoluted path with many directions that a customer can take. Programming machines to keep in step with the changing whims of the human psyche and developing your customer journey to provide for natural humanesque responses will be a tricky feat.

Search optimization will need to be reimagined. Integrating payments will also need to be implemented with a high degree of finesse and security.

If you set your business up for conversational ecommerce now the yields will be worth it. Indeed, if you don’t embrace this technology you may be left behind.

Optimize for Voice Search

Humans picked up speech first and, later, writing and reading emerged. In terms of computers, the reverse has happened. Text input came first and then voice recognition entered the picture. Which also means that we need to unlearn and relearn a new approach.

When interacting with conversational ecommerce programs, customers won’t be talking in keywords.

At the time when voice adoption truly picks up, search queries will instead be dramatically different. Natural language needs to be embraced. Responses to basic questions such as “I am wanting to buy a new pair of running shoes” need to be answered like a boss.

Questions such as “Which school bag do I need for first grade?“ will pop up and you’ll need to have a prepared answer. A customer might ask, “show me some good options for girls sports shoes” and you need to have appropriate answers ready such as, “Okay, you are looking for running or sports shoes?” and have appropriate products ready based on how the customer responds.

It would rarely be appropriate to offer product choices after the first question response. More questions would usually be needed. This is where it is critical to ask the right questions so that you can point the customer to the most appropriate product for them. They would be able to decide more quickly and would feel a sense of satisfaction with what they have purchased.

Write Product Descriptions That Come Alive

Certain avenues of conversational ecommerce don’t have any visual interface so this requires an exceptionally written product description to explain everything a buyer would want to know by listening.

Product descriptions should contain answers to all commonly asked questions.

Even if a customer has a visual interface to work with, they may still have some questions that they would prefer to ask verbally. These questions might be, “Is this camera waterproof?”

In this case, you would need to anticipate all the various questions that may arise and enable voice specific metadata that can be relayed to the customer.

From yes or no answers right through to elaborate responses, you will need to consider everything.

Remember Text Conversations

We have mentioned talking a lot here but there is also another form of conversation.

Messaging apps and chatbots have the capacity to take orders, present suggestions and compare products and this should be factored into your strategy.

Messaging apps are a convenient and enjoyable tool when it comes to shopping experiences and should be embraced.

Consider How You Accept Payments

Accepting payments via chatbots and voice platforms is a tricky aspect to master. After a pleasant shopping experience (with conversational tools) and identifying the correct product, if a user is expected to go to another platform, or use their device, it may cancel out the seamless experience that led up to it.

Mobile wallets can be incorporated. It may be some time before this will become a seamless process but we may as well be ready.

Keep The Human Touch In The Picture

Although conversational ecommerce will fundamentally be driven by AI, machine learning and language processing you can never ignore human interaction.

Understanding how a customer decides allows you to provide them with the right information at the right time. Asking the right questions, in the right tone, engages customers and keeps them moving forward along the purchase journey.

Find out how you can bring the best of human to human interactions from the real world to the digital world.

Even in the online purchasing journey, if you are able to provide hand selected products you are at a tremendous advantage. To make the best conversational ecommerce experience, you need to blend technology and human elements. When businesses are ready to do what it takes to promote customer satisfaction, they will be able to thrive in the time of customer empowerment.

The post Conversational Ecommerce Is Where It’s At first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.

You spent months and months planning and launching your ecommerce store.

You paid truckloads of money to specialists to make sure everything was just right.

You had high hopes.

Except, now, users aren’t actually converting into buying customers.

Does this sound familiar to you?

A reasonable ecommerce rate is essential for optimizing an ecommerce store. Low conversion rates affect your profits and your business is hindered in the longer term.

What’s A Conversion Rate?

To explain a conversion rate, it’s necessary to understand what a conversion is.

A conversion is typically an action taken by a website user in relation to your call to action (or CTA).

Would you like your visitors to subscribe to your newsletters? Buy a product or service?

When a site user completes one of these actions, these events are classed as conversions.

To calculate a conversion rate, you need to know:

• The number of people that view the call to action
• The number of people that complete the desired action

And by using a dash of maths:

(# of people who complete the desired action ÷ number of visitors that view the CTA) x 100

Is A Good Conversion Rate Possible To Achieve?

Some examples of ecommerce conversion rates include adding items to a cart, saving an item for a later purchase or finalizing a purchase.

So the next question is, what actually is a good conversion rate?

Ecommerce benchmarks vary by industry.

Irrespective of what your current conversion rate is, there is always room for improvement.

There are some common reasons for low ecommerce conversion rates. Let’s take a look.

5 Reasons That Your Conversion Rate Is Poor

1. Your Website Gives A Negative Impression

A user is very unlikely to purchase from you if they don’t like your site. The same is true if someone visits a physical store that they don’t like.

If your traffic is high but your conversions are low, think about usability issues initially.

Usability problems might include:

Poor navigation. Double check that popular items are easy to find.

Inadequate filtering and sorting. People using your site should be able to limit available options through the use of set criteria. Too many choices lead to choice overload and can have a negative impact on your conversion rate.

Search issues. Search results should relate to what people want. If your users are unable to find something, they can’t buy it.

How can you fix this?

Is your site due for an overhaul? It’s probably time for an overhaul with usability design as the focus.

2. Site Not Optimized

If your site has a low ecommerce conversion ratio, you should review your Search Engine Optimization strategy. SEO helps people find your site via the search engine results page when they are actively searching for related keywords.

Improper optimization can also drive the wrong type of users to your site. If a user doesn’t reach what they were looking for, a low conversion rate will follow.

Highly impactful visuals are imperative for online stores. A lack of these will cause a low conversion rate.

Customers simply won’t purchase things that don’t look attractive or appealing.

How can you fix this?

Use targeted keywords on your website to make sure that you attract the right type of traffic.

3. Ignoring Mobile Traffic

Mobile traffic simply can’t be ignored as the majority of traffic uses a smartphone to research items on the internet.

The web adopts a mobile-first approach. M-commerce is anticipated to experience a 29% CAGR by the year 2025 as worldwide smartphone adoption and payment use expands.

Google recently adapted their indexing process so that a site’s mobile content is indexed before it’s desktop content.

Sites that aren’t optimized for mobile devices deliver a poor customer experience.

Popups that are hard to close and “accept Cookie” notifications can result in immediate site abandonment.

How can you fix this?

Always use responsive web design. This allows web pages to render better on different devices and screen sizes. This makes it easier for a visitor to use the site on their devices.

4. Inadequate Search Tools

Search is a critical component of online optimization and can be the deciding factor for conversion rates.

Web users typically have a very short attention span. They expect to find what they want quickly. Search results that are irrelevant or come up with 0 results repel users. This results in lowered conversion rates.

A site that doesn’t have live chat support may, for example, affect conversion rates.

Users that find it difficult to find what they are looking for can also result in costly support tickets and calls.

How can you fix this?

Automation and AI powered search tools such as chat support which is always available can help this. Site search is a critical element in providing your site visitor with relevant content and information for their purchase or experience.

5. Poor Personalization Strategies

Personalization strategies might be too broad and focused on remarketing efforts.

Remarketing is a vital part of any ecommerce conversion path. It is a method of reaching the people who come to your site and then leave without completing any sort of action. But remarketing is most effective when personalized based on real-time engagement on the site.

How can you fix this?

Various AI powered tools, such as product configurators, allow you to deliver dynamic and related content.

These tools provide for tailored content, offers and product recommendations directed to your users.

The tools factor in things like demographic and geographic data, site behavior and history they have with the brand.

Success Strategies

Your investments should have decent returns.

Investing time and capital into your website, when it has a low ecommerce conversion rate, can be confusing and frustrating.

But you can do something about it.

The post Why Your Ecommerce Conversion Rate Is So Low first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.

To put it plainly, search experiences are not always easy or enjoyable. Consumers are content finding products but are not so enthusiastic about actually searching for them. The process of identifying the right keywords, applying filters and product / price comparison becomes exhausting for a user and turns the pleasure of shopping into an arduous task.

Search Hasn’t Changed

Digital technology has altered where we purchase from, but the methodology behind how we search and find consumables has its roots back in the 1930s. There are three elements to the modern day search: faceted / filtered search, keywords and page rank. Each of these components has its own impact on how consumers journey through online search experiences.

Faceted / Filtered Search

The idea of filtering based on predetermined groupings to sort, and identify, relevant data stems from the Colon Classification system. This system was developed in 1933 by an Indian academic. Its purpose was to aid scientists and librarians find relevant books and studies more quickly. Faceted search is the most common function you will find on ecommerce sites. This is the sidebar where a user checks boxes to refine their search results further.

Keywords

Some speculate that the use of keywords dates back to the early 1990s when SEO was in its infancy. The idea of giving weight to specific terms based on relevance was conceived by scientists at Cornell University back in the 1960s. The modern-day search box demands that a user know what they are looking for because of the way that businesses classify their products through keywords.

Page Rank

Page rank is one of the newer components of modern day search. Google introduced this feature into its search results back in 2000. Google’s PageRank assesses the trustworthiness of, and number of links pointed at, a search result to determine what pages show up for a user’s search query.

These elements ignore the way a human intuitively searches for a product. For example, you would not enter a shop and state, “Show me the most popular product whether it fits my needs or not.” Every instance where a user decides to buy something online means that they are gambling with the functionality of the search box.

It is an outdated experience and, as a result, consumers run into a plethora of issues whenever they shop online.

Search Issues Faced by Modern Consumers

If we draw upon our initial thoughts about when you last shopped online, how did you feel when your browser displayed an endless list of purchase options? You probably experienced at least one of the following challenges that consumers face each time they search.

Choice Overload.
A basic search for “face cream for wrinkles” generates over 46 million Google results, and over 9,000 Amazon results, at the time of writing this article. If you try and refine this using various faceted search values, the results still run into the thousands. Over 54% of consumers experience overwhelm by the sheer amount of choices that are available.

FOBO.
Fear of Better Options is that feeling that there is something better out there but the consumer just hasn’t found it yet. It disables a person’s ability to make a concise decision.

Confusion Over Products.
Businesses cram product pages with technical wording and keywords thinking that it has relevance to a consumer. Users, however, are not product experts and shouldn’t be expected to sift through technical and industry jargon to assess whether the item is right for them.

So how do you overcome these consumer stumbling blocks? Delivering a superior and enjoyable search experience requires implementing conversational search or product finder functionality.

The Solution To Outdated Search

The antiquated way of shopping, when you went in store and a salesperson worked through your individual needs, is the ultimate consumer-centered experience. The expertise of the salesperson meant that they could understand what you wanted and this exchange was genuine and personal. Conversational search and product finders, or conversational commerce, replicates this human experience online and reintroduces the intuitiveness that has been otherwise lost in the online search experience.

Conversational search better converts online shoppers by optimizing their journey to purchase. Instead of relying on keywords, or faceted search, the consumer is asked a series of questions which refines the products results that are displayed to them. Rather than thousands, the list of relevant options numbers about 5 – 10.

Consumers deserve an optimized search experience and conversational search or product finders are the only way to deliver it.

The post How An Outdated Search Dissuades Customers first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.

Before Covid-19 came to the world’s attention, 67% of consumers said that retailers needed to do more to assist their purchasing decisions online and that they preferred to visit a physical store to make decisions about a purchase. Without being able to browse or visit a store, retailers must adapt.

1. Build Trust

According to a Forrester report, “brands need to cultivate a lasting sense of trustworthiness” at the moment. What does this mean in reality, though? Think about what products within your range help to make life easier when being at home for an undefined period, promote safety or are an essential for day-to-day living. Consumers aren’t looking for the newest invention or gadget at this time – they are instead searching for practical products that they need.

2. Help Them Find The Right Product For Them

64% of consumers opine that it’s important a retailer provide guidance to products that suit their unique needs. This means businesses should adopt technologies that reduce the amount of options and choices so that the shopping experience becomes easier for the user.

3. Cultivate Confidence With Guided Selling Experiences

Shopping happens at any hour of the day which means that customers need assistance at whatever time they happen to be actively searching for a product. Typical customer support services are only available during business hours which can make the customer delay their purchase to a time when support is online. As a result, support must be available beyond the 9-5 work day. Conversational search is an all-hours solution which helps shoppers find products, relevant to them, at whatever time they happen to be shopping. Consumers are expecting that a business will satisfy their needs, and give them the confidence to add an item to their cart, so the focus should be on relating product benefits and attributes to the needs and wants of the shopper.

4. Make a Positive Impact, Be Helpful

The effect of Covid-19 on the evolution of ecommerce will become apparent as society finds it’s way through these trying times. Brands and retailers need to respond with support and guidance that makes shopping a simple and hassle-free experience. Customers should be able to find what they are seeking quickly and easily.

The post Helping Consumers Decide & Buy During Covid-19 first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.

That being said, they are also fickle and will be deterred by a website that is not easy to use. They will be quick to leave if their needs are not met.

Ecommerce websites that don’t realise the potential of high-intent shoppers are missing out on money. Optimising the user experience for this group of consumers can often mean the difference between an easy conversion and a missed sale.

The way to tap into this intent and convert it into revenue is achieved by answering the following:

1. Understanding their identity – who are they?
2. Knowing their intent – what is it that they want and why?
3. Predicting their action – how do I drive them forward?

1. Identity

High-intent consumers usually arrive through search traffic.

In terms of SEO jargon, searches can be classed as: navigational; informational; commercial; or, transactional. Shoppers that fall into navigational searches are attempting to reach a certain site and the second group are looking to find out data. The third group are the ones who deserve focus as they are ready to buy.

Becoming fluent with the query classification of searches will allow you to understand shopper types by the keywords they have used.

Other signals of buying intent include:

How they interact with your marketing messages
Visits to the site’s category pages
Time they spend browsing the product information pages
Cart abandonment data

2. Intent

Once the signals of high-intent shoppers are known, the question of how to convert them comes next.

These high-intent buyers demand fast and easy experiences.

Through understanding their what and why, you are able to immediately present the most relevant products and guide them to what they need. Giving them the experience that they are expecting keeps them engaged.

Are you aware of what your site visitors are actually looking for?

While website statistics offer a glance into user behaviour, they don’t give the more robust picture of the intent behind the metrics. In a similar way, demographic data used to put together a customer profile won’t tell you what customers are searching for in the moment.

Analytics and demographics do not give hints to intent. They can also lead us to incorrect data as we place our own assumptions and stereotypes over consumers.

Google identified that:

40% of baby product buys are from households without kids
56% of sporting product purchases were by females
68% of skin care influencers were male
45% of home improvement searchers were female

Where metrics are not enough, and demographics can mislead, how can intent be understood?

Conversational Search

Take a look at your everyday interactions. There’s no way to comprehend someone’s “why” than by opening up a conversation. This is exactly the methodology behind conversational AI.

Digital shop assistants help businesses understand people’s needs when they are actively looking to make a purchase. As such, the implementation of this technology is becoming more sought after by businesses around the globe.

Ecommerce businesses are now able to engage with users on a human and personal level and ask questions to identify their wants. Then they are able to provide the right product which fits the answers to these questions. There is no guesswork or projection. Retailers that have embraced this feature often see double-digit increases in conversion rates.

3. Action

Search to Sale

Most shoppers (93%) start their journey from a search engine. You can segment these types of buyers, who are likely to buy, by analysing how they search. They’ll usually use the brand or product name or they will use transactional keywords like “coupon”, “buy”, “free shipping”.

Optimise Category Pages

Shoppers that are in a position to buy, usually navigate to the category page straight away. When they land on this page, most sites showcase an extensive list of their offerings which immediately creates friction and may pose a distraction from the main intent.

In most cases, these high-intent buyers have an idea of what they are looking for but don’t know which exact product will fulfill the needs. Choice overload causes them to abandon purchases if there is no support available in the moment. They won’t scroll down the page or refine further in hopes they’ll find what they need.

Digital assistants solve this issue. By asking questions to find out the reasons a user is searching for the product, the most relevant options can be filtered out and presented to the consumer.

Enriching Product Information Pages

Product information pages are the money pages of online retail sites as these are the pages a user will be on before purchasing.

On the flip side, these pages generally underperform in cultivating engagement and don’t convert as many high-intent buyers as they could. The reason was found to be that, even though high-intent shoppers are quick shoppers, they also want assurance that the brand and product they will receive are a good fit. Otherwise, they will leave.

At the end of the day, a conversation will always be the best way to find out what a shopper is really looking for. Digital assistants and conversational commerce are the conduits for understanding what buyers want. They pave the way for businesses to quickly and efficiently provide what a buyer needs.

The post Converting High Intent Ecommerce Shoppers Towards Buying first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.

A sales assistant then came along and completely engaged with you. They listened to all of your preferences, interpreted your needs and, from an overwhelming plethora of options, directed you to the ideal product which fit perfectly into the picture you had described.

90% of customers are more likely to purchase when they are helped by a knowledgeable assistant.

Floor staff are one of the most valuable assets in physical retail stores. They are responsible for shaping the customer experience. They provide support to customers and can enhance the in-store shopping experience. By doing so, they are in a position to create repeat customers and generate income for the business.

The question then becomes how you can replicate this successful model in the online world.

How Are You Assisting Your Online Shoppers?

If you compare the more physical shop experience with the standard ecommerce experience, you’ll realise that the majority of online stores are simply not up to par. The human element and the customer’s needs and wants appear almost entirely ignored. As a result, opportunities to sell more effectively fall by the way.

If a customer needs some sort of personal assistance with their purchase, in most cases, there is absolutely no one there to deliver this support.

At one point in time, ecommerce was merely an avenue for consumers to make a purchase via the internet. These days, it’s purpose goes far beyond that. The online shopping experience has become an extension of your brand experience and a focal asset being that increasing numbers of shoppers are making online-only purchases.

Leaders in the online retail environment have mastered the art of infusing sales concepts, which work in a retail space, into the digital world. Customer wants and needs are monitored, as are pain points, and modern technology is used to seamlessly deliver human experiences to digital channels.

68% of shoppers rated honest and personal advice as the more important attributes they expected from their preferred brand or retailer.

44% wanted recommendations and tips.

51% state that better technical assistance would enhance the post-purchase experience.

Google’s Spin On The Role Of Assistive Experiences

Martijn Bertisen, Country Sales Director, Google UK, comments,

“The consumer has fundamentally changed. Their engagement with new technologies and digital services has driven their expectations up higher and higher. They’re now demanding useful, engaging, and assistive experiences from all the brands they interact with.”

He outlines how companies can design and use assisted experiences to stay ahead in the age of ecommerce.

Show Up: Capture demand and intent wherever possible through reach, discovery and inspiration across all devices and all channels.

Wise Up: Use machine learning as well as customer and business data to support better decisions across the value chain.

Speed Up: Make the shopping experience easy. Increase customer loyalty by providing fast and effortless purchases everywhere.

Digital sales assistants are pivotal in enabling conversational ecommerce and assistive experiences:

• Provide 1-to-1 engagement with consumers in order to understand their unique needs in varying stages of the customer life cycle.
• Make use of AI to cultivate meaningful conversations and link consumer expectations with highly relevant products, solutions or services.
• Deliver the next best solution, content or product which matches their needs. This saves the customer’s time and effort otherwise used

As well as supporting more personalised digital interactions, digital sales assistants open the door to real opportunities that drive business success.

1. Enhance Customer Satisfaction & Engagement (+80%)

Digital sales assistants give the customer a sense of personal attention.
Rather than overwhelming a customer with endless choices and options, digital assistants guide the customer journey by opening up a conversation about their needs.

In a study conducted by McKinsey, data indicates that 70% of buying decisions are based on the way a customer feels they are being treated. Simply put, treat them well and they will be more inclined to make a purchase from you.

2. Improve Conversion & Sales Figures (+107%)

If a customer can’t decide, they won’t be able to buy.

Consumers can become paralysed when confronted with too many choices and it often results in decision fatigue.

There is a sort of pressure felt by a customer when they need to choose the right product from the many others before them. This is what causes a consumer to visit multiple stores, consider other features and prices until they lose focus, become frustrated and then relinquish the purchase altogether.

A digital sales assistant brings down a consumer’s research time, aids in the emotional validation of their purchase decision and guides them toward a product that fits their unique needs. Through its use, a customer is able to get exactly what they want without getting stuck in an ocean of choices.

Customers, then, feel empowered. They better understand the feature to benefit equation which makes them feel smarter. Data indicates that customer’s buying confidence is enhanced when digital sales assistants are used. So too, conversions and sales are boosted.

3. Reduces Rates of Return (-10%)

Returns are a major headache for the retail industry. Minimising doubts is the cure.

Digital sales assistants have the effect of minimising buyer remorse and returns are reduced as a result. If a customer can express their preferences and can observe them being recognised and addressed, it’s less likely that they will second guess their decision at a later stage.

Digital sales assistants explain how a product meets the customers’ unique needs so their belief in the purchase is endorsed.

4. Improve Cross Selling Opportunities (+9.7%)

If a customer feels heard and that their needs and concerns have been acknowledged they become more receptive to other things you say.

Shoppers that make use of a product finder questionnaire are more engaged, frequently stay longer on the site and are more likely to have trust in your recommendations. This opens up the opportunity for you to present other products that add value, or are complementary, to the purchase.

5. Gather Actionable Data & Insight

We are in the age of data. The information gathered through personalised shopping experiences is insightful and highly actionable.

The conversational approach of online sales assistants allows you to delve into customer insights with incredible detail. It allows marketing teams to create detailed customer profiles and further allows you to personalise marketing.

Digital shopping assistants are the link between today’s online shopping environment and the traditional human experiences that people are accustomed to receiving in-store.

They provide the ideal setting to engage in 1-to-1 dialogues with customers and allow a buyer to feel heard. Product recommendations then position you as an expert and cultivate trust. The result? Loyal customers and brand advocates.

The post Digital Sales Assistants: Recreating Human-to-Human Sales Interactions Online first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.

These numbers show that commerce has an apparent engagement issue. So why is this the case?

Retailers & brands being resistant to change. Customers are inundated with products and messages in much the same way that they have been for years. There is a reason for this, though – it is difficult to scale personalised engagement. Many businesses simply do the same thing and the result of doing so becomes lowered consumer response rates. To be relevant to today’s consumer, businesses should avoid the product-push approach and instead move toward meaningful engagement at the times when consumers are actively wanting a product.

Myopic focus on traffic generation. The majority of a business’s budget usually gets spent on generating traffic to a website. There is an ingrained belief that the marketer’s job is done because a user has visited a site. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Consumers have endless choice at their fingertips – once they have visited your site, they will continue researching and evaluating their purchase before actually completing the sale. The focus, then, should be on optimising the traffic that has come through the site by way of genuine, relevant and helpful guidance and engagement.

Undervaluing the importance of human touch. Human elements such as personalisation, interactions, and assistance in the moment haven’t reduced in importance as a result of online shopping. They are just as important as ever and businesses should incorporate human touch into their digital funnels to minimise customer effort and guide them along their purchase path.

Remaining stagnant and adopting sluggish attitudes are no longer options in the retail environment. Machine learning and deep learning are more readily accessible and companies are able to create highly intelligent and more engaging interactions by:

• Having a two-way conversion in order to listen and comprehend actual needs, tastes and context;
• Blending technology with human skill and real-time assistance; and,
• Providing customers with what they actually want in that particular moment.

The need to bring these personal, direct experiences to the digital customer journey could not be more urgent. Intelligent AI systems, digital assistants and adaptive technologies are imperative for delivering experiences that make a customer feel heard and cared for.

Conversational ecommerce – the next phase of online shopping

Conversational ecommerce is not a new concept but it is fast emerging as the way that businesses bring 1-to-1 engagement into the online shopping experience. This is especially relevant in a post-covid world where businesses have needed to evolve and rely more heavily on online shopping.

Conversational ecommerce gives customers the direct, personalised support that they were used to before ecommerce captured the spotlight. It supports a consumer to become more engaged and likely to purchase.

What creates an effective conversational ecommerce experience?

1. Ask questions

If your goal is for a consumer to let down their guard, open up with their wants, and to release their fear of purchasing you’ll need to let down your own and become involved. It doesn’t matter what you are selling, people have a resistance to buying when they are being blatantly sold to. This is true even if they want to buy it. The key to getting that engagement with consumers is to ask questions. This paves the way for a conversation about why that particular customer came to your site today.

2. Asking the right kinds of questions

Conversational openers like “Can I help you?” or “Hi, I’m [a chatbot name]. How may I help you today?” need to be banished.

These questions are closed and only provide for yes or no answers. When money is in the picture, the answer is more likely to be “no”.

Questions that cultivate more meaningful engagement are those that:

• Are specific in detail and have a focused subject. Examples:
  – What type of phone do you have?
  – Are you after more memory or speed?
• Give consideration to context, in addition to intent. Examples:
  – What are you getting this device to do?
  – Who is going to be using this device?
• Allow customers to think about their unique wants. Examples:
  – Is this benefit more important or this benefit?
  – What are your concerns?

3. Including an element of psychology

Salespeople have a knack for improving their questions after every encounter with a customer. They learn to identify behaviour cues, comprehend context, and use previous experience combined with elementary psychology to guide how they direct future conversations with consumers.

Through the use of AI and machine learning, businesses are in a position where they can replicate these customer experiences via digital channels.

McKenzie & Willis, for example, use a bed assistant that asks questions and helps people find the right bed based on their answers. Tait Communications offer a ‘Build your own radio” tool which helps consumers identify what radio best suits their requirements. ProtectCrete‘s concrete treatment assistant guides a user through questions to hone in on what treatment option will deliver their project outcomes.

Want to see more examples? Check out this selection of Shop Assistant digital sales assistants.

The post Conversational Ecommerce & The Power Of Asking Questions first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.

When going thru this process you should ask yourself the following questions.

What is the value of the product.
Generally speaking the price of the product should be of high enough value that the customer is happy to invest time in the selection process.  This could be $150 for some. As well as having a minimum product value, there are some products that are of such a high value that a relationship with the seller is required to scope out the customers requirements.

What is the cost of selecting the wrong product.
Selecting the wrong product impacts both the customer and the supplier. From a customer perspective there is the sheer annoyance of wasting both time and money which isn’t ideal. From a supplier perspective there is a cost in the shape of returns and lost credibility.

For suppliers, monitoring your returns is a good way of measuring deficiencies in your selling process, whether this is online or in store.

How technical is the product
The more technical the product the more valuable guided selling can be. With technical products customers won’t be familiar with the terminology used and the benefits associated with the technical specs. If you’re using an attribute picker and the picker has some technical questions then this should be replaced with a guided selling interface.

What is the purchase cycle for the product
If the purchase cycle of your product is irregular then the chances are that the customer isn’t knowledgeable about the product. If it’s a regular purchase the customer should have sufficient knowledge to select the correct product.

Is your product an emotive purchase filling want more than need?
When thinking of products that have an emotive element to their consumption, think fashion. I buy it because I like it. No need to engage the site users in a guided selling manner here. What is useful in this instance is an attribute picker. I am after a green floral shirt…please show me what you have.

Here goes a brief list of product categories that would benefit from Guided selling…
Adhesives, Beds, Cameras, Camping equipment, Home Appliances, Fasteners, Financial services, Fitness equipment, Outdoor tools and machinery, Power tools, Printers and Office equipment,  Sports Equipment,  Insurance, Skin care..to name but a few.

And if none of the above makes any sense then the acid test is…if you went into a physical store and needed to engage with a salesperson to select the correct product…then Guided Selling is appropriate for your product category.

The post Guided selling…Is it right for your product category first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.

Sure, e-commerce is growing in popularity, but US Census Bureau stats from the third quarter of 2016 show e-commerce sales only account for 7.7 percent of total retail sales in the USA. That’s hardly competition for offline.

In fact many online stores have started up retail outlets, including the biggest of them all Amazon.com, hoping to put the focus on selected products, add the human-touch back into shopping and stand out from the online crowd.

And it’s pretty clear people still go crazy for Black Friday and Boxing Day sales, when they could easily have done their shopping online and avoided the punch-ups!

Why is this? Why do people still prefer to shop in a physical store?

The difference is offline still provides a better quality experience. When someone walks into a shop they are 400% more likely to buy something than when they arrive on a website. Not only are they more likely to buy, they are also more likely to feel happy with their purchase, generally because a shop assistant has helped them pick the best product for them.

This means most e-commerce stores just don’t deliver the level of experience or satisfaction that a physical store can. Some items can be easily bought online but other things need someone to help the customer choose and make them feel like they’ve made the right decision at the same time.

E-commerce stores sure try to provide a better experience. But offering what they call “personalised selling”, showing you options based on your previous buying habits and history completely misses the point when you’re shopping for that difficult aunty or favourite nephew. Asking for help from someone who knows the stock and how to match that with a real person is more-than-often a better way.

So, is there a way to do this online?

There sure is. By helping the customer interact with your product catalogue in a more intuitive way than simple searches, customers will not only be more likely to buy, they will feel more satisfied with their purchase, and be more likely to come back. This is called getting better quality conversions.

There are a number of ways to do this, from live chat to using social media, but the more cost effective bang-for-buck technique is guided selling.

Guided selling takes the customer through a cleverly thought-out, interactive pathway where the result is the best choice for the customer. It’s very cost-effective per sale but usually costs a fair bit to implement in software development.

Not any more. By using Shop Assistant Create, you can improve your conversion rates and sell online like you’ve never done before. Check out this improvement in conversion rate and average sale from a well-known Australasian appliance retailer using Shop Assistant guided selling for just one product category.

Evidence from their Google Analytics above shows them getting 113.8% better e-commerce conversions than the average for the whole website. Better than organic or paid search or any other method of bringing customers to the site. And they are getting higher average order value too.

Guided selling can make a huge difference to your online sales. Find out more here…

The post How to fix poor e-commerce conversion rates first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.

I heard in the news that Walmart recently paid $3 billion for an e-commerce website start-up named JET.com to help them combat Amazon.com.

I’d never heard of this site as they don’t do much promotion in New Zealand, but it looks like most generic e-commerce sites look, pretty much selling everything you can think of.

Thanks to a recent burglary, I’m in the market for a new watch, so decided to give it try.

These guys have a pretty good range, so I typed “mens watches” into their search box and browsed through the first two pages, spotting one I liked the look of.

It looked like this.

All black case with a black leather strap, and very stealthy.

So imagine my surprise when I scrolled down the page and saw this underneath the features and specifications info about my watch.

I might also like? Right, so, out of their vast catalogue of men’s watches I pick an all-black, leather-strap model and they think I might like to see a silver watch with a blue face, a bi-tone with a metal strap, an all-gold model, and an all-stainless watch. And they’re all chronographs. How useless is this?

I know for fact they have other similar-looking watches to the one I picked in their catalogue, so why aren’t they showing me some other variations of my choice here? This is what a shop assistant in a store would do.

This is not just a failure of web design, it’s a failure to use the simple technology of having things in a database. You see, I know they have categorised their stock in various ways because they provide this ridiculous filtering system at the top of the page for me to “narrow down the search”.

The hilarious thing is that if you use that filter to say, only show square-face watches, when you select a model to look at the site still shows the same bunch of dumb “You might also like” watches below it. And most of them have round faces!

If a shop assistant did this to me in a shop, I’d walk out. I now have no confidence jet.com gives a damn about me as a customer. They’re just using a shot-gun approach to selling and hoping for the best. Good luck with this Walmart, because you aren’t going to compete very well with Amazon.

It’s no wonder e-commerce sites like this have very poor conversion rates, sometimes as low as 1-2%. No retail store could survive on those odds.

There must be a better way, and there is. Guided selling technology replicates the process a real shop assistant would go through to narrow down the choices to show me something I actually might want to buy. This isn’t rocket science, but clearly many e-commerce stores are happy to exist on such poor returns. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Find out more about how guided selling works and how it will improve your conversion rates.

The post Dire recommendations … you won’t like this! first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.