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Has the eCommerce pendulum swung too far towards prioritising sales that brands actually lose out?
Whether it’s engaging with influencers, reading a look book, or working through a preferences quiz, typically all of the exciting stuff happens before a customer gets to the checkout. In fact, it can be a long journey for some customers before they finally get to the actual shopping experience, only to be left with a quaint, little click on the purchase button at the end. The checkout page has become so ubiquitous, and has been extrapolated to so many different platforms, that it simply isn’t interesting anymore.
But the checkout page represents so much more than being where customers pay. It’s the end point of the customer journey and can be the final chapter of the brand story, but far too often is it reduced to its core functionality. With that, comes the idea that the checkout has been solved, and that you don’t want to touch it by introducing outside variables that could add to the brand experience.
We want to explore the potential of the checkout and how the journey to, and of, the checkout page can affect your brand's conversion rate optimisation (CRO).
Over 80% of customers have abandoned a purchase if the checkout is too complicated, but we have similarly seen some murmurings that the checkout has become too easy. You may be wondering, “how can it ever be TOO easy?” Well, if there is absolutely no friction, not only are some shoppers not able to comprehend what has just happened, but there’s no opportunity to extend the shopping experience, upsell, or encouragement to get that new shopper to come back a second time. There should be a higher goal than getting a singular transaction, you want those repeat buyers.
In the early 2010’s, when eCommerce and shopping online was only on the fringes of our mainstream cultural zeitgeist, best practice, had you listened to it, was to remove all friction from the buying funnel. This meant no email opt in, no captcha verification, and no Ts&Cs outside of those largescale, enterprise transactions. But, with the introduction of GDPR in Europe and the larger crackdown on Data Privacy, in the wake of the Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal, eCommerce marketers have lessened how staunch their stance on this is. Similarly, it used to be thought that not having a countdown timer on your checkout page would lose you sales. So, with this in mind, and having seen both of these trends pass, the scope to edit the cart, and add some friction, does exist.
Let’s get deep into this conundrum, which requires an untangling of creative and data when it comes to experimentation with cart and checkout. You’ll find that you’re ultimately asking how much of your business is driven by brand VS data. Despite those historically being separate conversations, we have established why data and brand direction are forever entwined.
Firstly, it’s worth establishing that there are situations when traditional wisdom goes out the window; customers can be irrational depending on the amount of worth they have placed in the product. We see this a lot with celebrity brands, which, from an eCommerce perspective, are often very heavy on the creative side of things, and in turn, get criticised for both the store and checkout being a bit difficult to navigate. But this doesn't seem to hold customers back from selling out the store in a matter of hours.
This is an illustration of the difference between how a retailer approaches CRO, and how a brand approaches CRO, as a celebrity is a brand first and foremost. Think of those companies, we consider as being on the cutting edge of brand, your Apple’s and Nike’s of the world. Their eCommerce experience asks that you soak in the visuals, engage with some content, consider a few upsell options along the way, maybe even get you in a physical store…
Whereas a company more focused on sales, views their website as fulfilling a need - they want you to buy, and buy now. And this may be fine if you only sell low value items, but if a customer quickly buys a £10 item, when there was an opportunity to upsell them on a £100 item, or invite them into a store for a fitting, than you have substantially missed out
Optimisation is not a specific treatment, what's best for the business isn’t always best for the customer, and the speed at which they check out is a big part of this. On paper, a customer checking out quickly is good for both customer and brand, but what if that customer has a relatively forgetful experience and never buys from you again. Put frankly, what may benefit your business in one quarter, may not be what’s best for it long term. And this fact applies to your product, your marketing, and your eCommerce storefront too: a memorable experience across the whole buying cycle is what gets a customer hooked. Not just having a checkout page optimised for conversions.
It’s a case of understanding your product and your audience, knowing what emotions you want to convey, and how you will visually do so, whilst maintaining a sense of usability. However, for brands themselves, there are technical barriers on the journey to optimisation, and this is where working alongside a tried and tested team who understand your brand is often the best route, whether it’s custom code or a home grown platform like an app.
This blog does not even begin to tap into the full scope of how there is a much longer timeline to making a tactile impact on your brand image. This impact is built up from a series of micro experiences with many different customers, and with different customer audiences that will emerge along your brand’s growth journey.
The idea of CRO, and hypothesising and testing as a result, is an idea that spans from concept, to checkout, and back to concept again. It is, hopefully, a virtuous cycle that makes money and delights customers. The leaders that excel have high intuition and high conviction, because they are in tune both with what the brand delivers and what the customer expects of the brand, and that is especially true of your eCommerce channel. After all, an eCommerce store, in isolation, is but one facet of the brand experience, but it is an essential facet nonetheless.
Want to work alongside an agency partner that truly understands your brand? We were founded by retailers for retailers, and so we’d love to get to grips with everything your brand has to offer. Find out how you can reach eCommerce greatness today.
