Technology that turns browsers into customers

Paul Wallace, Director Product Marketing, Stingray Business Unit at Riverbed Technology looks at the technology available to ecommerce businesses to help turn browsers into paying customers.

Use technology to drive innovation

Like so many business sectors, technology has become critical to business performance, driving innovation and delivery of services or products to customers across the organisation. IT is no longer viewed as a cost centre, making commodity-based purchases.

Those concerned with online sales, e-marketing and online customer acquisition want to see development of websites and mobile applications that are intuitive and cutting edge. They are primarily concerned with delivering marketing and acquisition strategies which drive users to the website or applications, that in turn convert sales.

Those individuals concerned with performance, reliability of services and customer retention know that sometimes there are compromises that need to be made.

E-retailers are in fact sitting on a potential shopping time bomb. If investment in sales and promotion technology outweighs IT infrastructure, customer satisfaction will drop and with it revenues.

Understand your customers’ behaviour

The shopping behaviour of consumers is changing as a result of the growth in connected device ownership. Rather than relying on one or even two devices, consumers in practice use an array of devices and channels to conduct their online shopping. Shoppers may, for example, browse particular goods on their tablet, make the purchase on their laptop, but choose to return the product in store.

However, whilst access to a broad range of devices allows customers to have greater freedom, not all shoppers wish to convert their interest into purchases on particular devices. This ‘browse-to-buy gap’ is greatest with tablets, with only one in three device owners (34%), making purchases on this device.

Both laptops (77%) and desktop computers (70%) have a smaller gap between browse and purchase habits among owners of each device.

Any retailer that has an online presence needs to implicitly understand how their customers engage with their brand across multiple devices so that they can manage their IT investment in the areas that have greatest impact on their revenues.

Consumers expect a consistent experience across all online formats and devices. 36% of shoppers admit that they sometimes find online shopping quite stressful, and a third (33%) agree that online shopping can be more stressful than shopping in store.

Get the tech right

Recent research conducted by Riverbed, analysed the emotional and behavioural attitudes of consumers across Europe to online shopping. The research showed that if consumers find themselves waiting too long for a web page to load, nearly half (46%) will consequently not pursue the purchase from that retailer.

Furthermore, the research found that 61% of consumers agree that if a website crashed whilst they were trying to make a purchase, they would think twice about buying from that website again. Following a bad experience on a retailer’s website, 44% of online shoppers in Europe would doubt the quality of that retailer’s customer service.

Retailers need to commercially prioritise the management of their customer demand, particularly during times of peak traffic, where sales are driven by promotions and other incentives. Attempts to harness greater volume of sales are likely to back fire if websites are ill-equipped to handle the fluctuations in customer demand.

Don’t become complacent

Brands cannot afford to be complacent about slow or poor website performance when consumers have high expectations of an online shopping experience and are empowered to take their valuable shopping money elsewhere.

Regardless of whether a customer is communicating with a brand through their mobile, desktop or face-to-face, there is an expectation for a consistent and seamless experience. While omni-channel provides a greater opportunity to increase sales, it also creates many challenges for retailers.

Building confidence in an online brand is vital and by removing the uncertainties that come with online shopping, retailers are taking the first step to building a successful long-term relationship with shoppers.

For more visit www.riverbed.com