What does the optimal shopping experience look like? This is a question that’s always top of mind for retailers — and it’s especially relevant today as consumers are influenced by a number of global trends.
For starters, consumers are constantly interacting with seamless digital offerings that give them what they want immediately (or as close to immediately as possible). Think of your favorite streaming platform or food delivery app. These services have prompted people to build high expectations for their providers, regardless of the industry.
In addition, there’s a growing demand for personalized experiences. Brands are expected to leverage the customer data they have to create tailored interactions for each person engaging with their brand. On the flip side, however, brands are also expected to use that data without infringing on customer privacy.
Lastly, high rates of inflation and energy costs have made consumers much more cautious about where they spend their money. For direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands, creating a reliable shopping experience that doesn’t take too much time or effort can help ensure that a customer will return when they do have room in their budget.
In other words, customers want seamless, personalized experiences across all platforms — digital and in-person. But what does this look like in practice?
The shopping experience has been evolving over generations. What started out as uniquely in-store interactions has evolved into a multi-faceted space that allows brands to pick and choose how they take their product to market. In the history of retail, we’ve experienced everything from door-to-door salespeople and television shopping events to ambulatory trucks or vans. Today, the retail experience is also digital, with e-commerce taking center stage in the last decade.
So as DTC brands craft the optimal experience for their customers, what are the key tenets they need to keep in mind?
When you’re thinking about your customers, it’s important to remember that not everyone is the same. While one person might prefer shopping in-store and talking directly to a store clerk, another might only have time to shop from their laptop between work meetings or after their kids have gone to bed. Another still might be happiest shopping from their mobile device while they’re on the bus.
To address this variety, brands have to offer as much flexibility as possible. Providing diverse shopping and communication channels — like a web store and a mobile app — can ensure that customers engage with your brand the way they want to.
Did you know? Over 80% of retail shoppers will abandon purchases after adding items to their cart. For those that abandon at checkout, the primary obstacles after high shipping costs are having to create an account, long or complex processes, and the inability to see the total cost of the purchase. As such, there’s a big opportunity for brands to enhance this part of the shopping experience in order to avoid customers dropping off before they buy anything.
We live in the age of data, and the brands that leverage customer data to deliver personalized experiences are the ones that are bound to succeed. In practice, this can mean using customer data to send an email or notification when an item on their wish list is back in stock. Other personalized shopping experiences could also include tailored promotions, which are more likely to see a customer convert to purchase, customized product discovery opportunities based on past purchases, or even membership offerings that align to the customer’s wants and needs.
For brands offering an omnichannel approach to their shopping experience, delivering these tailored experiences will also require sharing customer data across channels. This way, customers can go from one channel to another without disrupting their experience.
Focusing on each of these elements in the customer journey will help build customer trust and loyalty. Customers appreciate convenience and customized offerings, so they’re much more likely to come back and spend more on your products when you’ve invested in delivering an optimal experience.
For retailers, having a mobile app can go a long way to enhancing the customer experience and building trusted customer relationships. More specifically, a mobile app:
Mobile apps are helping brands achieve the omnichannel shopping experience, providing customers with convenience, personalization, and improved brand engagement opportunities. Plus, they give brands the opportunity to grow their brand presence, enhance their analytical capabilities, and increase revenue as a result.
Whether you’re looking to extend your brand’s presence, scale your offering, or stand out in your market, delivering an optimal shopping experience via a mobile app can help you achieve those goals. That said, for small or growing businesses, building an app can seem like a daunting project — hiring developers is expensive and getting them to craft an application that meets all your requirements can take time you don’t have.
At Apptile, we’ve made it easier for brands to curate ideal shopping experiences for their customers. Our solution lets you build a beautiful mobile app in minutes, not months — with absolutely no dev time required. Plus, we’ve created a curated design language that lets you bring your brand to life without having to hire an expensive design and development team.
We’ve made sure you don’t have to duplicate any of the work you did setting up your Shopify store. Our seamless Shopify integration lets you build off of what already makes your web presence great. This all means you can make a fully functional, easy-to-use, and brand-aligned app available to your loyal customers faster than ever before.
We’ve also developed functionalities that will work behind the scenes in your app. Our analytics and personalization features will help you understand your customer data better, so you can do more to create optimal customer experiences and power their next purchase.
Your customers deserve optimal shopping experiences — and your brand deserves to deliver those experiences seamlessly and inexpensively.
Want to learn more about how Apptile is helping brands like yours deliver optimal shopping experiences? Get in touch.
