The Challenge for Online Retailers
Today’s consumers have a lot of brands to choose from, don’t mind switching labels for discounts and prefer shopping online to avoid long billing queues. For retailers, this means coming up with new ways of winning and, importantly, retaining the social consumer. According to a recent survey by Emphatica Insights Panel, social media plays a crucial role in driving traffic to retailers’ stores.
Although the opportunities are many, the unfettered nature of social media presents retail brands with many challenges. Thismoment’s research unearthed some common obstacles faced by online retailers:
- 51% retailer respondents to an RSR Research survey cited customer retention and loyalty among the top marketing challenges they faced.
- Marketers are blamed for overloading consumers with too much information or trying too hard to engage with them, resulting in the latter overthinking their purchasing decisions (Forbes).
- Factors like high shipping costs and uninteresting, confusing content on social sites can deter consumers from engaging with brands.
Winning and Retaining Consumers
Capturing consumers’ attention and converting them into loyal shoppers/brand advocates involves making online shopping an enjoyable and hassle-free experience. Here are some suggestions on how retail marketers can do this:
- Doing Your Homework: Before launching campaigns on social sites, it’s crucial for marketers to identify the audience and understand their demographic characteristics like geographical location, gender, age etc. Using Thismoment’s social media monitoring and measurement capabilities, for instance, retail brands can:
- Identify and acquire new customers
- Target promotional messages at those people who are most likely to buy their products
- Establish strong, meaningful relationships with customers
- Offer Freebies: According to CMO Council, the biggest motivation for consumers to Like a brand on Facebook was to be eligible for exclusive offers. It’s no secret that consumers check out retailers’ social media pages for the discounts, coupons and other freebies. Offering freebies is a great way of enticing prospective customers to your social sites and encouraging them to engage with your brand.
- Simplifying the Shopping Process:
- Shipping Costs: A 2011 study by e-tailing group shows that 73% consumers rate unconditional free shipping as a vital feature when buying something online. The problem of high shipping costs has deterred many a consumer from completing the shopping process on a retailer’s brand site or social page. While it’s not always possible to waive shipping costs, what retailers can do is reduce or waive charges during the holidays or specific time of the year.
- Making Your Social Site a Goldmine of Information: What makes luxury handbags and accessories retailer Coach’s YouTube channel so great? Customer acquisition and retention greatly depends on simplification of the shopping process. This involves keeping the layout simple, the site navigable and featuring the required information; which is exactly what Coach did. The key is to make your site a goldmine of information by featuring pricing information, product demos, great visuals, store location etc.
- Engage: After capturing consumers’ attention, the next step is to give them a reason to engage with your brand. The likelihood of consumers buying something from retailers who respond to their complaints/queries is higher than those who don’t. Social media, for retail brands, does not only have to be a customer service tool. Retail marketers can engage with users via UGC campaigns, by including social conversation modules etc. This improves customer retention and creates brand advocates by showing them you’re attentive and that you care.
Created on Thismoment’s DEC platform, Beautyrest engages customers through their “Half Asleep” UGC campaign on Facebook. Customers can also be part of the conversation, join the Beautyrest community and interact with the brand.
Conclusion
US online retail sales are expected to reach $248.7 billion by 2014 (Forrester Research), which indicates that the concept of shopping has come a long way since the traditional brick and mortar store. In addition to retailers’ websites/ online stores, the modern consumer will throng social platforms to download coupons, check out and compare products and post reviews. The fact that time-strapped consumers have constantly changing tastes means retail brands have to be alert and focus more on winning and retaining customers and less on pushy sales talk. For retail brands in the social space, the journey starts with attracting customers, engaging with them and converting them into brand loyalists.
- Shama Ahmed
Thismoment
