Thinking of your ecommerce strategy? AVOID these five pitfalls

Welcome back to dunnhumby's?The Science of Shopping?newsletter where we look at the trends shaping the future of retail, and share the top insights that matter most to retailers and CPGs. In this edition, we reveal the five pitfalls you should avoid while building your customer-first strategy for ecommerce.

Shopping online is now a regular habit for many people. Much has been said about the rise of ecommerce and how retailers are focusing their efforts on infrastructure,?expanding the assortment coverage?and delivery capacity, or about how valuable an omnichannel customer is. But not so much has been said about the importance of having critical mindset for the omni-channel customer. Instead of simply replicating what is in place for physical stores, it’s important to have a?Customer First strategy?across?all the channels, and to consider their difference as and particularities.

So how can you put the customer at the centre of your ecommerce strategy?

Here are five pitfalls to avoid.

1. Segmenting your customers the same way you do offline

It’s important to have deeper understanding of your customers’ needs, preferences, habits and intentions. Equipped with such detail will allow you to create better communications and offerings across the whole digital landscape.

2. Using a single view of your customer

Overlooking the omnichannel behaviour of your customer can lead to many mistakes that they might not forgive. We’ve found in multiple clients that multichannel shoppers are three times more valuable than the average shoppers. There are added costs with increasing digital customer and you must consider their overall profitability, larger share of wallet, and driving a larger amount of quantum profit when assessing their importance. You need to have an individualised, but holistic view to better identify your most valuable buyers.

3.?Using the same business category hierarchy in site navigation

Product categorisation or hierarchy is the basis for how shoppers navigate and discover products. For customer experience, hierarchy is the intricate layout of intuitive, searchable navigation. If your online category flow is unclear, business-oriented (instead of customer-oriented), difficult to interpret or poorly arranged, shoppers will have a harder and more frustrating experience.

Users may have a difficult time if you don’t consider online behaviour, with cumbersome navigation options and an often overwhelming categorisation structure that are either overly narrow or too large. This will result inevitably, in less conversion and fewer sales.

4. Ignoring the power of reviews

Online reviews are an effective word-of-mouth marketing strategy that provide outside perspectives on products and services. If an ecommerce store doesn’t have product reviews or doesn’t manage them, customers will go elsewhere to find them. And if they go elsewhere for reviews, the brand loses control.

5.?Using low personalisation in?promotions

Your competitor is no longer a store one mile away, it is one click away. In a world where customers can price compare at the click of a tab, maintaining?price perception is vital. As many as 44% of shoppers shy away from brands that don’t offer them personalised, relevant offers. Use relevancy algorithms to curate your promotions list at the customer level using their previous behaviour and show each customer the offers that actually matter to them.?

Here's what to avoid when building your ecommerce strategy

Until next month, visit?The Science of Shopping?and?dunnhumby?for more. Thanks for reading – and please subscribe to get the best of dunnhumby directly in your feed.