Ahh, spring. As flowers bloom, you may find there's a welcome bounce in your step. If you're looking for a place to point your newfound energy - your site is a great candidate for some attention.
So swing open the windows, grab a bucket and follow these timely tips to give your ecommerce website a good spring cleaning that will benefit your company's bottom line through year's end.
Persist that Cart!
The cart is the new wish list, and with a 79 percent increase in carts created on mobile, mobile carts are clearly the key element in unifying shopping across devices and channels.
With today's consumer making more visits, considering and researching their purchase, retailers are finding more abandoned baskets. Beware, though: don't clear that shopper's cart! Make sure you persist that cart and encourage the shopper to return to their basket. In fact, even if you're already running an abandoned cart campaign, consider adding a link in every email you send reminding the shopper that their cart is right where they left it.
Simplify Checkout
Much like unwanted distractions during browsing, checkout obstacles can wear out even the most patient shoppers. Especially on mobile, far too many sites still miss the mark during checkout and lose out on sure-fire purchases. It can be easy to assume that, once you've guided a shopper to checkout, they're certain to purchase. Avoid the trap of beginning to upsell and crowding their screen with superfluous detail. Instead, focus on securing the purchase - and removing all excessive features does just that. Employing number pads as appropriate may also reduce friction in the form-filling process.
Flatten the Funnel
Shoppers have proven to be both spontaneous and distracted in their mobile shopping efforts, pulling out the phone while waiting for a train, in line or anywhere else -- and just as quickly returning it to a pocket or purse once that train arrives or they get to the front of the line. Internal research found that the average time on site for mobile shoppers in Q4 of 2015 was down 19 percent from the previous year. The development of social commerce utilities, such as Pinterest's buyable pins, finds the shopper at the point of attraction and enables a purchase in just a few taps. By flattening the funnel, retailers can best service the spontaneous shopper, before they put that phone away.
Unify Your Efforts
Given the connectedness of today's shopper, purchase paths typically traverse multiple devices. A typical consumer may check your site on their computer during lunch break, on their phone while waiting for the bus, and then on their tablet before bed. Don't create confusion by shifting between a 'mobile' experience and then a full screen experience - ensure that you provide a full feature experience regardless of the device a shopper uses.
Giving your ecommerce website a good spring cleaning is not only refreshing, but it will pay dividends through the summer months and into the ever-important holiday shopping season. The truth of the omnichannel shopper is that consumers can and will shop whenever and wherever they want; winning retailers will create a seamless and shopper-first experience for every shopping experience.
