4 Ways Visual Content Can Enhance Your Ecommerce User Experience

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By DEVIKA GIRISH published MAY 16, 2014

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In today’s ever-connected, increasingly social world, images and videos are fast becoming crucial elements of digital marketing. According to a recentForbes report, brand engagement on Instagram, a social network that relies purely on visual content, has grown by an astounding 350 percent, year over year.

With the rise of social sharing, more and more brands are looking for ways to leverage visual imagery to enhance the value of the content they create and grab a greater share of audience attention. An ROI research report found that 44 percent of people are more likely to engage with brands that post pictures than any other media. Additionally, a Pew Internet study in the U.S. even suggested that the online content consumption has consequently reduced the attention spans of consumers. 

Here are a few smart ways to start capitalizing on the rising popularity and power of visual content:

1. Adopt a mobile-first approach

According to a recent Forrester Research report, 21 percent of retailers’ online revenue last year came from consumers who used a smartphone or tablet to make a purchase. And, by nature, many mobile consumers are likely accessing content while they are on the go.

Catering to their particular needs means highlighting the key features they are most likely to access from a mobile device and optimizing your content and layout to provide a seamless user experience — regardless of their choice of device. You want your consumers to be able to scan through the visual content and get the key message quickly, before you lose their attention.

The view of MichaelKors.com on mobile

In the image above, you’ll see that Michael Kors, a fashion retailer, does not have a website that has been optimized for mobile. For example, the print stays small, and users have to do a lot of clicking and scrolling to view the different merchandise available and the detailed descriptions. Though the visual content itself is quite appealing, the page forces consumers to zoom in and out to maneuver around the site and get a clear view on something they might want to purchase.

Because of the small screen real estate afforded to most mobile devices, viewing mobile content just as it would display on a desktop not only makes interaction difficult for your consumers, but also reduces conversions. In fact, 40 percent of consumers are reported to have turned to a competitor’s website after a bad mobile web experience.

You can avoid this by either opting for a responsive design — where a single code base is used to serve both mobile and desktop users — or adaptive delivery, where the server hosting the website detects the device making requests and uses this information to deliver different batches of HTML and CSS code. However, most responsive websites take a lot of time to load on mobile devices, as smartphones would typically need to download and sift through all the same information it would for the desktop version (but with less processing power). Adaptive delivery on the other hand, enables the server to choose to optimally render pages by enhancing or removing certain functionalities on the fly, based on the capabilities of the device detected.

Jimmy Choo mobile website

Jimmy Choo desktop website

Jimmy Choo, the luxury bags and shoes brand, uses an adaptive design scheme to deliver a highly differentiated experience for its mobile customers. The mobile website, for example, employs a simple layout that displays one central image followed by a list of categories below it, making it easier for consumers to scan through the offerings on the home page. In contrast, the home page of its desktop website features a number of images, depicting different categories within.

2. Make images and videos “shoppable”

Though visually compelling images can have a huge impact on the user experience of your ecommerce site visitors, the images alone can do little to help you convert those visitors into customers. For example, there are times when consumers may come across a fashion trend or exciting look shared by a friend through Facebook or Pinterest, but those shared images do not allow a consumer to purchase that product directly just by clicking on it. These are lost opportunities for a retail marketer.

By making your images or videos shoppable, you can now make it easier for someone who likes your products to become a customer without having to take extra steps — steps that can lead to frustration or abandoning their interest altogether.

For example, Kiosked is a platform that creates embeddable “smart” content that turns visual content into a consumer shopping service. In 2013, Nike used Kiosked for its signature Nike x Undercover Gyakusou collection, a line that caters to the high demands of running enthusiasts. By making the images shoppable, the brand was able to connect better with its consumers in places where they were more likely to interact, and increase its point of sale.

Image via Antti Pasila

Online shoppers could just hover over the image, and glance through the Nike merchandise showcased in it. They could even purchase it from an ecommerce website by clicking on the “Buy Now” option.

A recent Gartner study states that 74 percent of consumers rely on social media to guide their purchases. Recognizing the huge potential of discovery-led shopping, Kiosked offers a “share and earn” functionality that enables distributed ecommerce through social media. Employing a similar feature for your shoppable visual content could help boost sales through your loyal fan base.

3. Incorporate user-generated content

One of the most rewarding ways to enhance the consumer experience with visual content is to allow those consumers themselves to play a role in creating the content you publish on social media. With 4 in 10 social media users reported to have purchased an item in-store or online after sharing it on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest, there is no denying that social media has a huge impact on consumer purchase decisions, and who isn’t more likely to be loyal to a brand that recognizes them for their interest and support.

A lot of brands these days gather content by collecting images shared by their customers on their websites or social media networks. While these images may not be as good as the ones taken by a professional, their authenticity will strike a positive note with your customers. Making user-generated visual content a part of your website by linking it to respective products makes the consumer shopping experience even more relatable.

Nasty Gal is just one of the brands using consumer-sourced images to drive engagement among its shoppers. The retail brand encouraged its customers to upload pictures of themselves wearing merchandise bought from Nasty Gal and tag them using #nastygal. These images were then showcased on its “The Click” gallery and linked back to the product catalog.

4. Create a content hub that resonates with your shoppers’ interests

One of the best ways of cultivating valuable relationships with your consumers is by offering them something unique and appealing that also showcases your products.

REI, a national outdoor retailer does this by creating content that inspires, educates, and equips their shoppers with outdoor-enthusiast lifestyle information that the brand stands for. Rather than merely creating a single blog, REI maintains various content hubs of information, such as videos and details on upcoming events and in-store educational classes.

The company also provides its shoppers with quick access to expert tips and tricks on how to find the right adventure gear. Offering such product demonstrations and promotions rather than plain text helps engage users. With a recent eMarketer report stating that 51.9 percent of marketing professionals consider video to be the content format with the best ROI, this is undoubtedly a safe bet.

Going by the latest trends, content on ecommerce sites is trending toward fewer words and more visuals. As shown in the above examples, visual content will help you to engage in meaningful interactions with your consumers. Thus, when it comes to optimizing your ROI, the best way forward is to strategically incorporate visuals into your ecommerce experience.

The Rise of Product Discovery in Social Channels

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March 7, 2014 by Kevin Strawbridge - Add Comment

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This article is inspired by my experiences over the last seven years with social media and marketing. It was further underscored by my colleagueDawn Kole who wrote recently about what marketer’s should do with social sites.

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

OK, maybe not that long ago. And it was this galaxy; this planet, in fact, where shopping became an activity that was no longer a necessity. It used to be that people went to a store to buy goods that were required for daily living. Not much shopping was involved, rather it was a quick selection of items from a very limited assortment. Shopkeepers would know what individual patrons wanted and would stock those items just waiting for the patrons to come in at their customary times, pick up the items and be on their way.

Within the 20^th century, the shift of people into higher populated areas and jobs moving from rural to urban areas created the ability for businesses to aggregate and grow access to goods and services around centralized locations. The local store served many more people with varying styles and tastes. Close proximity of these styles led to people wanting to know know more about what was available and how to get different things for themselves.

If you go back 15 years ago, product discovery was something that typically took place offline. Shopping, by its very nature was a social activity usually convened by females and done in malls. Catalogs and other printed items might be viewed as supplementary means. Even television could provide a view into items that customers would want to locate and buy. To that end, it became incumbent on merchants to follow the trends, stock items and create a way to support product discovery – sort of playing off the old style of the local merchant who provide necessities to local patrons.

Now it is 2014 and the rise of big data, the evolution of the internet as a commerce channel, and the ability to link any and everything through social sites has completely changed the process of product discovery. Beyond just the typical sites that allow social networks to form and share information, a new breed of sites are gaining popularity based on how they use technology to parse the conversations and ferret out actual trend information based on key indicators. Example sites include Wanelo, Pinterest, and Ravesy.com.

By the end of the 1900’s (I say that for dramatic effect since we are well into the 21^st century now) data, and the ability to transmit data electronically, led to the evolution of the internet as a commerce channel. People could now find anything they wanted with a few keystrokes and the click of a mouse. Access to this kind of information redefined shopping as we know it today.

Digging into one of these sites, Ravesy, it is clear to see that the dissemination of these mass amounts of information can be highly useful for shoppers.

They even use the tagline “We discover the trendy stuff for you”. That is important in this day and age of short attention spans and reliance on data. Ravesy, and other sites within its space,  monitor what everyone is talking about and boils it down to a small subset of information. They use algorithms and behaviors to really understand what is important. Ultimately this takes the burden of product discovery off of the merchants and makes it a democratic process. As these sites continue to emerge, create cleaner data and crystallize the purchase intent, they will become the de facto point for product discovery, to which merchants and customers alike will turn for trendy products all in one place. In the process, the information gathered will be useful to merchants to give them better insight as to how their products fare on the social web and in the conversations in a way that can be measured and tracked.

Some, or all, of this may seem far-fetched. Many thought the same thing when eCommerce first emerged. However, as data continues to proliferate and be more accessible, smart marketers and merchandisers will seek ways to use that data in order to spur sales and grow businesses. The convergence of the need for growth with the consumers growing demand for ideal products is the underpinning for continuous improvement in the shopping process.

7 Ecommerce Design Trends for 2014

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JANUARY 14, 2014 • ARMANDO ROGGIO

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As more online retailers seek to provide a good mobile shopping experience, expect to see a significant number of site redesigns in 2014. These redesigned sites are likely to follow many popular design trends that are currently impacting entertainment sites, publishing sites, and mobile applications.

Ecommerce platforms like Magento, Shopify, or even WooCommerce (on WordPress) can have a strong influence on how online shops are designed. This can make it more difficult for online merchants to simply redesign a site to keep up with the latest fad. But in 2014, even those sellers that take an “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” approach to website design may be forced to do some remodeling thanks to the continued growth in mobile Internet traffic. In fact, some predict that in 2014 mobile Internet usage will pass desktop Internet usage, and mobile-based ecommerce might account for 30 percent of Internet retail sales.

Given that ecommerce business are likely to be resigning to support mobile, these sites may also follow other important web design trends.

1. Responsive Design

Mobile is going to be the primary driver for ecommerce web design in 2014, but don’t expect Internet retailers to abandon desktop users. Rather, responsive design, which has already been a trend in ecommerce site design, will to continue to grow in popularity, allowing online sellers to provide a good shopping experience regardless of the device a shopper is using.

Solved by Flexbox.

As a subset, if you will, of responsive design, you may see more site designers using the CSS Flexible Box Layout Module. This is a proposed World Wide Web Consortium standard that is enjoying relatively good support across browsers, including at least partial support in Chrome 31, Firefox 25, Internet Explorer 10, Safari 7, Opera 18, iOS Safari 7, Android Browser 2.1, Blackberry Browser 10, and IE Mobile 10.

Three resources will help those unfamiliar with the Flexible Box Layout Module. These include CSS-Tricks’ “A Complete Guide to Flexbox,” the Mozilla Developer Network’s “Using CSS Flexible Boxes,” and Philip Walton’s“Solved by Flexbox.”

2. Finger Friendly Interfaces

The focus on mobile and what many call mobile-first site design is also likely to lead to more finger-friendly interfaces in 2014, since on tablets and smartphones most users are interacting with the web page using fingertips or, perhaps, a stylus.

In the context of ecommerce website design there are perhaps two impacts of the trend toward finger friendliness.

First, expect to see fewer content sliders. These sliders have long been popular on websites since they allow merchants to show a lot of information in a relatively small amount of screen space, but they tended to have relatively small next buttons that can make them a bit more difficult to manage on a smartphone.

Next, be on the lookout for larger navigation buttons and links, as site designers try to make it easier for shoppers to browse site hierarchies or click links.

3. Flat Design

Flat design can be seen in the Windows 8 interface, in Apple’s iOS 7, and in dozens of popular websites. This aesthetic tends to avoid drop shadows or similar — focusing on strong colors, and interesting fonts.

This design trend has a few advantages at present. It often leads to simple user interfaces that are relatively easy to make responsive. It tends to use graphics in a way that leads to relatively smaller file sizes and, therefore, faster loading pages, and it can be a differentiator for sites.

Sites like Canopy, which allows users to find and share products available on Amazon, offers a good example of how flat design is likely to be applied in ecommerce site design.

Canopy

4. More Content on One Page

In 2014, expect to see site designers and developers adding more content to individual pages in at least two ways.

Quick views, which allow shoppers to get additional product information without leaving a product category page, are likely to continue to grow in popularity since that makes it particularly easy for mobile shoppers to learn more about products without having to load additional pages.

Also look for pages to become longer, perhaps, even scrolling “infinitely” like Tumblr or Pinterest.

5. Interesting Fonts

Online typography has been exploding, if you will, in the past few years, and this trend is not going to slow down in 2014.

Expect to see sites using distinctive, brand supporting fonts to convey an online store’s feel. To see examples of typography in action on an ecommerce site, visit Free People, Design by Humans, Afends, or the Yellow Bird Project.

Free People.

6. Great Big Graphics

This particular trend may seem counterintuitive in the context of mobile Internet use and the overall design to provide a better mobile experience. But it turns out that big graphics really is relative to screen size, and with a bit of good site development, designers can deliver big graphics appropriate for a user’s device.

Relatively larger graphics that link to products, also tend to make for finger-friendly user interfaces, which is another reason this trend will grow.

Sites like Born, Hagger, and Tommy Bahama serve as examples.

7. Video and Other Rich Content

Mobile video consumption is on the rise, more than doubling last year, so it is clear that consumers don’t mind watching videos on tablets or even on smartphones.

In this context, video gives online retailers an excellent medium for providing useful content and detailed product information. Look for more retailers to begin including video or other rich media content in content marketing and in product descriptions.

Understanding Ecommerce Shoppers: Who, Why, Where, When, How

OCTOBER 17, 2013 • DALE TRAXLER

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Most ecommerce merchants can describe their customers in a general way. They likely know basic demographics — age range, gender, income level. But, do they understand the “why,” “where,” “when,” and “how” their customers make their purchases? These basic tenants of marketing are more important than ever.

The buying process has never been more complex. Consumers have hundred of places online to purchase products that meet their needs. They may shop at home, at work, in the grocery store. They may be using an Android phone, an iPhone, or an Xbox.

The best place to start understanding your customer is to put yourself into every step of a buying cycle and analyze what influences various purchase decisions.

This article will provide a template.

Who Is your Customer?

This is basic demographics and usually includes the following.

• Age range
• Gender
• Marital status
• Income level
• Education level
• Location
• Profession

Many of these basic demographics can be inferred from your interactions with customers. In many cases, you can simply ask them.

Beyond the basics, you will also benefit from more personal data, such as the following.

• Interests
• Activities
• Political affiliation

That data is harder to access, but there are databases that will allow you to target individuals based on those criteria. Facebook’s ad platform provides an incredible amount of targeting data. You can infer your customer profiles by the types of results you get by running ads aimed at specific target markets. That will help identify the interests of your customers.

What Does your Customer Need to Know?

Next, consider what consumers need to know about a product to make a purchase.

• What does it looks like?
• How does it function?
• How big is it?
• What sizes and colors are available?
• What options are there?
• How much does it cost?
• Are there ongoing costs?
• Is there a warranty?
• How long will it last?
• What are its specs?
• Does it need anything else to make it work?

To find those details, shoppers will seek different sources: articles, websites, blogs, and actually looking at products and trying them on.

Make sure you understand the “what” questions for your products. Then, provide answers to those questions.

Why Do Consumers Purchase your Products?

The “why” questions are important. Do you know why your customers buy your products? It could be for the following reasons.

• Address an immediate need or desire.
• Need product occasionally or on a regular schedule.
• Shop around every time they buy.
• Loyal to a particular brand or store.
• Purchase because product is cool or trendy.
• Seek the lowest price possible.
• Seek little or no shipping or sales tax.
• Need flexibility to return products.
• Seek high-quality products.
• Seek bargains.

The answers will surely vary. Consider, also, what motivates your customers to purchase the products you sell and also why they purchase them from your company versus your competitor. This will help you better refine your value proposition of why shoppers choose your company.

How Do Customers Research your Products?

This area is the most significant change in a consumer’s shopping cycle. As recently as 15 years ago, most product research was done in stores or catalogs or magazines. Today, product research is done in many ways. In the living room, in the boardroom, at the hospital, you name it. Most shoppers start their search at Amazon.com or on Google by searching on a product. Or do they?

Many searches start with an opportunistic email promoting a product. From there, we may find the shopper looking at the item on that store’s website. She may then branch out and see what Amazon has that is similar. In some cases, she may table that thought. In other cases, she may decide to shop around at many stores.

Consumers likely check product reviews, from other consumers. They may read professional reviews. They may do that on their large screen monitors at home. But, they may also be sitting in an animal hospital at 10 p.m. waiting for their dog to have surgery, as I did last night. All I had to do there was browse the Internet on my iPhone.

The point is to understand your customer’s research process. It will vary widely. But in many cases it’s something like this.

• An event triggers an interest in a product.
• Conduct research by looking at a product’s pictures, reading descriptions and so forth.
• Seek out reviews or ask friends.
• Check other brands or alternative products.
• Narrow your selection and shop for price.
• Evaluate the product’s real value, and eventually make a purchase decision.

Where Do they Research?

That leads us to the where customers are researching. They could be reading relevant blogs, going to brick and mortar stores, checking comparison shopping engines, and reading trade publication articles. They may be looking at Pinterest boards, Facebook posts, and checking with their network of friends on Twitter.

They will be using tablets (increasingly the shopper’s preference), smartphones, laptops, desktops, Xboxes, and store visits.

Can an ecommerce merchant be in all of these places with your message? Likely no. But you can identify where your customers are looking for information as they move through their cycle and try to make sure you are seen. You can also ensure that your messaging and content are mobile friendly.

To compete in the future, your store needs to provide input and information to support all those steps. If you lack reviews, your customers will seek them out elsewhere.

via Practical Ecommerce http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/59898-Understanding-Ecommerce-Shoppers-Who-Why-Where-When-How