In a recent Internet Retailing webinar, David Bowen, product manager at EPiSERVER, discussed how retailers could best deliver services in an m-commerce world. Below, we summarise the subject areas covered.
• Introduction to EpiServer: 5,000 customers, 20,000 websites.
• “The customer experience across the user journey is a new source of competitive advantage.”
• Key challenges of ecommerce today: acquiring traffic, managing growth, speed of campaign creation/promotion launch to convert and create loyalty.
Mobile
• Insights into Episerver’s research into mobile customers. “Mobile is no longer a trend or opportunity, it’s essential.”
• Customers questioned for the report spent an average of £1,000 a year; 58% of them use a smartphone every day, 19% owned a tablet.
• ANALYSIS: Best performing retailer on mobile: Debenhams and their mobile advantage. Strong contender: M&S
• Tablets had a higher conversion rates than mobile.
• How and where customers use smartphones: public transport, at home and in downtime.
• How is it different for tablets? 80% use them at home, but 15% in the office.
• Demographics of mobile use: over 55s most likely to buy through a mobile website. 35-44-year-olds most likely to buy apps.
• How customers rate the mobile experience: 2013: 37% say some sites are hard to navigate (up from 32% in 2011) “Consumers have low levels of patience.”
• The decline of e-retail sales growth: mobile now accounts for all online growth (IMRG)
• How mobile habits are changing: accessibility, convenience and confidence are all growing.
• Challenges: difficult to optimise full version of the site, attribution of customer journey, technology will change in the future.
• Customer example: Gatwick Airport. Prominent links, search button, ability to browse arrivals and departures.
• Conclusions: “People are more likely to purchase via a mobile site than an application so it needs to be a fast application.”
• Steps to building a mobile site: study user behaviour, task analysis; understanding the user context: Design for interruption, environment and on the move.
• Poll: what is your current mobile strategy? Separate mobile site with same content 10%; responsive mobile site 43%; Responsive mobile site with personalisation 27%; Mobile app 0%; We don’t have a mobile site or app 20%.
Multichannel, multimarket
• Customer example: Hallmark Cards and how its customers engage with the brand, in the UK, and in other markets.
• Looking to 2013 and beyond
• Customer example: Electrolux
Poll: What is your number one growth strategy? Targeting new markets: 34% Improving customer experience to increase average order values 52% Focusing on new channels such as mobile and in-store technology 14%
Data and personalisation
• Customer example: Pizza Hut and dynamic pricing based on geolocation. Integrating EPOS means best-selling pizzas in individual stores can be shown. Booking process through the site.
• Customer example: Gatwick Airport
• Customer example: American Eagle
• Integrated marketing automation: interactions from visitor insights deliver individual views.
• How Episerver integrates with Silverpop.
• How retailers can use the system to gain information on users and build segmentation.
• Automated ways of personalising client websites and targeted email campaigns.
• The site-owner’s optimisation cycle
• Dashboards: how they look and how they work
• Closing poll: How are you improving customer experience? (tick all that apply) Personalisation or smart content 38%; Behavioural merchandising 28%; A/B multivariate testing 34%; Customer profiling and targeted promotions 62%.
• “We’re moving towards an age where we do want to track as much customer behaviour that we can. It’s our job as a software vendor to provide the capabilities for you to take action on that.”
• Q&A session
To hear the webinar for yourself, to view the accompanying slides and hear the question and answer session, visit the EPiSERVER webinar page.
For details of our other webinars, visit our webinars page.
