A New Zealand eCommerce expert is worried that the art of
retail may be become lost to the cookie cutter approach
currently dominating local online shopping sites.
Mark
Presnell, managing director of eCommerce Integration
Specialists Convergence—a company that integrates
eCommerce sites with backend software and processes—
believes New Zealand’s eCommerce retailers could be more
successful if they stopped boring shoppers and instead
rediscovered the art of both the ‘theme’ and the ‘shop
window’.
“The retail experience is under threat,
and it need not be,” said Presnell. “For example, when a
woman shopper goes to buy a dress, she usually goes for a
reason. It may be a beach dress, or for a wedding, a party,
a graduation… but she also wants to be able to visualise
herself in that dress in the context of the
event.
“Instore she may come across a beach display
in the shop window showing off the summer dress. The shopper
is more likely to buy in that scenario than if she arrived
at an eCommerce site with poor quality cut-outs from third
rate supplier catalogues lined up like ducks in a shooting
gallery—but that’s what many eCommerce sites currently
deliver. No imagination, no experience.”
Presnell
said 80-90% of consumer-to-business shoppers are women and
they enjoy a shopping experience, but for some reason many
New Zealand online retailers have decided that it’s a good
idea to copy boring catalogues instead.
“Consumers
want to see themselves in that garment, or using a product,
within a theme or context that is exciting or
interesting.”
Presnell, whose company works at the
backend of technical delivery to, for example, help
eCommerce retailers swiftly present data to the shopper like
colour, availability and size, said eCommerce retailers
would be well advised to give their online stores more
love.
“Window dressers and in-store displays were
invented for a reason, let’s not lose site of the theme
and atmosphere these presentations make, or we will all lose
in the end, including the consumer.”
Presnell offers
the following tips to retailers on how to be more
engaging:
1. Create
themes
Tools like video, memes, high quality
photographs and graphics can create stunning themes that
help the shoppers visualise themselves using or wearing a
product in the context of their event or daily
lives.
“If you think about it, the eCommerce
retailer has more tools and more capacity to create a
fantasy than the bricks and mortar retailer who is limited
by materials and floor room.”
2. Have a
care
Presnell said it is not unusual for
online retailers to have somebody in the backroom scanning
hundreds of images and cataloguing them, without any care
and attention to the quality of the images and their
presentation.
“We are obviously not referring to
every single image, but where there is reasonable value, you
want to make sure you give your customers an experience. To
not do so is to fail the customer.”
3.
Communicate
In-store there are salespeople to
speak with, who can advise on stock availability, sizes,
styles and delivery times, yet few online retailers offer
the same level of service.
“There are tools for
chatting with customers but, failing that, there’s no
excuse for bad communication. If you maintain a good
relationship with your courier company, you will be in a
position to communicate about variable delivery times
instead of just the standard two weeks—I wonder how many
millions of dollars are lost because the customer is worried
that their purchase will not arrive on
time?”
Convergence serves and supports the online
New Zealand retail industry with integrating their backend
eCommerce business system with their online shop as well as
advising Kiwi retailers on how to structure data to
facilitate eCommerce integration.
For more
information, visit https://convergence.co.nz/
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