As the second part of the Internet Retailer Web Design takeaways, we will cover how an engaging first experience and personalized post-purchase strategy can move the needle for online retailers.

These two strategies were covered by many different presentors. It is important to provide your first time consumers with an experience that will entice a purchase while gaining their trust so that they will return as a repeat buyer. If the experience is amazing, you may even have your best customer referring new patrons to the site.

First Experience

According to Young Lee at BackCountry.com, 25% of all Google searches have NEVER been searched.  People are searching for long-tail items that are bringing them deeper into a site. Optimizing and personalizing landing, home and product detail pages is key to engaging a customer and driving them to a conversion. A few tips from the presentations:

• Understand what that consumer is shopping for and make the products that are displaying relevant. As an example, if you search for New Balance Shoes and click OnlineShoes.com, all the products will be dynamically merchandised with relevant products to engage that consumer. Avoid displaying too many options, especially the ones that are not relevant.
• Avoid distractions such as external advertising on the page - make products the sole focus. Make it easy for the consumer to learn more about the merchandise of interest. 
• Make the call to action clear and concise. When a shopper lands on a Product Detail Page, make sure that customer knows how to easily make a purchase.   

Post Purchase Experience

The post-purchase experience is where Amazon is gaining market share and beating the competitors. By developing a brand and making each post-purchase touch personalized, they are driving customers back to their site for additional purchases. After all the hard work of getting a shopper to become a customer, there must be a plan to make that customer loyal and sticky. Here are a few tips:

• Personalize the transactional emails (order confirm and order shipped emails) with up-sell product recommendations. Since these emails are opened at an industry average 80%, a friendly reminder with cross selling techniques injected into the message will encourage that customer to return in a much shorter time frame.
• After the customer has made the purchase, provide that customer with Post Cart Page recommendations that will engage that customer and introduce other products of interest. Even if they don’t make the purchase at that point, they will keep you in mind when they are ready for the next purchase.
• Trigger a post-purchase behavorial remarketing email after the purchase. Thank them for their purchase and provide them with relevant products, enticing them to come back to the site. This increases your brand awareness and makes the customer feel special since you are paying attention to her needs. Here is a great example of a post-purchase trigger:

• Now that the customer recognizes your brand, they are much more likely to return to your homepage. Give that customer a Personalized Home Page Experience that makes them feel welcome and special. It’s just like visiting your favorite restaurant - they know what you like and what to recommend. Give your online shoppers that same experience.

While there were many other topics covered at the conference, these were some of the main takeaways that could move the needle for online retailers. If you would like to discuss the conference in greater detail, please feel free to shoot me a note at jdeines@igodigital.com.  

Here at iGoDigital, we are helping retailers create many of these same experiences and would be happy to discuss how these capabilities could help your business. We will also be attending eTail West next week and look forward to providing you with some new and exciting takeaways from that conference. 

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