Modern Customers Need Intuitive Digital Storefronts
Consumers today have incredibly high expectations, so every misplaced landing page, extra checkout step, and delay increases the likelihood of them getting impatient and leaving the website. The right tools can help get the customer with unprompted discovery and personalised recommendations Retailers need a digital presence, not just for the sake of having it but […]
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Consumers today have incredibly high expectations, so every misplaced landing page, extra checkout step, and delay increases the likelihood of them getting impatient and leaving the website. The right tools can help get the customer with unprompted discovery and personalised recommendations
Retailers need a digital presence, not just for the sake of having it but to reach customers where they are. Figures speak; there were around 268 million digital buyers in the US in 2022, as per a report, and the same study predicts this to reach 285 million (over 85% of the US population) in 2025.
In a brick-and-mortar store, businesses design the physical storefront with window display, signage, and promotional messaging to attract customers and encourage them to enter the store. To serve the same purpose online, there are digital storefronts.
The What’ And ‘Why’ Behind Digital Storefronts
Digital storefronts are stores where customers may explore and make digital purchases. Brands can tailor the in-store experience based on customer preferences, buying patterns, and other factors to offer a distinctive shopping experience. They may connect their online customers with brick-and-mortar stores.
To cite an example, Amazon’s storefront is a solid one to go with. The backend provides content and personalisation across the webpage using tens of thousands of APIs and various microservices. Customers can find product recommendations and discounts based on their browsing history. Even with millions of products spread across several categories, Amazon’s intuitive search function helps customers browse the catalogue easily.
Consumers today have incredibly high expectations, so every misplaced landing page, extra checkout step, and delay increases the likelihood of them getting impatient and leaving the page. The pandemic has increased the value of the digital storefront, and customers rely heavily on digital channels to acquire the goods and services they enjoy.
As a result, having a digital storefront is no more a luxury but a way to build brand awareness, reach out to new customers, and drive success. Even if they opt for in-store purchases, customers would first like to interact with the brand online. Customers must be able to discover all the information they require fast, and it must be uncluttered and simple to use.
This necessitates that businesses maintain digital storefronts with the same degree of care, attention, and detail as physical storefronts. This requires several tools to kickstart, set up and manage a brand’s digital storefront journey.
Tools For A Digital Storefront
Brands looking to provide good customer experiences and wishing to expand their business across numerous channels require a flexible backend solution. The problem lies with traditional content management systems (CMS), which only support browser-based shopping; thus calls to have a headless CMS.
Headless CMS: Personalisation is going mainstream, with about 88% of online shoppers willing to continue shopping with players offering a personalised experience. To that end, brands’ digital storefronts could be a proper channel to optimise and personalise for their end customers via web, mobile, or wearables with a separate front end. This channel would use the same data (like goods bought, most searched categories, and reviews) as other channels/frontends via an API layer to provide consistent customer engagement across devices.
WordPress VIP (WP VIP) is a popular headless CMS where users can choose between a single stack, headless, or hybrid strategy when generating content and digital experiences. Moreover, in a recent announcement, the company has released its latest version, WordPress 6.1, to consolidate and expand the customisation tools for its users.
Dynamic Promotion and Pricing Engine: To date, many enterprises incorporate their product or service pricing into the main codebase, which makes it challenging to display customised promotions and offers. With the help of a pricing and promotions engine, marketers may plan promotions and set restrictions. The platform’s real-time data and decision-making logic will provide customers with good deals and discounts based on their location, time zone, and even order history.
The AI-powered pricing and promotion engine from fabric may be a good option. The company provides other products as well, including fabric Marketplace. “With fabric Marketplace, retailers can quickly and easily connect with dropshipping vendors around the world, offer an extended assortment of highly-curated products, and shift to an on-demand inventory model,” said Faisal Masud, CEO of fabric, in a blog.
“And with continued supply chain challenges, expanding selection, risk-free, just before the holidays, is a big competitive advantage,” he added.
Accounting Software: Simply put, accounting software is a more advanced form of the sales ledger. It makes it easier for businesses to keep track of incoming and outgoing transactions and to create a financial history over time. Along with the fundamental accounting tools, companies get hold of some of the advanced features like forecasting, budgeting, payroll services, reporting, and analytics.
Zoho Books is a good tool to use, as it manages employee payroll, including generating paychecks based on hours worked, and keeps an eye on trends and sales performance to calculate product markups and margins.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM): Retailers can better manage their consumer interactions using CRM software. Enterprises have to connect with their customers across channels, including social media, email, SMS, phone calls, and messaging services, which are made feasible by CRM technologies and help organise all incoming communication.
Genie Customer Data Cloud, the CRM data cloud from Salesforce, processes billions of customer data, unifies all of the company’s customer data across channels, and provides real-time customer profiles. Recently, the company announced that any company could analyse their data points in Genie using Tableau and then visualise, explore, and automate insights and take action securely.
To conclude, a brand’s digital storefront is becoming one of the most valuable resources for generating leads and boosting sales. One of its distinguishing characteristics is how well an online brand is integrated across all customers’ touchpoints.
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