5 ways to instill confidence in your potential customers
September 25, 2024Want to improve your digital shelf conversion rate? Then you need to make sure online customers have confidence in your brand and your products.
When it comes to e-commerce, the digital shelf is a fiercely competitive space across all markets and geographies. Whether you’re scaling up or a global big hitter, you’ve never had more competition on more channels for customers who are spending their hard-earned money more thoughtfully. To ensure your products stand out from the crowd and entice would-be buyers into hitting the buy button, it’s essential you give these customers confidence that they’re making the right buying decision.
But how can you do this on a digital selling channel? After all, you can’t rely on the personalized knowledge of an in-store sales assistant on Amazon or Zalando. Nor can potential customers feel the fabric or try on clothes when buying on their smartphones. That means you have to get creative in prioritizing customer confidence on all your digital selling channels. Here are just 5 ways you can give customers confidence in their buying decisions – and how Product Information Management software helps simplify the process.
1. Make sure all your product information is accurate
No customer will feel confident in your brand or your products if what they see is seldom what they get. Even if they’re convinced to buy a first time, receiving a product that’s completely different from its description ruins any chance of repeat custom and increases the chance of a costly product return. It might sound like it’d take a lot of time and effort to guarantee product information on every digital channel is accurate and up-to-date, but with the right software in place, it can be as simple as a single click.
That’s because ensuring you have a single source of truth for all your market-ready product information is easy if you have the right PIM software in your tech stack. This centralized repository is where product information can be updated by internal teams and then automatically syndicated out to all owned and third-party digital touchpoints. That means if your PIM data is clean and complete, you can be sure that your online sales channels are also clean and complete. This gives potential customers confidence in what they’re buying, and it gives you confidence that you’re not unwittingly alienating potential repeat buyers with poor product information.
2. Deliver consistency to every customer touchpoint
With customers hitting an average of eight touchpoints before making their purchase, it’s vital that every single one tells the same story about your products. That’s why having an omnichannel product experience, where customers get seamless consistency no matter where they shop or interact with your brand, increases consumer confidence and makes customers much more likely to hit that buy button.
Before implementing the inriver PIM, global jewelry brand Pandora struggled to offer customers consistency across its website and stores. This led to customers going into stores and realizing that Pandora’s digital product catalog was out of sync with what was available in-store. Customers would research products online, set their heart on a certain item, and then realize that not only did their local store not stock their desired product, but the sales assistants at their local store also had no idea that the product even existed.
See how Pandora creates a consistent customer experience
Watch Pandora’s Emanuel Turcu and Isabel Marschall Thostrup discuss the inriver difference.
This led to disgruntled customers, harmed buyer confidence, and meant sales assistants had to waste time searching through product information inconsistencies instead of providing a winning customer experience that showcased their products. Emanuel Turcu, Product Manager Marketing Technology at Pandora, explained that now Pandora has implemented the inriver PIM, it can create more consistent experiences across digital and physical channels.
Emanuel explains that “PIM allows us to consolidate our processes, sending product information to all the retail systems.” He adds that, while the PIM transition is still underway, the final destination is clear. “[As a customer] you’re going to see the same high-quality product information wherever you interact with the Pandora brand. This means that Pandora’s in-store colleagues will be able to focus on sales, not admin, to enhance every customer’s experience.
3. Choose imagery that brings products to life
A picture’s worth a thousand words. So while great descriptions are an important part of your product listings, quality imagery will show your customers exactly what they’re getting. If they’re looking for a specific shade of paint, clothing, or furniture, imagery is far less ambiguous than simply stating the name of a color or shade. Add clear images, and even videos or interactive visual tools, to help customers see what your products look like in their spaces or on their bodies. That way, customers will have far higher confidence – encouraging them to buy and keep your products and come back for more.
The right PIM solution can help bring your products to life by providing a single, centralized repository of digital assets. However, while a PIM can provide a decent solution for this need, by integrating PIM and DAM solutions into your tech stack you can extract significantly more value and usability from your digital assets. DAM technology, standing for Digital Asset Management, provides more expansive asset management capabilities. When you combine DAM + PIM technology, you are able to map these assets to complete and consistent product information and syndicate out to all digital channels.
4. Prioritize customer-first digital innovations
When selling online, you need to work a little harder to replicate the successful sales strategy of store staff. In-store assistants can easily point customers to complementary products and upsell/cross-sell during a conversation. While digital channels are not yet able to replicate this conversational approach, the right software can still help you replicate those personal touches and show you understand what customers want wherever they choose to shop.
Katrine Goth is PIM Manager at leading Scandinavian health and beauty brand Matas, which has implemented the inriver PIM platform into its tech stack. Katrine explained how embracing PIM’s capabilities has helped Matas replicate product bundling and effective recommendations for online customers.
See how Matas does product bundling and recommendations
Watch Katrine Goth, PIM Manager at Matas, explain the inriver difference.
“Our big challenge before we implemented inriver was that we couldn’t enrich our products to the level that we wanted,” she explains. “We couldn’t give our customers the level of guidance they’re used to in our stores. But it was such a grueling task to enrich the product – so that’s where inriver has helped us.”
Indeed, by using the inriver PIM to connect products, product data, and attributes, as well as manage quality digital assets, Matas has captured the essence of how its sales assistants upsell products in-store for their digital buyers. Katrine adds: “The software also helps us build new experiences with the products online, like creating relationships between products so we can sell them in bundles or showcase them with videos. It’s helped us scale enrichment so we can offer it across all our products.”
5. Analyze, review, and optimize product listings
Even if your digital product listings are currently performing well, there’s always room for improvement. That’s why your strategy should involve analyzing, reviewing, and optimizing things like product data, page loading times, and SEO attributes like metadata and search-engine-optimized descriptions. Measuring them against KPIs like cart abandonment, click-through rate, and return rates can help your business level up.
This process of continuous improvement has been fundamental for global footwear and apparel brand New Balance, which uses the inriver PIM platform to manage its digital commerce operations. As John Fister, Senior Digital Product Manager explains, he uses focused metrics to track buyers’ confidence in the products and experiences that New Balance is selling.
See how New Balance constantly optimizes customer experience
Watch John Fister explain how inriver is helping the footwear and apparel brand.
“My ultimate goal is to understand our click-through and add-to-bag rates,” says John. “Is the consumer now adding the product to their cart because of the information we’re providing them? Are we giving them that confidence?” He explains that using clear KPIs, and a PIM that makes it easy to track relevant metrics, helps his team understand how New Balance’s e-commerce approach can be further optimized.
“The two big KPIs are ‘are they adding it to their cart?’ – if so, they’re confident that it’s the right choice for them – and return rate. If customers are returning, maybe there are some reasons we need to investigate. We need to [monitor these metrics] to understand if the data and imagery we’re providing is the right information to drive that confidence.”
Inriver: The PIM to instill confidence in your customers
Are you looking to recreate that in-store experience across all your owned and third-party online sales channels? Or maybe you know that your product experiences could be doing more for your digital shelf strategy than they currently are. Then why not switch to the many benefits of the inriver PIM solution?
With a fully adaptable data model that supports an ever-evolving product catalog, you know you can rely on a flexible source of market-ready product information for all your customer-facing channels. Add in API-based syndication and digital shelf analytics technology that automatically tracks your products’ performance to alert you to issues, and you have the most complete e-commerce solution on the market.
want to see the inriver PIM in action?
Schedule a personalized, guided demo with an inriver expert today to see how the inriver PIM can get more value from your product information.