What's Best, What's Next--Online Trends

8/4/2019 What's Best, What's Next--Online Trends

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1Customer Experience: Whats Best, Whats Next

A Point of View on Building

Rich Online Experiences

by Doug Mack

Vice President & General Manager ofConsumer & Hosted Solutions at Adobe

CustomerExperience:

Whats Best, Whats Next


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ContentsCustomer Experience Background and Drivers 3

Principles Driving Rich Experience Best Practices 3

Principle No. 1: Content is (still) king 3

Principle No. 2: Movement has meaning 5

Principle No. 3: Search gets sexier (Browse gets better too) 7

Principle No. 4: Navigation when you need it 12

Principle No. 5: Make it personal and empowering 14

Principle No. 6: Shopping is becoming social. Hasnt it always been? 16Principle No. 7: Mobility and multi-channel momentum 17

Whats next? 17


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Customer Experience Background and Drivers

Since last addressing online customer experience in eCommerce 3.0, How eCommerce Becomes a UniquelyGreat Experience, many o the key principles or creating rich, unique experiences remain unchanged; however,many have now expanded and been urther developed to reect the changes in customer expectations, advancesin technology (applications, bandwidth, etc.) and growing best practices. Interestingly, the web shoppingexperience continues to mirror or evolve towards the in-store shopping experience, and to surpass the directmail order experience by providing more relevant inormation textually and visually with increasing consumerinvolvement and interactivity. Nonetheless, throughout this evolution, what remains constant is the criticalimportance o creating great, highly dierentiated, customer experiences, which are imperative or todayseCommerce managers as their businesses have been validated as one o the astest growing retail channels.

Additionally, with the economic downturn and eCommerce growth rates slowing to single digits worldwide,customer experience is even more important. According to Te State O Retailing Online 2008: Protability,Economy, And Multichannel Report, a Shop.org study conducted by Forrester Research, October 2008, 72% oretailers surveyed agreed or strongly agreed that Te online retail channel is better suited to withstand aneconomic slowdown than the oine retail channel. Another recent study validated in the retail industry a 66%correlation between customer experience and repeat purchase. Tus asserting success will come to those ocused

on customer retention strategies that ultimately build strong brands, shopper loyalty and repeat purchase.

Principles Driving Rich Experience Best Practices

Over the last three years, there have been some dramatic and not so dramatic changes to the key principles orcreating great customer experience. Te ollowing trends and best practices have been observed as the next waveo innovations.

Principle No. 1: Content is (still) king

A picture is worth a thousand words, and bigger is better. Tese sayings clearly hold true or visualmerchandising in eCommerce as seen by the dramatic increase in use o imagery to merchandise a productincluding additional views to showcase dierent angles, in context and even user-provided imagery. Not only isthere more product imagery, (with some retailers increasing the number o images per item to as many as 17 notincluding color options), these images are now larger, embedded in the product, category and browse pages, andthey are all higher quality and zoomable to show customers intricate details. What was once critical white spacereal estate only used or product copy and critical ordering inormation is now lie size or larger-than-actualimagery with product inormation overlaid on the image. Clearly, the impact o better quality and increasedquantity o imagery has high eectiveness. Recently reported in the Te State O Retailing Online 2008:Merchandising And Web Optimization Report, a Shop.org study conducted by Forrester Research, August 2008,o those using alternative images, 49% rated them very eective, while 80% o retailers planned to make them an

investment priority or the next 12 months.

House o Fraser, Britains leading department store retailer o many o the worlds most amous brands, is a greatexample o making its merchandise the ocus o its product page.


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Product imagery is embedded into product page and critical copy and ordering inormation are layered over theitem. Tey copy area includes scrolling and tabs or more detailed inormation.

In context photo shows how this Dyson vacuum ts neatly into a small storage cabinet unlike other uprightvacuums.


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Principle No. 2: Movement has meaning

By adding video, or animation, combined with voice, merchants can tell their shoppers a better product storythan just through the use o dynamic imagery or static copy. Videos can demonstrate products in use, show andtell subtleties such as t and eel, and turn the shopping experience into active selling mode. Qualitative usertesting has revealed that the shoppers eyes are always drawn to the largest visuals, but when competing withanimations or sel-running videos - the moving visuals were viewed rst. Users love to watch videos. I oered achoice to click on a video versus any other rich media type, videos are clicked on most ofen.

Just as transitions in movies connect one scene to another, cinematic transitions and interaction eedback inapplications help keep the shoppers oriented so they always know where they have come rom and where theycan go. Tey should not be used to just inhibit exploration o a site, but to guide users along. Even videos haveproven to signicantly increase conversion; and despite a potential up to 2X increase in conversion rates, only aminority o eCommerce managers currently use animations or video on their sites surveys estimate thatapproximately 21% to 30% o all websites use video.

Shop Direct, the UKs leading online and home shopping retailer selling a huge range o ashion, ootwear, home

and leisure products, recently produced and added over 1500 videos onto their nine eCommerce sites drivingdouble digit conversion increases. Teir implementation was well integrated and complementary to productimagery. Particularly helpul is the ability to view the video in two dierent sizes, one embedded in product pageand the other via a ull-screen view as shown below.


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Complementary dynamic imagery provides more detailed views.

Movement also brings more meaning to both Davids Bridal and jcp.com. Tese sites have pushed the animationsand videos to their category pages, providing an experience that truly comes to lie. Models walk into the webpages, they move at the same time, and in some instances provide the ability to purchase directly rom where thevideo or animation is oered.


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Davids Bridal does an excellent job integrating animations throughout the shopping experience rom browse toproduct detail pages. On its category pages, any animation can be clicked on and viewed directly in the page, andseveral can be viewed at the same time. On its product detail pages, these animations are cleanly integrated withother dynamic imagery or more detailed, user-controlled viewing.

Principle No. 3: Search gets sexier (Browse gets better too)

Te ocus o oering rich experiences should move beyond the product detail pages and home pages, to includethe browse, category and search results pages. In an eort to provide shoppers with more inormation quicklyand easily to shorten sales cycles and eliminate clicks to purchase, richer visual inormation should be madeavailable and consistently accessible throughout the website providing a totally immersive experience.


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SunglassHut.com is a rich Internet experience rom end-to-end. Particularly unique on the site, is a shoppersability to view dierent size visual thumbnail images based on the number o items he chooses to browse. Whilethe ability to change the number o items being browsed at one time is a common option oered on mosteCommerce sites, the Sunglass Hut site automatically increases the size o the visual thumbnails as the number oitems viewed decreases; thus providing shoppers better visual eedback despite showing ewer items at the sametime. Also, shoppers can easily drag and drop any o the thumbnails into a avorites older or into a comparisonchart as well as view alternative images right on the category pages. Whether it is a category page or the searchresults page, all the rich capabilities are available a best practice that most sites have yet to implement. Finally,another best practice demonstrated on the product detail pages is including alternative image views in everycolor option and oering every image in a ull-page zoomable view.


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Anthropologies Quick Shop makes browsing better with modal layers built in the category pages that display ullproduct detail inormation including zoom, product description, pricing and add to cart. In addition, browsingshows all color options prior to clicking on the Quick Shop or product detail pages.


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Anthropologie also showed innovation by testing a desktop application, or widget, that connects to the web orreal-time updates. As a desktop application, web development or browser bandwidth limitations no longerrestrict the shopping experience. Built using Adobe AIR, this application visually searches items by color usinga color picker. Shoppers can drag their own photos rom their desktops into the application and color matchitems already owned or rom other websites. Searching perormance is superior and innovative.


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Another example o visual browsing improvements is the ability to show the size o the thumbnails in relativesize and proportion to each other. For example, oral arrangements come in dierent sizes both width andheights. Displaying thumbnails in relative sizes enables shoppers to gain a better perspective o an item priorto ordering, which helps eliminate customer dissatisaction upon delivery, lowers returns and increases repeatpurchases.

Principle No. 4: Navigation when you need it

Navigation when you need it combines the principle o Content is king with the concept o letting this contentdrive the interace. Since content is what browsers care about most, and the interace or chrome is a barrierbetween users and what they want, allowing them to work on, play with, watch, listen to, or otherwise ocuson the content, and not to see buttons and navigation enhance their experiences and drive loyalty. Keeping thecontent center-stage, allows users to interact directly and minimize anything that takes away rom its primacy mirroring the interactive, tangible experience o shopping in retail stores.

oo many sites create clutter or shoppers with user interace (UI) elements and choices. Instead o ollowing

the typical path where the UI and controls are designed and built rst in an application, let the content BE theinterace, and all interactions should all naturally around it, enabling direct manipulation or in-line navigation.A ocused UI, especially when an item requires a make complex decision making process or oers manycustomizable options, can help increase revenues by up to 40%, while shortening the sales cycle by 75%.

One o the rst successul implementations o navigation when you need it includes NikeiD. On NikeiD, usersare allowed to custom design their own shoes by starting rom scratch or with a suggested design. Users canthen click anywhere on the merchandise to be given that specic navigation to make custom choices. Tere is asimple guide that indicates to users how much more they have to complete prior to completing their customordered items. Importantly, the merchandise is kept central to the stage, and users are even provided withmany alternative views o their custom items, all with ull-screen viewing.


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Principle No. 5: Make it personal and empowering

User-provided content allows or great digital experiences that adapt to the personality and prole o the user.Te more relevant the content displayed, the more engaged the user is.

In a newly published January 2009 Forrester Research report, Web Content Management Investment ContinuesDespite Te Challenging Economic Climate, almost two-thirds o respondents, expressed interest inpersonalization. Sixty-our percent o respondents answered that their organizations use or plan to usepersonalization tailoring content to specic users or groups to support their customer experience plans.Explicit personalization which is tied to authenticated users and which many consider easier to deploy garnered the interest o 77% o respondents. Also, 50% expressed interest in microsites tied to search pages, 43%in implicit personalization tied to site user behavior, and 43% in user recommendations.


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Great examples o personalization include photo services where shoppers can upload their personal photos anddesign their own greeting cards, calendars, photo books and more. Sites are also beginning to oer sophisticatedpersonalization that can contour accurately to reect personalized names and messages on to any item, such asWilliams-Sonomas personalized gifs which allow users to preview their own monogrammed or engravedetchings.

By simply emailing out personalized items with the recipients name inscribed on one o its holiday ornaments,Lenox saw an increase in click through and overall revenues.


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Principle No. 6: Shopping is becoming social. Hasnt it always been?

Not only empowering shoppers but also providing tools that empower their community (groups, riends andpeers) is truly a signicant online shopping shif. User reviews are just the start o how social shopping can drivethe ideal eCommerce experience. Community collaboration sharing and rating o user created merchandiseand suggestions to ull collaborative shopping will take what was once an individual, personal and privateexperience on the web to a completely shared experience similar to the public in-store shopping experience.Already a ew great examples o sites allowing the community to create or contribute the content exist.

Freemans Grattan Holdings Oli.co.uk allows users to be their own merchants and create their own outts andsets, then share them with their riends. Anywhere on the site, shoppers can add items to their Look Books, dragand drop them to create outts, then share them with riends.


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NikeiD allows shoe designers to share their custom designed items with anyone shopping on the site. All visitorscan browse the newest designs posted daily by others, as well as narrow their assortment by gender, type, productname, sport, technology and color.

Principle No. 7: Mobility and multi-channel momentum

Although still in an earlier stage in North America, it is important to address how mobile devices will drivemulti-channel impact. Tere are currently 3 billion mobile devices in the world today and the number isprojected to increase to 5 billion by 2012. In contrast, there are only 236 million computers in the US (896

million worldwide); however, these numbers are only projected to increase to 290 million in US and 1.350 billionworldwide by 2010. Source: eForecasts 2007.

Tis will drive a key retailing change in the next ew years as seen by some interesting examples that areemerging. Already mobile devices are being used not only or direct orders but as a direct marketing tool to drivein-store or to the web or online purchases. Examples include click- to-order and direct connection to youraddress book or gif deliveries, texting or in-store pick-ups and specials, pushing newest arrivals that areregionally linked to local store phone numbers or inventory availability, mobile search or UPC scanningcapabilities tied to GPS navigation, & web search to nd closest available items in store or best prices on the web.

Whats next?

Te industry is still scraping the surace o how the web can evolve to urther drive retail business. In the nearterm, the web will become more accessible and device agnostic with increased availability via set-top boxes onshoppers plasma screens and mobile phones as well continued access on the desktop. Shoppers will continue topush the industry to evolve and develop consistent, pervasive, social and immersive experiences.

Acknowledgements

We hope that these trends are useul to your business. We welcome direct comments, questions and eedback.Please send your comments to our blog at blogs.adobe.com/scene7 or [email protected].

2009 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe, the Adobe logo, Flash, Flex, Adobe Premiere, and Scene7 are either registered trademarks ortrademarks o Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries All other trademarks are the property o their respective owners

What's Best, What's Next--Online Trends

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