The Struggle Of Building A Great Online Store
By Jeremiah Shea, contributing writer
We’ve heard discussions about the struggle of brick and mortar and have seen continuous growth in online shopping year over year — especially around the holidays. The numbers are even bigger than once thought.
With all of that being common knowledge, why is it most stores are continue to struggle to convert online shoppers to online buyers? Why are digital baskets being filled and abandoned? Why is it that we hear about Amazon’s successes, yet others failing to replicate? Other than outright grabbing Amazon’s talent, like Target recently did with Arthur Valdez, what can businesses do? The answer might not be focus on one solution, but instead address at a combination of a several interdependent factors driving this problem.
The first is buyer friction. If there are too many hurdles in place, shoppers will often abandon their order. Shopping online, and doing anything online for that matter, is in many cases done out of ease and convenience. The ability to stay home, browse a long list of products quickly without having to trudge through aisles, and compare pricing on one screen is very enticing. When hurdles pile up close to checkout, it’s the same as if you grabbed a few items in the grocery store and walk out because of long lines. Businesses that have a store online need to make sure the checkout process is simple. It’s figuring out the delicate balance of security and asking too much. Again, add friction and a potential buyer could walk out.
The second obstacle is a business’ online offering to the customer from a product perspective. Let’s say Business A sells rugs and Business B sells household furnishings. It’s much more likely for a customer to be compelled to start an account and load their card information if they can come back to shop for more. This is a difficult pill to swallow for the SMBs of the world who have a niche offering, but why you can see the success of Etsy versus individual crafter sites that sell their wares.
The third factor to consider is trust. Consumers, depending on their age demographic, can still be weary of entering their card information into yet another website. There has to be a compelling reason for them to do so — whether that is the unique products offered, the online shopping experience, or expedited delivery. Regardless of the reason, consumers at this point aren’t the most comfortable saving their card information on twenty different websites. So how can a business become one of the trusted sites?
While a good question, there might be a more obvious path to success. Amazon is successful because they have done arguably the best job at addressing these three points. This is the reason that most people who shop online have an Amazon account. In terms of friction, it’s pretty quick to order something on Amazon. If you know what you want, it’s only a few clicks to get it shipped. In terms of offering, they obviously have a massive selection on their site and that’s a reason people are fine with creating an account with them — they know they can shop for a wide variety of needs. And as for trust, they are a proven brand and the largest online store. Consumers have no problem trusting them with their card data.
But what’s the angle on how this could help other businesses? Pay with Amazon is a potential solution.
If a business is getting shoppers on their site, but failing to convert them, it could be for one or all of the reasons above. Rather than trying to redesign the site for less friction, offering more, and building up enough trust for a customer to create an account and actually buy, why not leverage the power of Amazon to start converting shoppers to buyers today.
Pay with Amazon is an API any business can adopt and blend into their online store.
This isn’t something constrained below Tier 1 brands either as Southwest recently announced a partnership with Amazon to leverage Pay with Amazon to allow customers to buy products while they’re inflight. It’s the simple idea where there are customers who want to buy something, so why not make it as easy for them as possible. With Amazon’s 294 million plus customers, a business can put their products up in an online store and allow someone to painlessly buy it.
Isn’t that the end goal anyways?