Shopify Style Series: Build an E-Commerce Experience As Unique as Your Brand

You put a lot of work into building and maintaining a strong brand identity. Don’t let a less-than-stellar e-commerce experience send the wrong message to your customers.  

This article is part three in the 4-part “Shopify Style Series” powered by Klarna and Sellry. 

An antiquated e-commerce experience can damage your company’s name and prevent potential sales. Here’s how to show your customers who you really are through a customized online store that reflects your brand’s hard-earned integrity.

1. Create a Smarter Experience

In fashion, image may be everything, but in fashion e-commerce, user experience is far more important. While you focus on designing a sharp and stylish site, don’t neglect your customer’s journey. No matter how slick your branding is or how great your store looks, a clunky checkout will stop shoppers in their tracks.

With “ecomm-petition” revving up, many retailers are differentiating their brand by investing in new online shopping capabilities driven by consumer demand. And what do your customers expect from your brand? It all boils down to ease of use.

Lengthy forms, mandatory account creations, and multi-step checkout procedures only create hesitation and frustration, which often leads to cart abandonment.

For repeat customers, encountering multiple hurdles for a second is especially annoying. Integrating smart payment technology like one-touch buying, guest checkouts, and auto-fill forms can help take shoppers from browsing to buying, and allow you to treat return buyers as VIPs.  Plus, when you make shopping and checkout short and sweet, you can capitalize on subconscious desire – an essential factor in online fashion purchases.

2. Offer Modern Payment Options

If shoppers don’t see their favorite way to pay, they might reconsider their purchase. That’s why many successful retail companies, from H&M to TopShop and Asos, are using flexible payment options as a way to differentiate their brand while adding value for their customers.

In fact, giving shoppers more payment options has been shown to increase conversions and build positive brand associations. A recent study showed that 44% more purchases were made due to the availability of Klarna at checkout alone. Try Before You Buy and interest-free installment options are two of the most popular, and successful, new payment methods.

Offering as many payment options as possible builds trust and credibility while encouraging higher spend. Plus, with the right partner, these modern options work seamlessly for customers and retailers alike, making payments fast, intuitive, and risk-free.

3. Rethink Returns

We’ve talked a lot about returns thus far in this series, and there’s a good reason for it. Returns aren’t easy – it costs a lot to pay for shipping, and with customers frequently trying to game the system, it’s hard to maintain an easy and free policy. According to recent research, the #1 reason for cart abandonment among American shoppers was that “the retailer did not have a decent return policy.” As it applies to customization and branding, prioritizing your return policy can really set you apart from the pack.

Your customers look to you for honesty and transparency at every stage of their shopping journey, and trust goes a long way toward brand loyalty, word-of-mouth recommendations and of course, repeat purchases. But an unclear or unreasonable return policy can upend all the hard work you’ve done to build their trust. Creating a simple and direct policy, and letting shoppers know items can be returned or exchanged is an effective way to decrease cart abandonment overall.

4. Personalize Everything

Personalized shopping and curated fashion sites have proven time and again that customization resonates with today’s buyer.  Taking this same approach to your e-commerce experience is an investment you can bet on.

If you apply the same creative and customized methodology to your checkout as you do to your products and services, you can transform your ecomm experience into something unique, effective, and worthy of your brand’s name. 

This article is part of a 4-part series about sustaining and growing your ecommbusiness in 2019. Insights are brought to you by the ecomm and payments experts at Sellry and Klarna.