How to Create a Seamless Digital Experience for the Shopping Season

Although it wasn’t the intention in the first place, Black Friday has become the most favourite shopping day for consumers, manufacturers, and retailers. Yes, the day may have originated in the US because of the perfect timing between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but with globalization that increased its pace with the digital revolution, Black Friday and its fully digital friend Cyber Monday are now two global shopping phenomena.

Source: Statista

Today, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the days between can be named a global online shopping festival. Every new year comes to a new online sales record, and it’s all about online shopping now. If you still haven’t set up a Black Friday schedule, this blog can help you perfect your Black Friday strategy. This article will share a unified Black Friday roadmap that will take your e-commerce and m-commerce strategies to a higher level. Let’s begin with the centre of the BFCM season: marketing.

Marketing on Black Friday: Go Crazy!

We all know that how you market your product has gained more importance than what you’re selling for a decade. So Black Friday and Cyber Monday may quickly turn into the biggest nightmares of marketing teams. The effective BFCM strategies last year may not be as successful this year, but on the bright side, it’s also an excellent time for creatives to offer their best. 

First things first, it is essential to analyze customer behaviour before creating a Black Friday marketing campaign. The best way to get better results is to do segmentation. Going different ways for different mediums is OK. You know that your Instagram and Facebook followers do not speak the same language, so why should you? Add e-commerce website experience and mobile apps into the equation; you get at least three or four different customers that you need to reach going separate ways. 

Yes, creating different languages for different platforms is reasonable, but don’t forget that you are after making a checkout. To get the essence of what makes a customer push the right buttons, analyzing your campaign periods is the best way to go. Don’t have a platform that takes advantage of customer data? Keep on reading; we got you covered.

Where the Magic Happens: Mobile Commerce

Like everything else on the planet, shopping is now happening on mobile devices too. On fast-shopping days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, mobile is where the magic happens. 

According to Shopify, m-commerce is forecasted to have the biggest retail growth in 2021 by 12,2%.

Source: Statista

Another stat comes from Statista, revealing mobile commerce revenue has more than tripled in the last four years. And with more players -small and big- joining the app game, it’s safe to say that another record is right around the corner. But when you go mobile, you need to go all the way. We are talking about mobile apps, where conversion rates are nearly 150% higher than mobile websites or mobile web apps. When we add the customer experience on the mobile apps and the impulse shopper factor, it becomes more crucial to offer your customers a mobile app, whether it’s Black Friday or not. 

Remind Yourself via Emails and Notifications

Emails are one of the cheapest and easiest ways to reach consumers. Still, in today’s mobile-centric world, they are losing their visibility. Still, brands that build a strong and scheduled Black Friday emailing strategy to reap the fruits of the old-school medium. App notifications, on the other side, are the best way to catch the buyers’ eye. In a competitive time like the shopping season, it’s essential to remind your customers of your deals. In 2021, people are seven times more likely to open a push notification than an email, with a 4.1% CTR on Android and 1.7% on iOS.

Offer Various Delivery Options

Another hot topic of modern times, shipping options, is also one of the most critical decision-making factors on the customer front. Amazon may be the most popular player in ultra-fast deliveries. Still, with new technologies and solutions, everyone’s joining the super-fast delivery scene, and newcomers are even faster than Amazon’s Prime delivery options. 

On your checkout screen, try to offer as many options as possible. Some customers like their packages delivered on their doors, some like to pick them up from a parcel agent, and some like them delivered on the same day. According to Metapack, customers still prefer various delivery options, but home deliveries are expectedly come in the first place. So, do the math, make your deals, and offer as many options as you can. Read our blog on “How to win big in e-commerce with express delivery?” here.

Another step of deliveries is the return policies you offer to your customers. It becomes even more critical in the shopping season since things may turn into a mess on the customer front. To reach a higher sales rate, your customers need to know that they are in safe hands when they need to return a product, even if it may cost extra. So, being transparent about your return policies is better than not mentioning it at all.

A Seamless Shopping Experience is Mandatory in 2021

It’s a known fact that the customer’s shopping experience begins on mobile devices with a simple Google search. The process may be completed on a mobile device or jump to a website or even a physical store. Thus, being present at every channel possible is a must for success in commerce, but don’t forget that mobile comes first. 

Let’s draw a simple sales process from the eye of a customer. First, it begins with a search, which leads the shopper to a mobile website or an application. Then comes the bookmarking session, which works best on mobile apps. And at the end of the day, seeing and eliminating favourites or baskets often happens on a bigger screen, a.k.a. a desktop website. Since customer experience is an essential part of e-commerce, the whole process should work seamlessly. Here at Tmob, “seamless” is our favourite word. 

If you feel like you are behind the competition on the e-commerce front, you can join the game faster than you may have anticipated. Our ready-made, customisable e-commerce platform has everything and more you need. The best part is, it’s always ahead of the game! 

While developing Ubimecs E-Commerce Platform, we took continuity at the centre. For years, our clients from many businesses have offered a seamless mobile and web experience to their customers. Still, the real magic happens in the background with the platform’s data collection and analysis fronts, which give you the key to the customers’ hearts: personalisation. 

Ubimecs is a platform to manage all of your e-commerce operations while giving the customers the best shopping experience possible. Discover more on our Unified E-Commerce Platform page, or fill the form on our contact us page to set up a meeting with a Ubimecs expert.

Who Are We?

Tmob | Thinks Mobility is a global technology powerhouse, specialized in digitalization and integration solutions, bringing growth and success to businesses and partners with its innovative SaaS, PaaS, and premium solutions since 2009 with Tmob Turkiye (TR) and Tmob United Kingdom (UK) headquarters.

Sources:

1 https://www.statista.com/chart/7045/thanksgiving-weekend-e-commerce-sales/

2 https://www.shopify.com/enterprise/mobile-commerce-future-trends

3 https://www.statista.com/chart/13139/estimated-worldwide-mobile-e-commerce-sales/

4 https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mobile-app-vs-website-conversion-rates-higher-than-apoorva-verma/

5 https://www.moengage.com/learn/push-notifications-ctr-success-rate-and-metrics/

6 https://www.metapack.com/why-american-consumers-want-more-delivery-options/