How customer behavior in physical stores affects the creation of e-shops

Did you know that even you and your way of shopping in stores also affects the look and functionality of e-shops? I don’t mean ‘out-of-the-box’ e-shops, whose visual side and functionality are predetermined for the user and it’s possible to move only within strictly defined boundaries.

By this I mean an e-shop that is tailor-made in order to provide the visitor with what they’re looking for and lead them to the required activity (to achieve the greatest possible conversion ratio between the visitor and the customer).

An e-shop, just like traditional stores, should be able to address visitors in a way that would turn them into customers. Think about your last purchase at a larger shopping mall. You went there to buy pre-selected goods (as needed), or just to see what new items they had… and at the end, you came home with something completely different too ?

Yes, sellers know very well how the goods should be arranged to appeal to the customer as much as possible. There is even a common name for these activities, the so-called merchandising. Today, it has gained progressively more space even in the environment of online shops. Let’s take a look at what a shopping centre does to reach a customer and how it can be applied in an online store:

1. Pleasant, undisturbed environment

Customers are always happy to return to where they feel good. In the case of an e-shop, the design of the site should make a good impression on them – at the first glance. It should contain easy-to-remember elements. There’s no need to fight against different designs on individual subpages. It’s necessary to differentiate oneself and not to deal with the page ‘exactly according to a template’. Classic side menu for products and main menu for company information on all subpages – this will certainly not bring you originality in the design. And not even recognizability among the competition.

2. Easy page navigation

There’s nothing worse than wandering around a shop and not knowing where something is located. Some time ago, they reworked the organization of a supermarket from a large unnamed French network near my place. Since then, I haven’t gone shopping there voluntarily. This is one of the biggest mistakes made by both physical shops and e-shops. Disarrangement, difficult orientation, sparse choice of products.

Compared to a physical shop, an e-shop also has a great advantage. Namely: inclusion of products in several places at the same time… because I can search for e.g. children’s ski gloves either under the category of children or under sports as well as in the skiing section or in the category of clothing (in general).

If a user has to search for their product on the web for an unreasonably long time, they’re highly likely to leave the site and buy it from a competitor that has brought a user-friendly view to their site.

3. Logical arrangement of products

Related or additional goods in one place. In the Internet environment, this means the correct incorporation of products into categories and the display of variant or additional goods for the currently viewed product. So we can also talk about the added value in the form of customer guidance, to point them in the direction of other products recommended to be bought together with their selected product.

4. Special offers in a visible place

In the shopping center, you’ll usually find them at the entrance, in order to be seen. You have many more options in an online store. It’s common practice to have the top products on the home page (but they are also included among other products). Other options include, for example, division into subcategories (top products, offers, happy hour, etc.), linking promotions from the site to social networks. Here you need to learn from supermarkets and their leaflets. New goods added on offer regularly and in a reasonable number.

Some e-shops handle discounts very badly. If I come across a page where more than half of the products is on offer, I will definitely not remember it for the quality or the uniqueness that its products may be characterized by. I’ll remember it for a lot of offers. This is how we teach the user to expect discounts. We teach them to leave the page as soon as they can’t find what they are looking for with a discount on the page… But the given product may be selling for a great price even without a discount.

5. Good product information

We know this form very well in the shape of leaflets. An online store deals with this, for example, through social networks, newsletters and mobile marketing. The information is sent and displayed only to people who are interested in it. And thanks to excellent feedback, it’s possible to get an idea about your customers. If we want to reach other people as well, targeted internet advertising will serve very well, the advantage of which is that pre-defined customers will be reached and it is not a question of shooting blindly.

 

When creating e-shops, it’s therefore necessary to take all the mentioned features into account and to not forget those that are specific only to online stores.

  1. Clearly defined ordering procedures without surprises and unnecessarily lengthy procedures
  2. More search and navigation options
  3. Easy use of webpages
  4. Adherence to technological standards
  5. Optimisation for the most common browsers