You could have the best product in the world, but no one will know it if you have a poor site experience.   

And what a shame that would be. Online retailers can invest heavily in a quality product, provide fast fulfillment, and target the right shoppers in their ads, but if the site experience is poor, everything falls apart.   

A slow-loading site. Not enough images. Suggested products that don’t fit that shopper. Clunky search results. After a merchant makes all the necessary investments, it would be silly if one of these things kept a shopper from buying. But sadly, that can be the case.   

That’s why online merchants need to offer a good customer experience. The Digital Commerce 360 November Strategy Insights Report issue can be your guide to what to offer in terms of a quality online shopping experience and what shoppers expect.   

In my reporting for this issue, I interviewed Jay Nigrelli, senior vice president of ecommerce at Perry Ellis International. He outlined several initiatives the apparel merchant is executing to improve its ecommerce experience. Those initiatives range from launching buy online, pick up anywhere, to an avatar on the product detail page to help shoppers see the fit of a garment.   

While these are involved endeavors, he says success in ecommerce is about three things:  

“It’s a combination of really great product, building a really solid customer experience and driving the right qualified customers to your site,” he says. 

“Ecommerce isn’t rocket science,” he adds. “It’s making sure you are doing the appropriate things and finding the right partners to execute them.”

So well said. Merchants can’t lose sight of those three things, but they shouldn’t feel like they are in it alone. Ecommerce has a plethora of technology providers to help retailers along the way when they don’t have the internal expertise.   

Retail is at the forefront of providing a quality online experience. And it’s pushing other industries to do the same. Now, all merchants — whether online is their primary selling channel or not — need to offer this top-notch experience.   

I hope this report will give readers a sense of what their peers have prioritized, why and the results they’ve seen. And ways to implement that success either in house or with help from outside.   

Digital Commerce 360’s November Strategy Insights Report on the customer experience includes the following in-depth articles, written by Digital Commerce 360 editors:

How top merchants create the best customer experience

• “Online shoppers want a fast site and their input to count” shares specific examples about how merchants took shopper feedback on the customer experience — such as a slow loading site or not enough product selection — and turned their ecommerce sites into better shopping experiences with higher conversion rates.
• The data-focused story “Customer experience plays a critical role in conversion” reveals insights on what consumers say are the site features that make them convert. It also provides insights on which features retailers say they are investing in.
• “How retailers continue to personalize with fewer ways to track shoppers” shares insights from retailers on the different tactics they use to personalize their websites.
• “How top retailers create the best customer service” shows readers which site features Top 1000 retailers offer for others to benchmark themselves against. For example, 80.3% of Top 1000 retailers offer video on their site, but only 1.8% offer live streaming.

Download the free report here.