Innovations in technology have completely transformed the way consumers make purchases, and for retailers, all roads lead to digital. The current desire for convenience and speed consistently directs consumers to digital channels, making it crucial for retailers to optimize their e-commerce stores in every way possible. Make an online shopper wait too long for a webpage to load, or give them a faulty checkout experience, and they’ll abandon their cart faster than you can say, “Retail.”
The main question for retailers now is how to grow their online customers to increase sales and customer loyalty. The answer is multi-faceted, but one solution is certain. Custom software solutions for e-commerce ordering systems create positive customer experiences and increase customer satisfaction. Geneca develops custom software for retailers that completely optimizes their online ordering systems to help manage growth, retain existing customers, and increase customer loyalty. Online ordering systems present e-commerce retailers with an enormous opportunity to generate more sales.
Speed Matters: Faster load times for e-commerce sites
With projections for e-commerce sales predicted to exceed $603 billion by 2021, e-commerce retailers can’t afford to turn customers off with slow loading web pages. 47 percent of consumers expect a web page to load in two seconds or less, and 40 percent of consumers abandon a website that takes any longer.
For e-commerce retailers, online ordering systems are the last interaction with your customer before they make a purchase. Make them wait longer than three seconds for their shopping cart to load, and you could potentially lose their conversion. In fact, 52 percent of consumers, say quick page loading is an important component to their site loyalty. With slow load times, you not only miss out on their current purchase but the potential for them to return to your store and buy again. Speed clearly matters, and if your online ordering system isn’t optimized accordingly, it’s likely your conversion rate and customer loyalty will decrease.
Geneca’s speedy solution for e-commerce systems
Geneca develops custom software to optimize online ordering systems for speed. We recently helped an e-commerce retailer whose successful Christmas marketing campaign resulted in higher than normal order volume exceeding their online ordering system capacity. While orders from customers flew in, page load times increased, causing impatience and frustration. A poor customer experience would not only result in the loss of one order but could easily cost the retailer future orders and business.
Geneca’s custom software solutions refined and optimized the retailer’s online ordering system so they could handle a greater capacity of orders. With faster page load times at checkout, the customer could make their purchase quickly and conveniently. Geneca’s custom software allowed the retailer’s online ordering system to process orders more quickly and efficiently.
(User) Experience Is Everything
The speed of retailers’ online ordering systems matters because it affects the customers’ overall experience. In the digital world, we call this user experience or UX, and it’s making a huge impact on where companies decide to invest their business and marketing efforts. Research suggests that global customer experience investments are projected to grow from $3.77 billion in 2014 to $8.39 billion in 2019. Large investments aside, user experience is crucial for e-commerce retailers to generate revenue and scale. And if it isn’t completely optimized they’re setting themselves up for failure.
Unique problems require unique solutions with custom software
Optimizing e-commerce systems with custom software solutions is one way for retailers to improve user experience. Geneca’s custom software utilizes the most current technology to innovate unique solutions for retailers to optimize UX in a variety of ways. From upgrades to the retailer’s system architecture or refinements to the system’s processing performance, custom software (rather than off-the-shelf offerings) allows retailers to create unique solutions for their unique problems. With Geneca’s custom software development, the possibilities are endless.
Collect data from your online ordering systems to get to know your customers
Retailers have all kinds of data at their fingertips, but in order to utilize that data to reach their goals, they have to know how to analyze it and use it to their advantage. There’s tons of data in a retailer’s online ordering system that gives them a unique opportunity to get to know their customers on a deeper level.
Through analysis of data from their e-commerce systems, retailers can better understand who their customer is and what they want or need. You can see which items customers put in their carts, how many, how often, average order value, and more importantly, which items they’re abandoning. Retailers can use this data to optimize their business and marketing efforts accordingly. If a customer puts four different throw pillows in their shopping cart and doesn’t finish their purchase, retailers can use data to understand why. Maybe the throw pillows price exceeded their average order value, in which case retailers could choose to cross-sell a cheaper throw pillow.
Data from e-commerce systems also allows retailers to segment their customers based on previous shopping behaviors, and further optimize their marketing efforts to reach specific goals. There’s tons of data to be collected, and with custom software solutions, retailers can customize the kinds of data their online ordering system collects as well as its analysis to inform their strategies and accomplish their business goals.
If you do not have a solution that perfectly fits YOUR business, you’re leaving money on the table. Cookie cutter, off-the-shelf solutions will get you started, but they won’t get you ahead, especially when it comes to your competition. In order to differentiate yourself and grow to your full revenue potential, you need to pay attention to speed, experience, and use of data. And you need a custom solution. Geneca’s custom software solutions optimize online ordering systems in these respective areas, to increase retailers’ scalability and growth. Faster load times, optimized user experience, and detailed data analysis are just a few ways Geneca’s custom software solutions set retailers up for overall success.