How ecommerce is changing on the merchant level
Samir Kamnani
·September 17, 2024
We’ve seen a lot of flux in ecommerce in the last few years, with rampant inflation, rising customer acquisition costs, and dropping customer loyalty rates. To survive—and even thrive—in this competitive sales market, it’s important to monitor trends and build a strategy that will set your brand up for resilience.
Our partner agency, Convert Digital, works with many leading ecommerce brands in Australia. We got some tips from their Solutions Consultant, Karlie Vanderpluym, on how ecom brands can stay ahead of the curve in a rapidly changing market.
What are ecom merchants most focused on?
Vanderpluym says that her most successful clients are paying close attention to the ecommerce landscape—especially when it comes to these key trends:
- Total cost of ownership (TCO)
Merchants aren’t just focusing on growth metrics—they’ve realised it’s important to factor in the total cost of ownership when it comes to business operations. That includes not only operational costs of doing business, but outgoing expenses that are often overlooked, such as the cost of reverse logistics and losses from returns. - Tech consolidation
Merchants are auditing their tech stacks to identify ways to do more with less. By finding solutions that incorporate more of the features they need, and using their full functionality, they can cut down on duplication and reduce their tech expenses. “With the current economic climate, as customers have reduced spending in some industries, most merchants are willing to test experiences but not add an excessive amount of different tools that do similar things,” says Vanderpluym. “Tech stack consolidation is front of mind.” - Streamlining of operations
Merchants are automating processes and implementing efficient workflows to improve productivity and reduce costs across the board, from marketing to customer service to returns management. - Monitoring customer behaviour
By collecting behavioural data to get a 360 view of their customers, brands can use those insights to solve problems for their customers, personalise their marketing messaging, and uncover trends in customer behaviour.
How merchants are revamping their strategies
Vanderpluym says that with the rising cost of customer acquisition, it’s become increasingly important to boost order values from a core loyal audience. You can do this by offering bundled products for a discount, and promoting upsells and cross-sells. You can also leverage a returns management platform like Loop to optimise for exchanges, helping retain revenue from your returns and preserve valuable customer relationships.
Merchants are also prioritising mobile-first commerce, as some brands are seeing as much as 90% of their traffic from mobile devices, says Vanderpluym. It’s imperative that customers can engage with your sales, customer support, and returns channels easily whether they’re using desktop or mobile, or shifting between devices over the course of a single transaction. By streamlining the mobile sales process, you’ll be able to convert more customers and decrease cart abandonment rates.
And when it comes to selecting technologies to support them in delivering a best-in-class ecommerce experience, merchants want to see evidence of ROI. When choosing tech partners, look for proven brands that can showcase case studies that demonstrate their impact on merchants’ bottom lines. They should offer a range of valuable features, and integrate seamlessly with your existing tech stack so you don’t need to reinvent the wheel.
By staying on top of industry trends and choosing the right technology partners, your brand can streamline operations and drive efficiency while enhancing your customers’ experience. Learn more about how Loop can help you optimise your return management strategy for higher revenue retention.
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