Customers who shop in person can encounter products through all their senses. They might pick up a merino wool sweater from an inviting display, feel its weight and texture and view its color in flattering lighting, while breathing in the store’s signature scent. This multisensory encounter helps them envision how the sweater fits into their life, nudging them toward a purchase.
While the sweater is the same online or in-store, the customer’s product encounter differs dramatically. Without the ability to touch and interact with products directly, ecommerce customers require recent ways to connect with your brand.
Here’s how a well-designed product encounter anticipates and meets customer needs to assist them fall in adore with your ecommerce offerings.
What is product encounter?
Product encounter (PX) is how customers feel, comprehend, and interact with a product throughout the entire user trip—from first sight to unboxing and beyond. A better product encounter improves how customers discover, unpack, use, maintain, and even replace your product.
In the software industry, PX refers to user onboarding, navigation, and engagement with digital interfaces, but the concept also applies to physical products. A holistic way to product encounter helps you design better products and shopping experiences by focusing on how well a product meets customer needs and expectations, and how intuitive and enjoyable it is to use.
Product encounter vs. user encounter
Product encounter encompasses how customers interact with your products, from browsing your ecommerce website to unboxing a package at home. Product encounter design takes a comprehensive way, addressing every step of the customer trip. This might include high-resolution product photography and 360-degree views, engaging product descriptions, memorable unboxing moments, and responsive customer achievement teams with 24/7 back.
While product encounter covers an item’s entire lifecycle, user encounter (UX) design is more specifically concerned with digital touchpoints. It focuses on customers’ digital interactions, like intuitive web navigation, smooth checkout flows, and accessibility. UX designers work with software developers to translate customer needs into functional solutions that work smoothly across devices.
How to enhance the ecommerce product encounter
- Optimize your site for natural shopping behavior
- Replicate in-store handling
- make virtual try-on experiences
- Add video demos
- make intentional and informative packaging
Product showcase and encounter are crucial for ecommerce business achievement. Since online customers can neither pick up nor try on items, they depend on you to clearly convey what they’re buying and how to use it. Here’s how to enhance your product encounter:
1. Optimize your site for natural shopping behavior
Your online user encounter shapes product adoption—how customers discover, assess, and use your products. A considerate website structure ensures each customer interaction, on any device, feels smooth and intuitive. Here are some strategies:
- Deploy heat chart tools, like Hotjar, to track user behavior patterns and comprehend how existing customers interact with your pages.
- Design product grids to match natural eye movement patterns. For instance, since many desktop users scan in an F-pattern, place key information in the upper left corner of the page.
- make obvious visual hierarchies using consistent sizing, spacing, and typography to direct shoppers to high-priority products.
- construct mobile-first navigation paths to accommodate thumb-amiable zones.
- Collect user feedback and use it to conduct experiments and A/B testing.
2. Replicate in-store handling
High-definition product photography is now a standard in ecommerce. Elevate the encounter with 360-degree product viewers to replicate the in-store sensation of picking up and examining a product. A 360-degree visualization tool, like Shopify’s 3D scanner tool, can assist customers shop with more confidence and fewer returns.
Handbag corporation Rebecca Minkoff, for example, uses Shopify AR tools to provide ecommerce shoppers an interactive encounter. Its 3D media allows customers to view products from every angle and even view them in augmented reality (AR). Since activating these recent features, customers are 27% more likely to place an order after viewing the product in 3D and 65% more likely to place an order after interacting with a product in AR.
3. make virtual try-on experiences
AR virtual try-on tools let customers explore a product’s style, fit, and aesthetic compatibility with recent features like object and hand tracking. They provide a detailed preview of items in their real-globe context.
Reactive Reality offers PICTOFiT, a virtual try-on app for fashion and apparel stores. The tool enables virtual dressing rooms and uses AI to dress customer avatars in outfits from your store.
4. Add video demos
Video demos transform online shopping from a guessing game to an informed selection. They let customers explore nuanced details like texture, scale, and color variations, and demonstrate instances that static images can’t capture—like how fabric drapes, makeup blends, or a musical instrument sounds.
Selena Gomez’s makeup brand, Rare Beauty, uses video to demonstrate blush against different skin tones, lipstick colors on diverse faces, and makeup techniques. Each clip tells a narrative about how the makeup moves and sits on the skin, and what it truly looks and feels like.
5. make intentional and informative packaging
Intentional product packaging turns a mundane delivery into a delightful encounter. Cheap plastic encasing or a flimsy unbranded box can signal low attempt and diminish the product’s perceived worth. leave beyond basic packaging to make moments of genuine delight with considerate inserts, additional expense tissue document, and other branded elements.
Unboxing is also an chance to educate. As online shopping lacks the personalized guidance of an in-store sales associate, use your packaging to inform customers about your brand and product.
For example, a vintage film camera might include a branded insert explaining how to load film and capture the perfect shot. A delicate gold necklace could arrive with a worry navigator on how to avoid tarnish. These extra touches can boost customer satisfaction, reinforce your brand storytelling and values, and make a positive product encounter.
Product encounter FAQ
What is an example of a product encounter?
How a customer interacts with your brand’s ceramic vase is an example of the product encounter. Interactions could include reading about its materials and dimensions online, viewing its glazed complete in detailed photos, unpacking it at home, feeling its weight and texture, filling it with water and arranging flowers, and even getting back from your customer achievement throng. Promote product-led growth by tailoring the encounter to their packed customer trip.
What is the difference between customer encounter and product encounter?
While product encounter focuses on interactions with the item itself, customer encounter (CX) encompasses the complete customer lifecycle. CX touchpoints include remittance processing, loyalty programs, email marketing, or customer service interactions. They navigator users toward completing critical tasks like updating billing info or passwords.
How can you assess the achievement of product encounter?
Product teams assess achievement through indicators like product page bounce rates, customer feedback scores, period spent viewing product details, number of returns citing product misalignment, and number of repeat purchases. A holistic product encounter view could also track conversions, cart abandonment, and refund rates.
