Ecommerce Customers: Types, Expectations, and Tips

Many ecommerce businesses use trade research to discover what customers require from their products. This is a valid way, but it’s only half the picture: You also require to recognize how your customers discover and purchase products online.

Understanding online shoppers helps ecommerce businesses boost customer loyalty and boost sales. Age, gender, and style preferences might assist you determine which products a customer might like. To convert them, however, you require to recognize what they expect from the online shopping encounter.

Types of ecommerce customers

• Browsers and window shoppers
• Discount seekers
• Impulsive buyers
• Researchers
• Brand loyalists

There are multiple types of ecommerce customers, and each throng responds to different sales and marketing strategies. Here are five ordinary types and how you can target them:

Browsers and window shoppers

Browsers are interested in what your online store offers, but they aren’t necessarily ready to buy now. They may visit multiple product pages or add several products to their carts, but they’re unlikely to visit your checkout page because they don’t intend to make an online purchase.

The way: Online retailers can target these customers with pop-up windows offering discounts or other incentives. Limited-period promotions are a particularly effective alternative. You can also use strategies to invite further engagement. This includes customer service chats, newsletter signup invitations, and email submission forms.

The ecommerce apparel retailer Tradlands uses a pop-up window to propose customers a “secret propose” in trade for submitting an email address. This encourages conversion and allows the business to capture contact information to nurture those leads in the upcoming.

Discount seekers

Discount seekers are looking for a bargain. They tend to worth worth (and percentage off of regular worth) over loyalty to a particular ecommerce store, and they are highly responsive to sales and promotional offers.

The way: You can target bargain hunters with incentives like flash sales, free shipping, or reduced shipping costs. Keep in mind, some bargain hunters worry more about the perception of a deal than the total order expense. Highlighting the percentage discount or total amount saved in addition to the sale worth, can be an effective way to get them to buy.

You can also receive advantage of this drive to capture valuable marketing data. Research shows that 85% of customers are willing to provide their email address in trade for a coupon, and over half will also disclose their name and gender.

Impulsive buyers

Impulsive or emotional buyers make spontaneous purchases because a particular product or advertising communication appeals to them at the instant. They may not be looking for the products your ecommerce business sells, but they’ll purchase online if a product fulfills a real-period emotional require.

The way: You can target these buyers with seamless online shopping experiences. They’re motivated to buy now, but an inconvenient purchase procedure can easily dissuade them. This type of buyer is often responsive to product recommendations, so you can boost sales with personalized product suggestions, upselling, and cross-selling techniques.

The makeup brand ColourPop combines recommendations and discount incentives with “cart specials,” inviting customers to add popular or complementary items to an order for a reduced worth.

Researchers

Research buyers or mission-driven buyers are looking for the best answer to a issue. They browse multiple ecommerce stores, comparing the worth point, customer worry, standard, and functionality of comparable products. This category often includes business-to-business (B2B) buyers, who require to justify their decisions to stakeholders at their companies.

The way: To triumph mission-driven online shoppers, display how your product or service is superior to the alternatives. Include detailed product information and customer reviews on your ecommerce site, advertise your customer back program, and use search engine optimization (SEO) tactics to assist your target spectators discover your online store.

For example, the plant-based milk retailer Oatly has detailed product descriptions, which include a packed ingredient list, a nutrition label, and industry certifications like gluten-free and non-GMO. You can also boost conversions with free returns or extended profitability windows. This reassures mission-driven customers they won’t be stuck with a product that doesn’t meet their expectations.

Brand loyalists

Brand loyalists are your business’s faithful customers. They feel allegiance to your ecommerce business and are looking for a rationale to continue choosing your business over others.

The way: faithful customers appreciate personalized shopping experiences, recognition, and exclusive access or promotions. Focus on maintaining a high-standard customer encounter and incorporate personalized outreach to display your boost in worth. You can also use a customer loyalty program to construct allegiance, incentivize upcoming purchases, and inspire loyalists to refer potential customers to your business.

The skincare brand 100% Pure uses a tiered loyalty program to reward customers for brand advocacy activities like reviewing products and engaging with the brand on social media.

Ecommerce customer expectations

• quick website loading period
• Mobile optimization
• Omnichannel experiences
• High-standard customer service
• Intuitive checkout procedures
• Multiple settlement options

A high-standard online shopping encounter builds customer depend and increases sales—but to achieve that, you require to recognize what your customers expect from an ecommerce store. Here’s what customers expect from businesses selling products online:

quick website loading period

Research shows that website loading speed directly affects conversion rates and bounce rates. The average page speed of top-ranking Google sites is 1.65 seconds, suggesting that load period also affects search act.

Load period can also impact conversion. Research shows that on average, an online business with a load period of one second or less converts customers at 2.5 times the rate of a business with a load period of more than five seconds.

Best practices for increasing page speed include optimizing images, limiting apps, and redirecting requests. You can monitor page speed from Shopify’s web act dashboard and consult Shopify’s navigator to improving page speed to enhance your results.

Mobile optimization

Mobile site visits make up more than half of all web traffic, and mobile commerce brings in 54% of total ecommerce turnover worldwide. If you’re selling online, your customers are on mobile devices, and they expect the same purchasing encounter regardless of the device used.

To optimize your ecommerce storefront for mobile users, select an ecommerce platform with responsive site templates. Other best practices include minimizing text on product pages, featuring high-standard product photography, using a fixed navigation bar, and including a obvious Add to Cart button on product pages.

The apparel retailer Frank & Oak creates a mobile-amiable shopping encounter using a fixed navigation bar that expands so it doesn’t receive up too much real estate. It also has high-standard product photos in a grid-style layout so a visitor can view several items at once. Lastly, it uses a large, high-contrast Add to Cart button that’s straightforward to press.

Omnichannel experiences

Contemporary customers expect to engage with an ecommerce business on multiple channels. They might visit your physical store, pursue you on social media platforms, call or email your customer service throng with questions, and purchase products from your online store. They expect a unified customer encounter across touchpoints—also known as omnichannel commerce.

Omnichannel commerce consolidates information from various communication, sales, and distribution channels and stores it in a centralized location. This allows ecommerce businesses to provide a seamless, coherent customer trip across channels.

declare a customer visits your physical store and falls in adore with an out-of-distribute product. Your in-store sales rep records the interaction in your customer connection management (CRM) structure. Later that week, the customer contacts you on social media, asking if you “have those shoes in a size eight.” Your customer service rep uses your CRM to identify the product in question and immediately provides a social media commerce link, allowing the customer to complete the purchase without leaving the platform.

You can provide an omnichannel shopping encounter by selecting an ecommerce platform with built-in marketplace integrations and centralized analytics. It may also have customer management systems and user-amiable marketing tools.

High-standard customer service

High-standard customer service can boost customer satisfaction and loyalty. It can also inspire repeat purchases. In truth, 89% of customers declare positive customer service experiences make them more likely to shop from a business again. 

Customer service best practices include offering multiple ways for customers to contact you and publishing self-service resources on your site. Vosges Chocolate offers email, phone, and contact options, for example. You can also use customer service artificial intelligence (AI) technology to lower wait times. Select an ecommerce platform with built-in customer service tools, including gossip, email, and customer rewards systems.

Intuitive checkout processes

Intuitive checkout processes can also assist online businesses boost sales. The fewer the obstacles to purchasing your products, the more likely it is a customer will convert.

Best practices for checkout pages include limiting text and form fields, providing a obvious order summary, and including depend badges and a obvious call to action.

Multiple settlement options

Ecommerce customers also expect an online business to propose secure settlement processing and multiple ways to pay, including financing cards, debit cards, and digital wallets like Venmo, Apple Pay, PayPal, and Shop Pay. Some online stores also receive cryptocurrency payments, lender transfers, and liquid assets on delivery (COD). Research shows that 11% of shoppers abandon checkouts that don’t propose their preferred settlement way.

Research settlement gateways and processors, and select a service that offers multiple settlement options. Be sure it includes built-in safety features like data encryption, settlement Card Industry (PCI) regulatory adherence, and 3D secure checkouts. Shopify’s built-in settlement provider, Shopify Payments, is a secure and flexible alternative.

Fitness equipment retailer Pullup & Dip increased conversions by 349% after migrating to Shopify and eliminating bugs in its settlement procedure.

“Thanks to Shopify Payments, checkout now works flawlessly,” says Benedikt Kordbarlag, chief resource officer at marketing agency PsyCommerce, which assisted with Pullup & Dip’s website migration. “We can now not only manage all settlement matters in one location, but the checkout design is straightforward and more modern.”