A few years ago, all that mattered when buying online was that the price offered by the products was lower than that of the physical stores. Consumers based their interest in the online market in the fact that what they were going to find would be cheaper than what they found in stores as always. The price continues to be a differential element to buy on the internet, but it is not the only one that matters and is not the only one that pushes the consumer to the arms of the network. Online stores have to create a unique, quality experience that sets them apart from physical stores to attract consumers’ attention.
Let’s follow the example of online furniture stores. How can you create a completely differentiating experience that makes consumers come to the network to get the products? Brands can draw on many elements that can create a potential for purchases that is even superior to that of physical stores. Online platforms often allow more precise and concrete searches of what can allow a physical store, allowing filtering by materials or shapes and direct the purchase to products much closer to what the consumer has in mind. In addition, they can play with all the elements that the internet contributes, such as offering a layer of information through content marketing or allowing play with the latest technological innovations to find the desired furniture, which become a bonus that an offline store Can not offer at the time of purchase.
In short, online stores have to study their consumers, get to know them and analyze what they need and what they expect to offer a shopping experience that fits these realities and allows them to match their expectations. Buying on the internet should not be simply something that is done fast or for economic reasons. It should be something that is done, as it is also done outside the network, to enjoy the purchase.
Provide good customer service
And finally, and very much in line with creating a unique and differential shopping experience, online stores should be concerned with caring for and pampering customer service. If in a physical store offering a quality customer service experience is fundamental, more is a virtual store. The consumer does not see any interlocutor and is alone during the whole process. For much information offered by the web, however simple things may be, the buyer will not cross at any time with a human interlocutor.
Therefore, brands must take care of all the elements in which the consumer can contact the store or store that connects with them in a tangible way. From the packaging of product delivery, which will become a letter of introduction, to interactions in case of problems in the process of purchase or delivery, brands must monitor the whole process and pamper the relationship they can establish with their consumers.
