Hi everyone! We’re happy to record another BOA video for you, and this time, with the end of 2021 we want to present the trends of the client requests we’ve received over the last year. These might be things that you’ve thought about also or things that you also already know you want to do. We want to show you the developments so you can also benefit from them.
Okay - so what are the core things that clients wanted this year? I want to focus on four topics and we’ll start from the first.
Improving the Website User Experience: Fewer Clicks
User experience on the website. The main thing is to try and improve the conversion rate and this generally goes hand in hand with reducing the number of clicks that a customer needs to do to get to checkout. This really improves the conversion rate.
Add to Cart from Collection Page
We want to enable the end-user to find what they want to find with as few clicks as possible. For example, adding to cart from the collection page. This includes even if there are sizes or colors that the customer needs to choose. They can even do it from the collection page. And something that in the past was displayed as a type of “quick shop” that surfaces a pop-up with more information, essentially doesn’t save any clicks. You still need to click. Therefore, already from within the collection, the small squares of the products, you can enable a user to add to cart and choose the products.
Quick Signup Page
Another example - signing up on the website for a personal account. In general, it entails a page where you need to enter a name and password, etc. For our clients, we developed a development that enables the end user to sign up for the website without having to navigate to another page. We identifies that it really improves the conversion rate for signing up for a personal account.
Color Swatch Display
Another example - the display of colors. A lot of client requested, specifically for fashion websites, that the products be displayed separated to the surfer on the product page because what catches the eye is the picture of the product or model with the prominent color. Therefore, separating the products into the different colors in the collection display. But, when you get to the product page, of course you want to display the other colors that this product comes in. Because once you catch their eye, maybe a different color will interest them. And this is another development we did to save clicks - the user doesn’t have to go backwards and look for it there.
Those were some examples that enable, in as few clicks as possible, to display the information and enable the surfer to take action. And we identified that it really improves the conversion rate and over the course of this next year I’m sure there will be many more examples like this. Also with Shopify itself, with its new theme Dawn which includes a few of the features I mentioned and I recommend that you check it out.
Customizable & Interactive Bundles
Another development we did in the field of website user experience is the bundles development. It’s sophisticated and mostly relevant to Shopify Plus merchants because there we can use Shopify Scripts, which we use to do this development. But then you can create an experience that is very nice. The title is bundles but you can display it to surfers in other ways.
They can visit a page where they see the options that they can add to the bundle and choose quantities, etc. In the end, with one click, they can add everything to the cart and receive the discount on the bundle. Also at the end, and this is an important point, it broadcasts to your system or warehouse in separate lines so you don’t have to find a way to separate it into separate products. It’s a great development that really increases conversion by tens of percents and we’ll add a few examples below the video. So that’s in the realm of user experience.
Checkout Improvements
After your customer surfes the website and adds to cart, they will get to the checkout area. There too, clients requested many special developments this year, that we think really help the conversion rate.
Shipping Method Selection
The first area is the area of shipping - the page where users choose their shipping method. Today, there are more and more methods to display to customers. Whether its self-pickup from the office or from the branches, options to pickup from distribution points of the shipping companies you work with, maybe even more than one, home delivery, Israel postal service, registered mail, express from today to today, from today to tomorrow, and more.
All of this has started to create a burden on the shipping method selection page. Its both a lot of shipping options and a lot of information on each one. It can get a surfer stuck at this point and make them think about which one they want to choose. For this, we did a bunch of different developments, some of which we turned into apps.
MapIt
For example, the option of MapIt, an application that we developed following requests from customers. Through it, you can mark areas on a map and display certain shipping options to people only in those areas. This condenses the page a lot and only displays the relevant methods to each customer, and doesn’t display all of the methods for all of the clients.
You can really draw any area you want on the map - it can be at the street level, or house, or neighborhood, or any drawing on the map.
PickMeUp
The second solution is a pickup solution. That means that instead of displaying an unclear option called “shipping to a distribution point,” that the customer doesn’t know whether or not it’s worthwhile, where it will arrive to, when the store is open, etc. With PickUp we can display the closest pickup points to the customer so that they can choose what is convenient for them. This can also be done according to how many points you want to display and sophistications about whether or not a package is too large and you don’t want to send it for pickup, etc.
For those who have Shopify Plus, then you can do it in an even nicer way for the surfer where they click and then it displays the points.
For both of these applications, MapIt and PickMeUp, we’ll put links in the description below so you can enjoy them.
Easier Payment Methods
The next topic in the realm of checkout and improving the conversion rate at checkout is the topic of payments. Here too, there are very interesting developments that we did in the last year and expect to do this year.
Shopify changed, exactly on January 1, the connection approach for the Israeli scanners to Shopify and this enables the clearing companies to enter Shopify and expand the possibilities. And then also, every company can make sure they have as many capabilities as possible and we’ve helped a number of clearing companies do this.
For example, paying with BIT, Google Pay, Apple Pay, etc.
Using BuyMe Gift Cards
I also want to note the ability to pay using BuyMe gift cards. It’s something that is very important that businesses enable online. Until now, they’ve enabled it just offline. And this is, of course, a development we did. It’s possible for Shopify Plus customers because then we can change the checkout. Therefore, we can offer a possibility in the checkout for entering a BuyMe gift card and using it as the payment method.
Of course this is also connected to managing your books and finances and we covered this in our solution also. It’s very worthwhile for anyone on Shopify Plus to enable this. It raises the conversion rate of customers that come with the gift card and are looking for stores where they can “waste” the gift card and buy. If you don’t enable this, then they won’t be able to buy from you.
Better Customer Service
The next topic that we’ve identified as a trend in 2021, and will definitely continue with us into 2022 is in the realm of customer service - enabling as many self-service capabilities as possible to your customers and reduce the dependency on your customer service. It both reduces workload and improves the customer service experience who feels like they don’t need to wait for anyone to respond to them, etc. They can do it all on their own.
Self-Service Return System
We made two very interesting developments in this area. One is the return system which we just did a video on. We’ll put a link below. It enable many functions but I’ll talk about the main ones.
A customer can request and initiate a return request on their own. You can enable that the request creates shipping that collects the details. It can be for free or for a cost - whatever you decide. And when it gets to the warehouse or office, you can identify the order in the system by scanning the barcode to see which items were returned or not, if they returned intact or not, or how they were supposed to be returned. Then you can enable marking all of these things, including an image of the items so there will be documentation. After, either the same person who received it, or even someone else from customer service can review the orders that were treated by the warehouse and issue the refund that will automatically go back to the customer with a notification via email and SMS.
You can also offer to give a gift card instead of a refund. This is obviously preferable for you because the money stays with you. So in that circumstance, you can offer a gift card that is a little more than the amount they were supposed to get from the refund request or the opposite. Offer a refund with processing fees and a giftcard without fees. Either way, give an incentive to take the gift card, which you’re able to do from within the system. We’ll include a video on this so you can see.
Customers Can Check Their Order Status
Another topic in the realm of customer service and the independent service that we enable customers to do via development is checking the status of an order. The two main topics we heard about from clients about customer service that they need to deal with are where is the order and how to do a return. So we spoke about returns.
For finding where a package is, we developed a new application for order status. A customer can enter their order number and doesn’t need a personal area on the website - which we often recommend that stores don’t open it. But even if your store does have a personal area function, not everyone creates an account in the personal area and not everyone knows to do that.
With the help of the application, all they have to do is enter the order number and they can see the status. Of course, they also have to enter their email to validate that the person who is entering the order number is the same person who placed the order.
Immediately they see the status of the order - whether it’s in being handled by the warehouse, or sent already to them and if so, the tracking number and link. In the future, we’ll also add the status of the shipping companies within the screen. And it is all within your website. We’ll also add a link to the application that you can download and enjoy like all of the other companies that used it this year.
Okay, so these were the trends we identified and divided into categories: customer experience, checkout experience, and customer service. I hope you enjoyed and we’ll be happy to see you here in the next video. Of course, for any questions or anything you need with Shopify or e-commerce in general, we’re here for you.
Thanks! Bye!
Powered by Froala Editor