ECommerce sales are reaching unprecedented levels. So is the use of social media. Now more than ever, Smart Merchandiser’s analytics overlay is helping online merchandisers to take the best possible advantage of online sales opportunities.
Smart Merchandiser lets eCommerce sites easily manage reams of data about SKUs, colors, and sizes and balance it against incoming information from web analytics, and social media, for quick and highly informed decision-making. From a single graphical user interface (GUI), you can view pertinent information for each product and respond right away by making changes to online data displays in real-time.
Gone are the frustrating old days of juggling multiple tools to receive actionable insights. With Smart Merchandiser, you can see at a glance which items are getting the most play on social media sites like Instagram and Facebook. You can also tell which ones are showing the most page views, highest conversion rates, and greatest sales volumes on your site. Boost sales by placing selected products where shoppers are most likely to notice them.
Learn How Your Customers View and Abandon Products with Analytics Overlay
On an analytics overlay for each product item on your site, Smart Merchandiser lists information about sales dollars, numbers of items sold, conversion rates, total inventory, and color inventory, together with product views, items abandoned, abandonment rates, and abandoned sales dollars.
Now is the perfect time to let this data shine through clearly to your merchandisers and marketers. Although page views and online sales are skyrocketing industry-wide, so are abandonments of both shopping carts and individual items, experts say. Consumers often treat online shopping excursions somewhat like “window shopping” at brick-and-mortar stores, exploring items without buying.
Online shoppers are adding items to their carts that they’re only contemplating buying, to keep products that interest them all together in one convenient place.
Then far more often than not, shoppers abandon their carts without going ahead with purchases. These tendencies have increased during the global pandemic. Data from the start of the pandemic early in 2020 show a 94.4% cart abandonment rate, in contrast to an 85.1% rate during the comparable period for 2018, according to stats collected by Amperity. This adds up to billions of dollars in losses from e-commerce revenues which might have happened but didn’t.
Reasons for Cart Abandonment
Here are the top five reasons for cart abandonment, according to Statistica.
- Unexpected shipping costs
- Having to create a new user account
- Conducting research to buy later
- Concerns about payment security
- Long and confusing checkout
On the other hand, abandonment of individual items is heavily influenced by product category. It’s only common sense that shoppers are more likely to abandon items they perceive as non-essential than those they consider essential.
For example, a woman might consider a black or white cardigan sweater to be essential as a perennial wardrobe staple while regarding a version of the same sweater in a fashion-forward color like gold or plum to be a nonessential “nice to have.”
In addition, however, shoppers are most likely to abandon fit-specific items, such as apparel, in addition to high-ticket items in general. Items showing less abandonment include inexpensive impulse buys and non-fit-specific items like accessories, beauty supplies, and home décor.
Utilizing Analytics Overlay to Improve Your Site Design
Regardless of the types of products you’re selling you can raise customer satisfaction, increase sales, and decrease abandonments by improving site design and creating highly effective price and promotion strategies. Use metrics provided in Smart Merchandiser analytics overlay to quickly determine which products and promotional campaigns are working for the site, and which are not.
User-Friendly Drag and Drop Feature
Leverage Smart Merchandiser’s drag and drop functionality to instantly reposition products on the page to find out whether performance demonstrates an uptick. You can move underperforming items “above the fold,” highlighting styles, fabrics, and colors that are in surplus, according to your inventory levels. With Smart Merchandiser’s “leading color” feature, you can showcase a color with ample inventory.
In contrast, products nearing sold out status can be easily moved lower in the layout or temporarily removed from the site. As another way of bettering the customer experience, you can set thresholds for visual trigger alerts for each product, warning customers when inventory is getting low with an orange bar, or when a product is completely sold out with a red bar.
Products can also be promoted or minimized in your display around factors such as popularity, “trending,” and seasonality. If you want to increase the visibility of an item even more, you can display it in multiple categories by copying and pasting, all in a single click.
Products which are part of special promotions also deserve special attention in how they are positioned on the site. Promotions might include $5 impulse buys as “doorbusters” and seasonal discounts on higher ticket items like fashionable coats in winter or air conditioners in summer
Once you’ve uncovered the best merchandising approaches for your site, you can set multiple rules around inventory, conversion rates, sales, and more for precise merchandising. Automate and schedule these rules to keep your site optimized.
Social Media: Another Key Analytics Overlay Element in the Merchandising Equation
Social media is on the rise, too, of course. A survey conducted by Bazaarvoice showed that 72% of respondents have increased their social media consumption during the pandemic while 43% have increased their postings. Consumption of social media increased more on Instagram, to the tune of 69%!
People are using social media to share updates and read the news, but also to shop online, realities that are nothing really very new. About 54% of respondents said that they used social media for shopping even before the pandemic struck.
In fact, 82% designated social media as the most common way from which they receive information concerning a brand and its products. Another 29% reported that most of their new purchases are rooted in social media discoveries.
Approximately 66% either agreed or strongly agreed that social media plays a “crucial role” in impacting their decision to consider a brand, while 62% concurred that social media presence affects their decision to buy from a brand. About 74% visit the brand’s social media pages prior to making a purchase.
Also with Smart Merchandiser, companies can gain insight on social media perceptions surrounding a product without needing to visit and revisit each channel. You can overlay data about Twitter mentions, Facebook likes, and ratings and reviews on each product. This wealth of information is available through a single click.
Exploit this data to target products and promotions at specific social media channels. Make sure, too, that your brand’s social media profiles are doing the job, particularly on the channels you’re targeting.
Are you ready? Get set and go!
Timberland, Lee, and The North Face are just a few of the well-known brands already leveraging Smart Merchandiser to make the most of the burgeoning consumer adoption of online shopping and social media. Our own data proves that Smart Merchandiser boosts conversion rates by up to 20% while achieving time savings of up to 70%. Don’t let online sales opportunities keep slipping through your fingers. Are you ready to get started?
