8 ways to elevate your store

Hello!

I hope your week is off to a good start.

It’s all go here at the studio while we get ready to launch some really great projects – so stay tuned for those this month.

I’m also excited to announce that I’ll be one of the judges for the digital category in this year’s Best Awards. It will be an honour to review, judge and award some of the best work to come out of Australasia.

This year – for the first time ever – there is also an ecommerce category. I’m feeling inspired, so I want to share some ideas to enhance your website.

Here’s what’s on the agenda:

Strategy
🛒 8 ways to elevate your ecommerce experience

News
🚗 Loyalty is coming to Roadmap
🎙️ Register your interest for my webinar

🛒 STRATEGY

8 ways to elevate your ecommerce experience

There are lots of levers you can pull to create a best-in-class digital experience for your customers, encouraging conversion, retention and loyalty. Here are 8 of them.

Personalisation and customisation
Look for opportunities to strengthen emotional connections to your brand and products.

• Use customer data to create tailored marketing and shopping experiences.

• Offer product customisation like monogramming or colour choices.

• Personalise emails and website interactions.

• Create content that highlights your brand’s values.

Regular communication and engagement
Keep your brand top of mind by engaging with your customers regularly.

• Send personalised follow-up emails when they’ve made a purchase.

• Engage customers on social media.

• Post regular updates and stories.

• Respond promptly to comments and messages.

Stellar customer service
Your customer service can make or break loyalty and retention – prioritise a positive lasting impression.

• Ensure fast, effective communication.

• Have a dedicated support team.

• Prioritise customer satisfaction.

• Resolve issues promptly.

Handling returns and exchanges gracefully
This is an important build on the above. If your returns process is easy, there’s a good chance a customer will complete a purchase later down the track. Make your returns process difficult and you’ll likely lose them for good.

• Simplify your returns policy and procedure.

• Provide pre-paid return labels.

• Communicate transparently throughout the process.

• Process returns quickly.

• Turn returns into positive experiences.

Invest in visuals
Looks count for a lot in ecommerce. Put your best foot forward to build brand appeal and confidence in your products.

• Use high-quality product photography.

• Consider adding video, 360º views and close-up shots.

• Highlight craftsmanship and unique features.

Seamless checkout and security
2 of the top causes of abandoned carts are complicated checkout processes and untrustworthy sites (you can see the others here). You can directly impact your conversion rate by getting your checkout right.

• Simplify the checkout process.

• Offer guest checkout options (not everyone wants an account).

• Enable autofill capabilities.

• Invest in top-tier encryption and multi-factor authentication.

• Ensure you have PCI-compliant payment gateways.

Continual improvement and feedback
If your website is built right, there’s no need to overhaul it every couple of years. Instead, use data to make small improvements continuously.

• Conduct regular QA and testing.

• Gather and act on customer feedback.

• Keep your site updated with the latest trends and technologies.

Loyalty programmes and exclusive perks
Rewarding loyalty is a good way to encourage more of it – it’s the ultimate positive reinforcement.

• Create points systems.

• Offer early access to new collections.

• Provide VIP discounts and offers.

• Track and refine any loyalty programme’s effectiveness.

That’s a nice segue to this update…

🚗 ROADMAP FEATURE

Loyalty is coming to Roadmap

We’re currently developing a loyalty feature in our Shopify app, Roadmap. If you already have a Roadmap membership (or have been thinking about joining), now is a good time to send me your thoughts. You could help shape what this feature becomes.

Reply to this email – I’m all ears!

• What type of loyalty programme would be most useful for your business?

• What issues do you experience with your existing loyalty programme?

• Are there any features you feel your current programme is missing?

• Anything else?

🎙️ ONLINE EVENT

A digital event for the Roadmap curious

If you’re keen to learn more about our members-only Shopify app, here’s some good news. I’m hosting a webinar where I’ll talk through the existing conversion, upsell and retention features as well as what’s in the pipeline.

I’ll also dive into a case study, showing how they utilised the features to generate a massive ROI.

It will be a reasonably intimate session so that people have the opportunity to ask questions and have an open discussion. If you’d like to join the waitlist, register your interest below.

When: Wednesday 24 July | 10.30am NZST

In the meantime, you can learn more about Roadmap here.

❤️ REFER A FRIEND

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Thanks for reading!

Until next time.

Alex Murton
Managing Director & Co-Founder
Studio Almond