Nowadays, shop operators need to be better than the competition when offering a wide range of diverse products by creating a customer shopping experience in ecommerce that truly stands out. Shopping Worlds play a key role here as they provide an emotive sales area. Using three examples, Shopware technology partner epoq illustrates which elements are essential here and how the whole thing can be implemented.
1. Shopping Worlds at Springlane through content-driven ecommerce
In addition to the product range itself, providing relevant content is a major success factor nowadays. Content-driven ecommerce refers to the fusion of content and commerce. Combining these two aspects can create an inspiring digital customer experience. Springlane shows how this can be done and combines both elements in Shopping Worlds, which are known as Shopping Experiences from Shopware 6 onwards.
Products embedded in a storyline
In the Springlane online shop, content is used in various forms. In addition to a wide range of products, customers can also find recipes, descriptions, pictures and videos in the online shop. This inspires them, for example, to make certain ice cream creations, and they receive the corresponding products embedded in the content. In this way Springlane is moving away from pure product sales to an experience sale.
Emphasis on expertise
By providing this value-added content, shop operators exude a sense of reliability and expertise, ensuring that they are perceived as experts in their respective fields. For example, Springlane provides information on the history and production of ice cream in their “Making your own ice cream” Shopping World and also shows which products can be helpful in each case. The focus is not on product sales but on the storyline. To this end, texts and images are perfectly combined in the Shopping World.
The “Making your own ice cream” Shopping World in the Springlane online store
Interaction options for stronger customer retention
With the use of content in the online shop, Springlane pursues the goal of winning hobby chefs as customers and, above all, turning them into enthusiastic fans who share and disseminate the content provided. The inclusion of Instagram posts of prepared meals also encourages users to imitate and share their own creations. This sparks interactions with customers.
Inspiration from the community in the form of social media posts
All in all, you can use Shopping Worlds and Shopping Experiences to create atmospheric pages that combine the target-group-oriented presentation of content with that of products to provide an inspiring digital customer experience.
2. The shopping stream as a personalised Shopping World for emotional customer loyalty
Many online shops offer a wide range of products and brands. However, despite this large product range, most shoppers keep going back to their favourite brands and products. An individual and personalised Shopping World in the form of a so-called shopping stream offers you the opportunity to provide each individual customer with relevant products, brands and content at a glance, without them having to spend a long time searching for it. In this case, the products are not embedded in stories. Instead, various components such as products, different content formats (blog articles, social media posts) and interactive elements are combined on a single shop page for each individual customer, in order to optimise the digital customer experience.
A separate shopping stream for each customer
Each personalised Shopping World, like each customer, is unique and takes into account individual preferences such as personal style, favourite brands, favourite colours or preferred material.
From the moment you access it, the area is dynamic, intelligent and fully personalised. Knowledge about each individual customer is taken into account; in full compliance with data protection regulations; so that inspiration can be offered on the basis of personal preferences.
The personalised Shopping World of three different customers as an example
Products and content tailored to each individual customer
The shopping stream comprises various components and contains not only static but also interactive elements. For example, customers can put together a complete set consisting of various products. Whether its an entire outfit or the latest camera equipment (e.g. consisting of camera, lens, memory card, battery and bag) – desired products can be combined with just a few clicks.
Example of a product set in a personalised Shopping World
Furthermore, the personalised Shopping World also offers customers the possibility to browse through favourite brands and categories in the form of interactive widgets with just a few clicks. In this way, they can discover new favourite products in a playful way and benefit from an inspiring digital customer experience.
Initial evaluations also show that customers particularly value this content, which is compiled individually for them. Widgets such as “Your favourite categories” or “Your favourite brands” are among the most popular widgets in a shopping stream. Compared to classic recommendations, such as those found on product detail pages, the click-through-rates on the aforementioned stream widgets alone were already up to 8 times higher.
Example of an interactive widget that invites you to browse through your favourite categories
Product novelties, items that are now reduced or available again can also be made available in the personalised Shopping World. All suggested products correspond to the customer’s preferences (such as preferred brands, style or size). The items displayed therefore have a particularly high relevance.
The need for entertainment
Content plays a crucial role here as well. Inspiration on Instagram, embedded YouTube content or blog articles create great added value and, together with relevant products, address the digital need for entertainment. According to a study by the French network agency Havas, which belongs to Vivendi, in cooperation with Cannes Lions, this is becoming increasingly important in today's world. For example, 83% of respondents said that entertainment was an essential need for them. In addition, 74% of respondents want an entertaining experience with brands [1]. This shows the enormous relevance of entertainment with regard to advertising and brands.
The mixture of content, commerce and personalisation within a shopping stream therefore simultaneously provides service and entertainment.
Personalised Shopping Worlds can be used in all sectors. In terms of content, for example, integrating recipes, installation instructions or style inspirations is also a conceivable option.
Personalised Shopping Worlds are based on artificial intelligence and can be easily integrated into Shopware 6. They consistently offer 1:1 personalisation on a customer-specific shop page, which then leads to emotional customer retention, an increased repurchase rate and an inspiring digital customer experience.
3. Personalisation of Different Store Pages at Fackelmann
The family-owned company Fackelmann also sells its household products via its own online shop. To create an inspiring digital customer experience in the shop, Fackelmann uses different measures to personalise their sales funnel.
Personalised product recommendations along the sales funnel
Fackelmann uses a recommendation engine to display product recommendations at various positions within the shop. This engine shows product recommendations to the respective customers based on their data. Furthermore, Fackelmann uses different recommendation strategies on different pages. A selection of top-selling products individually tailored to the customer’s interests provide inspiration directly on the home page, for instance. The category pages each recommend four items that customers might be looking for. These suggestions are based on empirical values generated by other similar customers.
Recommendations on a category page in the Fackelmann online store
One step further, on the product detail pages, customers have already revealed what they’re looking for, so here it makes sense to display alternatives in the form of related products. In addition, complementary products can be used as a basis for cross-selling. The more product detail pages a customer visits, the more precise the recommendations become.
A recommendation highlight can also be found in the shopping cart. Here customers are explicitly informed that they can get free shipping if their order exceeds a certain amount. In addition, they are recommended individually selected items that bridge the gap to free shipping and that match the rest of the shopping cart and the customer’s preferences.
Relevant product recommendations in the shopping cart
Using intelligent search to support product research
If a customer already knows which product they want to buy, they can also use the intelligent search. This shows customers matching search and product suggestions, categories and brands in a preview window as soon as they start typing in the search field. This way, shop customers are guided quickly and easily to the desired product. Personalised search results that are tailored to the personal interests of customers could also offer an even more targeted search option.
If no suitable product is found for the search query, Fackelmann displays alternative suggestions on the “no results” page to keep customers in the online shop despite their inconclusive search.
All of these personalisation measures that Fackelmann uses create an inspiring digital customer experience.
Conclusion: Inspiring digital customer experience through content, commerce, and personalisation
There are different approaches to inspiring customers. Establishing a connection between content and commerce in Shopping Worlds, a shopping stream for each individual customer, and personalising various shop pages all ensure an inspiring digital customer experience. This results in customer loyalty by creating special added value for customers through the relevance and topicality of products and content. Shopping experiences are improved and customer retention increased.
About epoq
With an AI-supported “1:1 Personalisation Experience Platform”, epoq internet services GmbH enables merchants and manufacturers to optimise a wide range of touchpoints in their digital commerce and provide 1:1 customer communication throughout the entire customer journey. This enables customer-specific orientation, advice and inspiration in the online shop and leads to a connection with online customers. This results in shopping experiences and a sustainable increase in the conversion rate. The latest innovation, a hyper-personalised shopping area, offers customers additional entertainment in their individual product range and brand environment, which is linked to relevant content. This leads to an increased repurchase rate and takes online shopping to a new level.
That might be also interesting:
- Shopping Experiences: Content management in Shopware 6
- Springlane goes Shopware 6 – what the online retailer plans for the future
