The shopping experience has been a physical one for many generations. The advent of the internet has turned this on its head as we now scroll through endless streams of products on a screen right from our couch.
Where physical shops lack in convenience, they make up for with multi-sensory experiences that can engage all of a customer’s senses - sight, touch, sound, smell, and even taste. This elevates shoppers’ emotions and can propel them to make purchase decisions.
Unfortunately, the digital shopping experience is limited to just sight and sound. And between the two, sight is key as users generally prefer a non-obtrusive, sound-off experience.
Digital shops have to work harder on the visual front to enhance a customer’s shopping experience.
Here are 4 ways you can improve the visual experience of your online business,
Design your product feed for optimal viewing
Given that online shoppers are reliant on what they see on screen, businesses should provide visual cues to cover as many aspects of a shopper’s purchase considerations as possible. The visuals need to provide the customer with the confidence to make a purchase decision.
While the aim is to give the customer peace of mind with product details, visuals should be kept clean and simple to avoid information and sensory overload. Only include visuals that serve a purpose. The quality of the visual can make or break a sale, as it is a reflection of your product’s quality.
Guide to great visuals: Accurate, Informative, Purposeful, Useful, Clean and Simple, High Quality, Well-Sized, Device Optimised, Fast Loading
You can use visuals in many ways depending on your product. For example, fashion retailers might consider displaying multiple angles of a clothing product and a 360 video of models in the outfit. Alternatively, an electronics distributor might have specification figures to accompany a product image along with a video guide.
From an advertising perspective, think of how you can use catalogue style ad formats such as carousel ads or collection ads on Facebook. There are multi-product ads on display as well, but consider the ad experience and if it fits your narrative, product and brand.
Interactive elements
User Experience (UX) comes into play in the online shopping experience. Customers might find scrolling through multiple images cumbersome. A good alternative is to provide an interactive visual experience.
For example, you could provide users the option to rotate an image to view different angles. A zoom function could help users have a close-up view of the product. Providing customisation options like selecting from a list of available colours or specifications allows the customer to explore the options available to them.
Having interactive features encourages active involvement from shoppers, emulating a physical shopping experience online. A customer’s time and attention can translate to a sale, and interactive elements help to capture this.
From an advertising perspective, there are many rich media solution providers that offer ad formats with interactive elements. Before committing to rich media ad formats, it is important to weigh up the value of in-ad experiences with on-site activity to determine which is best for your campaign objective. In-ad experiences might be better for driving awareness and consideration, but if your goal is to capture immediate sales, a more direct ad tactic might work better.
Augmented reality
One of the advantages of traditional shopping is the ability to physically feel the products and, in some cases, try before you buy. There are a lot of retailers who provide the option to return goods for a full refund, but the process takes effort that could be spent going to a physical store.
A solution that helps with this is using Augmented Reality (AR) to give users a feel of what they are purchasing. Users can easily engage their smartphone cameras to access virtual imagery and animations that will help them decide if the product is right for them. This can give customers greater confidence in making a purchase decision.
This has been adopted by quite a few brands, Ikea and Ray-Ban being a couple of the more famous ones. Ikea allows customers to place virtual furniture in their actual living space to see if it fits into their home aesthetic. Ray-Ban gives customers the ability to try on virtual sunglasses to see if it suits them.
AR is the direction a lot of of the major media and tech companies are moving in. Google is looking to incorporate AR into its search results where users can directly access and visualise shopping products. Facebook and Instagram already have AR ads, and the Metaverse is is taking this a step further into Virtual Reality (VR).
Apart from Facebook and Instagram ads, there are a few other media partners that offer ad solutions with augmented reality, Snapchat being the most famous for it. Think ‘filters’ and you’ll get the idea.
Searchable Images
Preparing your store and advertising solutions with the right visual experiences is half the battle. The other half is in understanding consumer behaviour and making your products easily discoverable.
According to Google, 75% of shoppers say they used search early in their process. 65% say they shop or browse online even if they weren’t looking for anything in particular. Armed with this knowledge, Google has been transforming its search engine into a giant marketplace with its shopping tab over the last few years. It is thus crucial for brands and their products to be present in search environments.
What does this have to do with visuals? Well, Google has been updating their search engine to incorporate visuals into the search process. Smartphone users can use Google lens to take a photo of real world products to find them or similar products online. This is done through the combination of indexing of images all over the internet and machine learning to match images.
This emphasises the importance of SEO for images on your website. By making it easier for search engines to read and index your images, you give your product a higher chance of being discovered. In addition to that, linking your product feed to Google shopping increases your chance of sales as you leverage the Google shopping environment to display your products.
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