The Most Important Ecommerce Strategies for 2023

The hustle and bustle of the holiday season is behind us, but that doesn’t mean that shoppers have stopped browsing digital storefronts and making purchases. We conducted a survey of U.S. and U.K. shoppers to get a sense of what lessons retailers need to take into 2023. We gathered our findings into a report that outlines:

• The two most important navigation features for online stores
• The most common customer journey pre-purchase
• And the one screen that all customers depend on

Read on for the most important data points, and download the report to dig into the details.

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Relevance rules all

Here’s the truth: your brand is losing money if your search is subpar. An overwhelming 65% of shoppers say that the search bar is an extremely important element of their buying journey. 40% of those shoppers say that a poor search experience creates a negative impression of a retailer – especially if it can’t turn around the results they want. In other words, relevancy matters a lot, and it matters in every way a shopper navigates a site.

Retailers should be thinking about search as a key navigation feature that informs the entire digital experience. Each part of the home page, landing pages, and product detail pages need to deliver on the same high quality of relevance that shoppers would expect from the search bar. Retailers should understand shopper intent at the search bar and use that data to inform how they shape the surrounding experience.

Research comes before purchases

Our survey shows that shoppers are more discerning these days. Less than a third of shoppers plan to make a purchase on their first visit to a website. Most are doing their homework before buying– comparing prices, scanning the inventory, or simply planning for a later in-store purchase. 40% of survey takers said they intend to take their time doing research to make sure a brand is the right choice for them.

Retailers can give customers a nudge in the right direction with relevant recommendations. 73% of survey respondents said they are open to retailers recommendations. By giving them recommendations that aren’t too restrictive or too generic, retailers can better showcase their inventory to open-minded customers who are still in the research phase of their journey.

Mobile is major

Big sales happen on the small screen. As retailers improve connections between every channel, browse and purchase behavior is traveling with shoppers from device to device. 70% of our survey respondents planned to do the majority or at least half of their shopping online. Native social ads are putting products directly into their busy feeds. This is increasing the likelihood of making a purchase after seeing a personalized ad on mobile.

More than a quarter of respondents say they are most likely to exit a site after adding items to their digital shopping cart. They say they know they’ll revisit later, but expect that digital shopping cart to travel across devices. Ecommerce leaders need to invest in technology that understands this in order to avoid duplicating the user experience – and catch the customer at the right moment when they feel it’s time to follow through with a purchase. If they see something they like on their desktop and add it to their cart, pulling that same cart up on their phone when they are ready to make the purchase should be effortless.

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Want a deeper dive into the data? Download our free report to get all the insights. Get in touch with us to learn how Lucidworks can help you deliver amazing ecommerce experiences through search.