It’s always been crucial for fashion brands to build strong relationships with their customers in order to foster a sense of connection and forge an ongoing commitment. Given the limited nature of physical retail right now, and the ease with which we can disengage from an online store, many are saying that now more than ever it’s important to cultivate strong customer relationships through your online platforms. Here are seven tips on how to do just that.

Write product copy with a natural, conversational tone

Product descriptions are often-underutilized spaces for telling stories and engaging customers. Instead of writing short captions that simply describe what the customer is seeing in the product photos, why not add some humor or an interesting, relevant anecdote? You could tell the story of the product’s origin or inspiration, or share what the product means to you and your brand. Remember, though, that while creativity here is great, shorter is always better when it comes to copy online. Brevity is the soul of wit, especially in this case. 

Have a detailed, friendly FAQ page

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) pages help people at various stages of the customer journey, whether they’ve placed an order with you or are still considering shopping with you. Make it easy for them regardless of where they’re at in the purchase path by providing as much information up front as possible. Your FAQ page should address basic information on topics like “where your brand is based?”, “what are shipping times and costs?”, as well as address product sizes and materials, and any ongoing promotions. It should also be written in the same natural, conversational tone as your product copy. If you’re attempting to manage this internally then the odds are high that you’ve had a number of employees ‘work’ on the site at one time or another, leaving your tone to be wildly inconsistent from page to page. This is one instance where we recommend you partner with an established marketing firm that knows how to write consistent copy specifically for an apparel and accessories eCommerce site. Fashonova has a great FAQ page. 

Be widely and easily contactable

As an online brand, customers expect you to be available to them in a multitude of ways. You should have several channels set up for them to contact you through, including email and social media and direct phone. You must also set realistic expectations on when and how you will respond to inquiries via these channels and platforms. Encourage shoppers to contact you with any questions or concerns regarding sizes, shipping, returns and any other product-related queries. We all know the value of good customer service, so do your best to be available and live up to expectations.

Get creative with your loyalty program

It’s easy to love a brand when you feel like you’re getting consistently good deals with them. There are many creative options out there that you can utilize to create value for your customers and create a sense of loyalty. “Points per purchase” and “points per referral” has been proven to work, as does offering free limited items or services when customers spend a certain amount. You can also share discounts with partner businesses or organizations, for example, “Earn a percentage off when you shop with or donate to our friends!” The North Face does a great job of this. 

Make it easy for customers to trust you and your products

With the proliferation of eCommerce around the world, many websites have sprung up with unclear origins, around both their brands and their products. As consumers increasingly prioritize transparency, you can gain an advantage by being upfront and honest about where and how your products are made, and by backing up any claims you make about them. Providing easy returns and refunds will also promote positive relationships with customers and help them trust you and your brand.

Be receptive to feedback

Brands are increasingly expected to share everything from their processes to their philosophies, all while accepting evaluations and criticisms of these along the way. Whether you like it or not, you will get feedback, both positive and negative; private and public, so you may as well accept it gracefully. Yelp, Google and Facebook have made this a certainty. Create more channels for communication and feedback by encouraging reviews and testimonials on your webstore and social media pages. You could also set up a dedicated email address for feedback. Wherever and whenever you respond (sooner is better than later), do so without getting defensive. Try your best not to take criticisms personally, it’s just business. And every interaction, good or bad, is a chance to turn someone into a loyal customer and provides you the opportunity to use any valuable customer insights to grow your company.

Show that your values align with theirs

Almost two-thirds of shoppers make buying decisions based on a brand’s position on social or political issues, according to a study by Edelman. This means it’s important to show your customers exactly where you stand, through actions as well as words. This could mean partnering with organizations or donating proceeds of sales (or the products themselves) to causes that you and your brand care about. According to that same study, 53% of us believe that brands can do more to solve social problems than governments. Show what yours is doing to create the kind of world that your customers want to live in.

Conclusion

Strong customer relationships are key for any eCommerce brand attempting to establish longevity. Pay attention to these factors and keep them in mind as you build your brand, and you’ll be well on your way to gaining (and growing) a loyal following. If you’d like help growing your customer relationships, feel free to reach out to us; we’d be happy to help.

Monitoring the performance of your apparel and accessories store is crucial to understanding the most and least successful elements of your website. You need to track the micro conversions of every feature on your site including page scrolling, detail-to-cart ratios, checkout steps, and other various engagement actions across your website. The goal is to have high pre-purchase conversion rates that ultimately lead to a purchase. Achieving higher conversion rates takes time, research and testing. To help, here are seven ways to improve your apparel and accessories eCommerce conversion rates.

Test Different Call to Action Variations

Call to action (CTA) buttons are crucial for a successful webstore. You can find CTAs throughout emails, social media, digital ads and the website. In most cases, the call to action is a simple button with written copy that describes an action like Buy Now or Add to Cart.  Testing these buttons are often overlooked, but they’re typically one of the first aspects to test in a new conversion optimization campaign because of the exponential results more engaging CTAs provide. These variations can include experimenting with design, copy and placement of CTA buttons. When it comes to design, don’t be afraid to test different colors, sizes and fonts. Customers do have a viewing preference when looking at the design of any element on your page. Your CTAs should stand out, be easy to read and display front and center. For example, the investment in changing the Add to Cart button in the example below paid for 6 months of CRO work in 2 weeks:

When changing the copy of your CTA, stick to verbiage that causes shoppers to complete an action like buy now, shop now, add to cart and reserve now. Creating a sense of urgency and having a clearly implied result of what will happen is better than catchy phrases trying to be unique.

Create a Sense of Urgency

A sense of urgency lets shoppers know they only have a limited amount of time to purchase whether the item is low in stock or if a sale is ending soon. By creating an action, you are allowing customers to complete it. Action verbs work well in CTAs, emails, advertisements, social media and discounts. Your copy should have a customer wanting the product or deal by using action verbs like buy now, shop now, reserve now and save now. Many apparel and accessories webstores also use countdown clocks for special discounts to encourage shoppers to purchase before the time runs out.

Upsell Other Products

For apparel and accessories webstores that want to see more conversions on product pages or even at check out, upselling and cross-selling your other merchandise is a great opportunity. Similar to that impulse buy that many brick-and-mortar retailers use at the ends of aisles and check out, upselling your other items can potentially keep shoppers engaged and possibly purchase more products. Many customers prefer to see products that fall under similar price ranges and style or combinations that complete the look. Instead of manually mapping related products within your catalog, there are search and personalization tools like Klevu and Nosto that add merchandising functionality to upsell and cross-sell products. Understanding and using tools like these can be complex and take loads of time, so it’s important to work with a knowledgeable marketing firm that can help keep your site merchandising running efficiently. Macy’s does a great job of this.

Offer Various Payment Options

The ultimate end goal of any eCommerce store is for the customer to make a purchase.  It is tremendously frustrating to succeed at all the tactics necessary to get customers to add products to the cart only to see them leave or abandon their carts. Every customer has their own reason for leaving, but in some cases, you can offer an easier path to purchase with different payment options.

The traditional payment gateways to pay with a credit card aren’t going anywhere any time soon, but there are more convenient options growing in popularity. Payment options like PayPal and Amazon Pay attract customers who prefer the 1-click type of payments since all their card information is already stored in one area, also making them more secure. Another rising payment option that popular stores use is payment installment apps or extensions like Klarna, AfterPay or Sezzle. These payment installment apps let customers pay for their purchases in equal parts over a specific period of time. Research has shown that 44% of users would have abandoned their cart if payment installments weren’t an option and 68% of shoppers increase their average order value if they can pay through installments. Adidas offers a wide range of payment options. 

Improve Your Page Load Speed

The more technology advances, the faster everyone wants websites to load. If your apparel and accessories site takes over a couple of seconds to load, you will be losing potential customers.  Increase the number of purchases and your conversion rate by improving your page’s load speed. Your company can accelerate your page’s loading time by reducing image sizes, eliminating unnecessary HTTP requests and using browser caching. Apparel sites are also very media heavy, so utilizing a CDN such as Fastly or Akamai has become standard practice to help with site performance. Newer options such as Magento’s PWA themes provide a lighter weight site for faster load times and also more mobile-friendly features to help increase customer lifetime value.

Optimize Your Mobile Site

If you don’t optimize your webstore to be mobile-friendly, not only will your conversions drop, but most likely your sales will as well. Mobile traffic now accounts for over 50% of traffic, so a site that renders great on mobile devices is vital. Responsive themes are the standard these days, but also consider additional mobile optimization, as Google now uses mobile-first indexing. Mobile-first indexing means that Google uses the content from the mobile version of websites for indexing and ranking. Having an optimized mobile site will help you rank higher and reach a larger, more diverse audience. For tips on how to help format a mobile-friendly webstore, keep reading here. ASOS is a great example of how to optimize your mobile site. 

Utilize Google Analytics

Even though we recommend working with a knowledgeable marketing team when it comes to reading, understanding and improving your conversion rates, there are free analytics tools that can help you learn more about your webstore’s traffic. Google Analytics lets you analyze your website’s data to help you make steps closer to smarter business decisions. This analytics tool helps you understand your site and its users to help evaluate the website’s performance. Once it has evaluated your webstore’s performance, it provides and connects insights to help improve your site. Even though Google Analytics has many tools to read your website’s data, it doesn’t have everything you need to optimize your website to its fullest potential. Marketing firms will have additional tools like heat mapping utilities to help you better understand your conversion rates and how to improve them.

Conclusion

These are just seven ways to improve your webstore’s conversion rate. There are many other ways you can increase your conversion rates like including customer reviews and playing around with your content. A good marketing firm (like InteractOne) and analytical tools or extensions can help you better understand and learn different tips on how to improve your conversions. To better understand what your apparel and accessories eCommerce needs to improve its conversion rates, contact us today.