Many ecommerce businesses use market research to learn what customers need from their products. This is a valid approach, but it’s only half the picture: You also need to know how your customers find and purchase products online.
Understanding online shoppers helps ecommerce businesses increase customer loyalty and boost sales. Age, gender, and style preferences might help you determine which products a customer might like. To convert them, however, you need to know what they expect from the online shopping experience.
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Types of ecommerce customers
There are multiple types of ecommerce customers, and each group responds to different sales and marketing strategies. Here are five common types and how you can target them:
Browsers and window shoppers
Browsers are interested in what your online store offers, but they aren’t necessarily ready to buy now. They may visit multiple product pages or add several products to their carts, but they’re unlikely to visit your checkout page because they don’t intend to make an online purchase.
The strategy: Online retailers can target these customers with pop-up windows offering discounts or other incentives. Limited-time promotions are a particularly effective option. You can also use strategies to invite further engagement. This includes customer service chats, newsletter signup invitations, and email submission forms.
The ecommerce apparel retailer Tradlands uses a pop-up window to offer customers a “secret offer” in exchange for submitting an email address. This encourages conversion and allows the company to capture contact information to nurture those leads in the future.
Discount seekers
Discount seekers are looking for a bargain. They tend to value price (and percentage off of regular price) over loyalty to a particular ecommerce store, and they are highly responsive to sales and promotional offers.
The strategy: You can target bargain hunters with incentives like flash sales, free shipping, or reduced shipping costs. Keep in mind, some bargain hunters care more about the perception of a deal than the total order cost. Highlighting the percentage discount or total amount saved in addition to the sale price, can be an effective way to get them to buy.
You can also take advantage of this motivation to capture valuable marketing data. Research shows that 85% of customers are willing to provide their email address in exchange for a coupon, and over half will also disclose their name and gender.
Impulsive buyers
Impulsive or emotional buyers make spontaneous purchases because a particular product or advertising message appeals to them at the moment. They may not be looking for the products your ecommerce business sells, but they’ll purchase online if a product fulfills a real-time emotional need.
The strategy: You can target these buyers with seamless online shopping experiences. They’re motivated to buy now, but an inconvenient purchase process can easily dissuade them. This type of buyer is often responsive to product recommendations, so you can increase sales with personalized product suggestions, upselling, and cross-selling techniques.
The makeup brand ColourPop combines recommendations and discount incentives with “cart specials,” inviting customers to add popular or complementary items to an order for a reduced price.
Researchers
Research buyers or mission-driven buyers are looking for the best solution to a problem. They browse multiple ecommerce stores, comparing the price point, customer care, quality, and functionality of comparable products. This category often includes business-to-business (B2B) buyers, who need to justify their decisions to stakeholders at their companies.
The strategy: To win mission-driven online shoppers, show how your product or service is superior to the alternatives. Include detailed product information and customer reviews on your ecommerce site, advertise your customer support program, and use search engine optimization (SEO) tactics to help your target audience find your online store.
For example, the plant-based milk retailer Oatly has detailed product descriptions, which include a full ingredient list, a nutrition label, and industry certifications like gluten-free and non-GMO. You can also boost conversions with free returns or extended return windows. This reassures mission-driven customers they won’t be stuck with a product that doesn’t meet their expectations.
Brand loyalists
Brand loyalists are your business’s loyal customers. They feel allegiance to your ecommerce business and are looking for a reason to continue choosing your company over others.
The strategy: Loyal customers appreciate personalized shopping experiences, recognition, and exclusive access or promotions. Focus on maintaining a high-quality customer experience and incorporate personalized outreach to show your appreciation. You can also use a customer loyalty program to build allegiance, incentivize future purchases, and encourage loyalists to refer potential customers to your business.
The skincare brand 100% Pure uses a tiered loyalty program to reward customers for brand advocacy activities like reviewing products and engaging with the brand on social media.
Ecommerce customer expectations
- Fast website loading time
- Mobile optimization
- Omnichannel experiences
- High-quality customer service
- Intuitive checkout procedures
- Multiple payment options
A high-quality online shopping experience builds customer trust and increases sales—but to achieve that, you need to know what your customers expect from an ecommerce store. Here’s what customers expect from businesses selling products online:
Fast website loading time
Research shows that website loading speed directly affects conversion rates and bounce rates. The average page speed of top-ranking Google sites is 1.65 seconds, suggesting that load time also affects search performance.
Load time can also impact conversion. Research shows that on average, an online business with a load time of one second or less converts customers at 2.5 times the rate of a business with a load time of more than five seconds.
Best practices for increasing page speed include optimizing images, limiting apps, and redirecting requests. You can monitor page speed from Shopify’s web performance dashboard and consult Shopify’s guide to improving page speed to improve your results.
Mobile optimization
Mobile site visits make up more than half of all web traffic, and mobile commerce brings in 54% of total ecommerce revenue worldwide. If you’re selling online, your customers are on mobile devices, and they expect the same purchasing experience regardless of the device used.
To optimize your ecommerce storefront for mobile users, select an ecommerce platform with responsive site templates. Other best practices include minimizing text on product pages, featuring high-quality product photography, using a fixed navigation bar, and including a clear Add to Cart button on product pages.
The apparel retailer Frank & Oak creates a mobile-friendly shopping experience using a fixed navigation bar that expands so it doesn’t take up too much real estate. It also has high-quality product photos in a grid-style layout so a visitor can view several items at once. Lastly, it uses a large, high-contrast Add to Cart button that’s easy to press.
Omnichannel experiences
Contemporary customers expect to engage with an ecommerce business on multiple channels. They might visit your physical store, follow you on social media platforms, call or email your customer service team with questions, and purchase products from your online store. They expect a unified customer experience across touchpoints—also known as omnichannel commerce.
Omnichannel commerce consolidates information from various communication, sales, and distribution channels and stores it in a centralized location. This allows ecommerce businesses to provide a seamless, coherent customer journey across channels.
Say a customer visits your physical store and falls in love with an out-of-stock product. Your in-store sales rep records the interaction in your customer relationship management (CRM) system. Later that week, the customer contacts you on social media, asking if you “have those shoes in a size eight.” Your customer service rep uses your CRM to identify the product in question and immediately provides a social media commerce link, allowing the customer to complete the purchase without leaving the platform.
You can provide an omnichannel shopping experience by selecting an ecommerce platform with built-in marketplace integrations and centralized analytics. It may also have customer management systems and user-friendly marketing tools.
High-quality customer service
High-quality customer service can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. It can also encourage repeat purchases. In fact, 89% of customers say positive customer service experiences make them more likely to shop from a business again.
Customer service best practices include offering multiple ways for customers to contact you and publishing self-service resources on your site. Vosges Chocolate offers email, phone, and contact options, for example. You can also use customer service artificial intelligence (AI) technology to lower wait times. Select an ecommerce platform with built-in customer service tools, including chat, email, and customer rewards systems.
Intuitive checkout processes
Intuitive checkout processes can also help online businesses increase sales. The fewer the obstacles to purchasing your products, the more likely it is a customer will convert.
Best practices for checkout pages include limiting text and form fields, providing a clear order summary, and including trust badges and a clear call to action.
Multiple payment options
Ecommerce customers also expect an online business to offer secure payment processing and multiple ways to pay, including credit cards, debit cards, and digital wallets like Venmo, Apple Pay, PayPal, and Shop Pay. Some online stores also accept cryptocurrency payments, bank transfers, and cash on delivery (COD). Research shows that 11% of shoppers abandon checkouts that don’t offer their preferred payment method.
Research payment gateways and processors, and select a service that offers multiple payment options. Be sure it includes built-in security features like data encryption, Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance, and 3D secure checkouts. Shopify’s built-in payment provider, Shopify Payments, is a secure and flexible option.
Fitness equipment retailer Pullup & Dip increased conversions by 349% after migrating to Shopify and eliminating bugs in its payment process.
“Thanks to Shopify Payments, checkout now works flawlessly,” says Benedikt Kordbarlag, chief resource officer at marketing agency PsyCommerce, which assisted with Pullup & Dip’s website migration. “We can now not only manage all payment matters in one location, but the checkout design is simple and more modern.”
Ecommerce customers FAQ
Who are ecommerce target users?
The target users (or target audiences) for an ecommerce company can be any consumer group that makes online purchases and has a need the ecommerce business can solve. Consumers, businesses, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations are all common target audiences for ecommerce brands.
How do you determine your ecommerce customers’ expectations?
Conduct industry and market research to understand customer expectations for ecommerce businesses. You can also use surveys and feedback tools to gather customer insights specific to your ecommerce website and customer experience.
What is the most important ecommerce customer expectation?
Online shoppers will avoid purchasing from an ecommerce business if they don’t trust its ability to protect their data. They also expect a fast, visually appealingecommerce website and a quality customer experience.
