The eCommerce industry has grown tremendously in the last decade. In 2024, 20.1% of retail purchases are expected to take place online, and the global eCommerce market is projected to reach $6.3 trillion. With this growth, the modern customer’s expectations have shifted considerably, and players in the eCommerce space must adapt to meet customer demands.
How Have Customer Expectations in eCommerce Evolved?
Happy, satisfied customers are likely to return and spend up to 140% more on your business in the long run. The best way to ensure customer satisfaction is to meet their expectations and consistently provide a fulfilling shopping experience. eCommerce offers customers different choices, so naturally, their expectations from their favorite brands have evolved over the years.
Here are some ways in which eCommerce customer expectations have changed:
Demand for Faster Shipping
As more businesses join the digital space, eCommerce customers have become more picky about delivery time. Today, customers expect eCommerce stores to deliver in the shortest time possible, and very few are willing to wait a week or more for their orders to arrive.
Thanks to pioneers like Amazon, next-day and even same-day delivery options have become the gold standard. This shift has nudged eCommerce businesses to re-evaluate their logistics and optimize their supply chain strategies to meet these expectations.
Personalized User Experience
Today’s consumers are not just looking for products — they’re looking for wholesome and efficient shopping experiences. Customers subconsciously expect a personal touch in the customer journey through tailored recommendations and curated product selections. This demand has pushed companies to leverage big data and AI to create shopping experiences that feel unique to each individual.
Seamless Returns
In the past, returning a product was a tedious process that usually took several days or weeks. However, with the rapid adoption of eCommerce, businesses must have a simple and hassle-free return process as a standard eCommerce fulfillment practice. Although you may incur a cost on a returned item, handling the process smoothly creates an opportunity for a long customer relationship.
What Are the Current Trends in Customer Expectations?
Thriving in this new retail market means businesses should streamline their core processes to be more interconnected and proactive than ever before. New trends in the eCommerce space are rapidly evolving into customer expectations, so online stores should identify these trends and ensure their services meet modern customer needs. Some of these trends include:
Focus on Sustainability
eCommerce businesses that prioritize sustainability and ethical practices like eco-friendly packaging will be strategically placed to attract and retain customers in 2024. The push for individual environmental consciousness has grown, and customers expect eCommerce businesses to reduce waste and promote ethical practices. A study by PWC shows that consumers are willing to spend 9.7% more, on average, for sustainably produced or sourced goods.
Omnichannel Experiences
An omnichannel shopping experience creates a unified shopping journey that allows customers to move between online stores, physical locations, mobile apps, and social media platforms. Most customers today shop online, so businesses must increase their digital presence to collect data from different online channels. This data provides a clearer picture of the customers interested in your brand so you can personalize the customer journey.
Real-Time Tracking
For eCommerce businesses, an effective fulfillment strategy should offer customers up-to-date information throughout the fulfillment cycle. Real-time tracking is integral to this journey, especially considering customers expect fast delivery from online stores.
Businesses that offer real-time tracking give customers accurate information on the status of their packages. This helps improve service delivery by reducing the reliance on customer service teams, which builds a sense of transparency and reliability.
How Can Businesses Meet the Demand for Fast Shipping?
Fast, reliable shipping is critical to success in today’s hyper-competitive eCommerce era. Reliable shipping is a factor that all customers weigh before making a purchase decision. Shipping options like 24-hour delivery, same-day delivery, and next-day delivery are the new normal, and customers expect them from every online store.
For many businesses, the race to fast shipping has its fair share of challenges. Here are a few strategies you can implement to meet your customers’ demand for fast shipping:
Identify and Address Internal Obstacles
To achieve ultrafast delivery, you’ll need to transform your internal processes and identify inefficiencies. For instance, you can integrate software that provides real-time inventory updates on your product pages so customers always know how much of a product is in stock.
Plan Early
Fast shipping is a multi-step process that starts with good planning. As you schedule deliveries, consider factors like weather and traffic that may affect delivery times. This way, you’ll have enough time to fulfill critical deliveries and reduce delays to improve the overall user experience.
Work with Reliable Delivery Partners
If you work with third-party delivery service providers, pick fulfillment companies with a good track record of providing reliable services. This will reduce the likelihood of logistical issues such as lost packages and delays, which improves your operational efficiency and creates a better customer experience.
Implement Predictive Analytics Tools
Modern business requires a responsive, flexible approach that anticipates customer needs. As a business owner, you have access to a lot of customer data that you can use to improve delivery speed. You can analyze customer orders, feedback, dispatch times, and other data points to identify bottlenecks and create a better delivery strategy.
What Role Does Customer Service Play in Meeting Expectations?
Customers have expectations about the level of support they want, and as a business owner, it can be frustrating when clients are not happy with your product or service. Although customer service handles queries, complaints, and other issues that may arise, customer expectations are constantly evolving.
Customer service plays an important role in managing these expectations and meeting customer demands in the following ways:
- Personal interactions — When customers feel understood and valued, they are more likely to become repeat customers and sell your brand to their friends and family. You can use customer data to create profiles on your customers based on their preferences to offer client-focused customer service.
- Efficient issue resolution — Your ability to resolve a problem quickly can transform a dissatisfied customer into a brand advocate. You can implement systems that track and prioritize customer issues so that you can detect any problems at the checkout process and other critical steps early enough.
- A customer-centric culture — Exceptional customer service starts with a customer-centric culture. When your business is aligned to meet customer expectations, it reflects in every interaction. You can optimize your customer service to promote a culture of responsiveness and continuous learning for a smooth customer experience every time.
How to Implement Easy and Reliable Returns?
If you want to keep customers happy and coming back, returns are a necessary part of doing business. An easy and reliable return process shows you’re a trustworthy brand that cares about your customers.
Here are some ways to create a reliable return process:
- Easy-to-navigate return center — Shoppers should be able to initiate returns on their own without having to make a phone call or wait for a customer service agent. They should also be able to share feedback about what caused the return in an easy-to-use interface.
- Timely processing — Every day that passes during the returns process lowers the chance that a customer will return in the future. As soon as a customer initiates a return request, someone should attend to it promptly and get back to the customer to discuss the way forward.
- Returns data and analytics — You’ll need return management software that allows you to collect data on each product. This will help you determine which products are being returned the most. You can use this data to improve or delist the product from your eCommerce site.
What Technologies Enhance the eCommerce Customer Experience?
Technology is the backbone of eCommerce, as it enables businesses to implement data-driven insights, payment processing, and other important elements of the customer journey. The following are some of the technologies shaping the customer experience in eCommerce:
- Chatbots — Chatbots have been around in the eCommerce world for a while. Modern AI chatbots can bridge the gap in the customer experience by offering refined, context-based responses to customer queries.
- Voice commerce — Voice assistants like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple Siri make daily life more convenient and efficient. Voice commerce uses these to allow users to make purchases and complete transactions using voice commands.
- Virtual reality — Virtual reality offers a fully immersive shopping experience that transports users to a 3D virtual store. With VR, customers can experience products in unprecedented ways. For example, in 2017, Ikea launched its VR app, Ikea Place, which lets users virtually place furniture in their homes before purchasing.
How to Create a Personalized Shopping Experience?
At the core of customer experiences, personalization is the hallmark of a customer-centric focus. According to this research, 1 in 5 consumers interested in personalized products or services are willing to pay 20% more. Personalized services, products, and even emails leave customers feeling like you read their minds and met their needs.
You can create this special connection in a number of ways:
- Leverage machine learning technology to extract insights, understand your customers, and customize strategies.
- Upsell related products on product pages based on shopper’s browsing history and behavior.
- Personalize online ads to promote products based on sites the customer has visited.
- Conduct A/B testing and experiments to continually adjust to your customers.
- Send customers personalized emails based on past browsing behavior.
How to Ensure a Seamless Omnichannel Experience?
Omnichannel experiences in eCommerce provide an integrated approach to customer interaction across all channels and devices. They provide a unified and consistent experience through a website, mobile app, physical store, or any other points that your customers engage with your business.
You can achieve this through:
- Consistent branding — Use the same visual identity, tone of voice, and messaging across all channels so customers can have the same brand experience regardless of where they interact with your business.
- Seamless shopping cart experience — Create a unified shopping cart system that allows customers to add items from any channel and complete their purchases seamlessly across devices and platforms.
- Integrated customer support — Provide integrated customer support across channels. Customers should be able to reach out for assistance via chat, email, phone, or social media and receive consistent support.
- Personalized recommendations — Use customer data and behavior analytics to offer personalized product recommendations across all channels. This enhances the shopping experience and increases conversion rates.
- Optimized mobile experience — Ensure that your eCommerce platform is fully optimized for mobile devices, as many customers complete their purchases on them.
How SEKO Logistics Supports eCommerce Businesses in Meeting Customer Expectations
SEKO Logistics is a global leader in logistics solutions for eCommerce businesses. We offer customized services to enhance customer satisfaction in eCommerce and operational efficiency through air, ocean, and road freight forwarding, along with advanced warehousing and fulfillment capabilities.
Our focus on eCommerce includes integrated logistics solutions that optimize the entire product lifecycle. We use innovative technology for real-time shipment visibility and user-friendly mobile applications so your businesses can meet and exceed customer expectations.
