What is a seamless shopping experience?

Today’s retail customers expect a smooth experience across multiple channels, both in-person and online. A seamless shopping experience removes friction from various retail channels to give customers the best possible buyer journey from start to finish. What makes a customer’s shopping experience seamless, and how can you integrate these factors into your own ecommerce design? In this guide, we’ll take a closer look at how to provide a seamless omnichannel shopping experience.

What is seamless shopping?

While some shoppers make purchasing decisions based on the quality of products alone, many also expect a first-class experience. A PwC customer loyalty survey found that over half of respondents would stop buying from a brand after several bad experiences, and nearly a third due to inconsistency. If a customer isn’t sure what to expect from the shopping experience, they’ll be more likely to shop elsewhere. Seamless shopping is above all, consistent.

So, what is seamless shopping exactly? It refers to a smooth, efficient, and consistently pleasant experience across multiple channels. Customers know what to expect on their retail journey at each touchpoint, with positive interactions at every stage. Seamless shopping removes all friction from the purchase.

Why is a seamless online shopping experience so important?

A seamless online shopping experience improves customer satisfaction and loyalty. Over half of customers report being more likely to stay loyal to a business that offers a personalized level of service. Seamless shopping makes customers more likely to make a purchase as well. When surveyed, 73% of respondents reported that a good customer experience influenced their purchasing decisions, and 65% said that good experiences were more important than advertising.

Building this customer loyalty through positive experiences has a knock-on effect for businesses. It means customers are more likely to engage in word-of-mouth advertising, building your brand’s reputation at little cost.

What makes a customer’s shopping experience seamless?

It’s clear that a seamless shopping experience offers numerous benefits to both customer and business. But which factors influence the buyer journey? Seamless shopping uses a data-driven approach to provide more personalized service to the individual. It syncs data across multiple touchpoints and devices. Imagine a customer browses product listings using his smartphone in the morning. Later in the day, if he pulls out his tablet, the website should still show the same listings for a seamless switch between devices.

A seamless omnichannel shopping experience offers:

• Continuity between touchpoints, devices, and channels

• Personalized suggestions based on browsing data

• Excellent customer service both online and off

• Fast transition and loading times between devices

• An optimized experience no matter which device you’re using

• Social media, wearable device, and virtual reality integration

• Flexible payment methods and a one-click checkout process

How to provide a seamless shopping experience

To get started with providing a seamless experience, center your buyer in all interactions. Imagine any pain points they might experience on their journey, using buyer personas and segmentation as your guide.

Are you offering personalized product suggestions? A personalized shopping experience is no longer a special perk; it’s the expected norm for savvy consumers. This means saving customer preferences and items viewed across multiple channels.

Communication is another way to provide a frictionless hybrid shopping experience. Customers should be able to contact you on social media channels as well as through more traditional phone and email channels. Using chatbots helps bridge the gap when you’re unable to have a live human answering queries.

Payment flexibility is a major component of any seamless shopping experience. Make sure you’re catering to all possible customer preferences at checkout. In addition to cards this should include things like Buy Now Pay Later services, digital wallets, payment apps, and other alternative payment methods. Are you set up to take cross-border payments? For a seamless shopping experience, add a variety of trusted payment providers, like GoCardless, to checkout. As you only pay per transaction, it’s a low-cost way to reduce friction at the most important stage.

With today’s technology, it’s easier than ever to provide great customer service, improve your user experience, and increase brand loyalty all at once.

We can help

GoCardless is a global payments solution that helps you automate payment collection, cutting down on the amount of financial admin your team needs to deal with. Find out how GoCardless can help you with one-off or recurring payments.