The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a radical shift in consumer behaviour. Consumers have started buying more online instead of physical stores. The loss of income has resulted in consumers making more value-conscious purchase decisions. They are evaluating products on more parameters before purchase than pre-COVID-19 times. Discretionary spends have been reduced drastically. The demand for lifestyle products has decreased, while that for household essentials, medical supplies, and health supplements has seen a massive spike. Consumers are increasingly spending more on
health and hygiene products in a natural response to the pandemic.
This makes it imperative for brands to be more empathetic towards consumers. It will be crucial for their survival and growth as consumers will gravitate towards the most reliable and trusted brands in the post-pandemic era. Delivering the right message through well-thought and relevant visuals will be the key for brands to improve their market share and build a deeper connection with their consumers.
As consumers are shifting online to meet their varied needs, brands must ensure that their products are easily discoverable. SEO, visual search and search filters are some of the ways in which brands can improve their discoverability. By enhancing search and navigation functionalities, brands can provide a responsive and seamless user-experience to consumers and improve discoverability.
Here is how brands can optimise discoverability:
- Listing various product attributes and allowing consumers to filter products specific to their needs.
- Through SEO, consumers can get search results immediately by entering a few words into a search box.
- Creating personalized, well-optimized landing pages to make relevant products visible in search engines.
- Featuring offers, creating brand new trending items, or any educational content that can spur purchases on a homepage.
When it comes to ecommerce websites, the right content is the key to conversions. In the post-lockdown world, brands sharing quality content will be able to cut the clutter and thrive on ecommerce websites. Sharing engaging visuals and rich A+ content (on Amazon) will help brands grab the attention of consumers and make them spend time evaluating their offerings, which will significantly enhance the chances of conversions.
Visuals
Engaging visuals are of utmost importance in ecommerce success. It enables brands to reinforce their image, decrease purchase anxiety, and help consumers make informed purchase decisions. With crowd-sourcing content touching new highs during these uncertain times, brands can capitalize on it by integrating user-generated and influencer-led visual messaging to heighten curiosity and solidify their market presence. Interactive and engaging visual content can go a long way in helping brands achieve sales growth on ecommerce websites. Here’re a few visual content options that brands must explore to ensure high ecommerce sales.
360 Product View: 360 product view helps consumers to get an in-person experience of holding a physical product in their hands and examining it from all angles. As consumers are reluctant to visit physical stores nowadays, this could be a great way to help them make online purchases with confidence.
Instructional Videos: Instructional videos allow consumers to find out how the product works. They enable consumers to envisage whether the product is suitable to meet their needs or not.
User-Generated Content (UGC): UGC enables brands to demonstrate the benefits of their product through consumers who have already purchased and use the product. It helps bolster their brand image and encourages other consumers to buy the product.
AR & VR: Virtual Product trials using AR and VR enables consumers to try out the products from the comforts of the home and make purchase decisions.
Amazon A+ Content
Amazon accounts for a considerable number of online sales globally for millions of brands. If a brand is selling on Amazon, it needs to make the most of the product pages. Creating appealing A+ content is the only way to achieve this goal. From ensuring brand discoverability to providing consumers with all the necessary details, A+ content helps accelerate the consumer journey to purchase. Here’s how you can create effective A+ content.
Appealing visuals and product images to allow consumers to help consumers find out how the product looks
Informative videos to enable consumers to develop an in-depth understanding of the product
FAQ listings to provide answers to questions in the minds of consumers
Importance of Product Videos in eCommerce
Today’s time-starved consumers prefer product videos over long product descriptions. With video consumption growing leaps and bounds during the lockdown, brands must make engaging video content a part of their ecommerce strategy. Professionally made and information-rich videos help build a perception of a well-established and trustworthy brand, which encourages consumers to prefer it over the competition. Let us have a look at the types of videos that work on ecommerce websites.
Product Explainer Videos: These videos explain a product's features, its benefits and how it can be used.
Direct Response Videos: Direct Response Videos demonstrate product benefits and encourage consumers to make an instant purchase decision by availing of limited period exciting offers and deals.
User-generated Videos: These videos lend credibility to the claims and promises made by the brand. Including customer testimonials, tutorials and unboxing videos, they firmly put the brand into the consideration set of potential consumers and boost the chances of purchase.
As brands look forward to achieving business revival and growth post-lockdown, they need to realise online sales. Such a scenario calls for brands to enhance their commerce presence with life-like visuals, informative videos and well-crafted content so that consumers get all the information they need to make purchase decisions.
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