Mass outages are less frequent now than they used to be, thanks mainly to improvements in website design and the use of scalable technologies. However, retailers still need appropriate housekeeping practices to prepare for peak traffic.
If testing and optimisation are not prioritised, online issues may appear and persist, slowing development and thwarting attempts by even the most tenacious buyers to splash out when Black Friday deals go live.
Follow these tips to stay ahead of the curve in 2022.
Pre-empt your customer’s frustration
When we talk about website problems, we don’t mean uncommon occurrences that only have a minor impact on a few transactions. The most recent thinkTRIBE research highlights the prevalence of unnoticed errors: a quarter of customers are constantly annoyed by malfunctioning “checkout” buttons, and nearly half have abandoned their baskets because of a misplaced promotion code. The critical lesson for merchants is that an expensive error may thwart even customers who successfully proceed through the whole sales funnel. This not only impacts the company’s earnings, but it may also harm the brand over time.
Know your third parties
Websites today are more complicated than ever. Retailers are re-platforming, integrating technologies, and expanding their online inventory to stay ahead of the game when meeting customer expectations. They’re adding new features and enhancing personalisation, which depends increasingly on third-party plug-ins.
Make sure you get an accurate picture
Observing the customer’s purchasing experience allows a retail website to be tested more thoroughly than any other method. However, retailers frequently conduct tests using fictitious pathways, entrance points, and links that the general public cannot access, making it difficult to reproduce the behaviour they are eager to study. Results are also skewed when customisation and personalisation are ignored during tests.
Follow in your customer’s footsteps
What makes thinkTRIBE’s Customer Journey Optimisation so invaluable is real-time data based on actual customer behaviour. This gives you an accurate and realistic look at your customer’s journey, including conversions and drop-off rates. More importantly, it knows your website doesn’t exist in isolation, testing all your digital channels, platforms, and personalisation.
Embrace your opportunities
Black Friday can still influence the retail landscape, even if it has changed from its high-street flash sale origins into a primarily online phenomenon. To take advantage of these opportunities, merchants must modify their platforms, inventory, marketing, and sales strategies. This work must incorporate efficient testing and optimisation techniques to improve the online experience, cultivate customer loyalty and make the most of retail’s biggest annual event.