Shoptelligence is excited to announce the release of a send-to-email feature on the Design Experience Platform. This feature allows customers to craft an ensemble on-site and email the collection to themselves. This email, or shopping list, keeps customers from having to “start over again” in-store when they are ready to complete their purchase. With a copy of the email sent to the store as well, retailers are able to follow up on these buyers, converting their web traffic into qualified leads. Even more, the highly beneficial feature easily integrates into existing platforms with one simple step.
The Customer Purchase Journey
The customer’s purchase journey in the furniture retail industry has not been immune to the recent advancements in technology. Although 86% of consumers prefer to complete their purchase in-store, almost 90% start their journey with research online. They visit retailer websites and other search engines, including Amazon, to understand the choices available to them. During this process, a customer will visit anywhere from 5 to 10 retailer sites and will ultimately visit 2 or 3 stores.
At this stage, it is imperative that a retailer’s website is optimized for eCommerce. The longer you can engage a customer on your website and the more products you are able to show them, the more likely they are to visit in store and the more likely you are to close the sale.
Increases Online Engagement
The average customer spends anywhere from 3-7 minutes on a given retailers website. By optimizing eCommerce pages with recommendations, several add-to-cart options, interactive platforms and more, retailers are able to increase engagement with their websites by a few minutes. And in the online retail world, every minute can make a difference. But with Shoptelligence’s technology, a customer that engages with our platform spends an average of 40 minutes on site.
How do we do it? It all stems from our Interactive Ensembles. Our Design Discovery Experience platform allows a shopper to view cross-category items that complement their current selection using an AI-powered style engine. With this technology, shoppers are much more engaged on the retailer website.
Bring Web-Engaged Customers In-Store
As they search online, customers begin to build a list of their options. They select a few products that they would like to see in-store and with a few product details, they head to the store. From there, a sales associate will, essentially, start from scratch with the customer as they attempt to reconstruct the cart that was built online.
Shoptelligence’s new email sharing feature takes this pain away by allowing a shopper to pick up in-store exactly where they left off online. With this feature, once a customer is satisfied with their ensemble, they are able to save it to their emails, creating a portable shopping list. The email is retailer-branded and includes brief product descriptions and clickable links to each item’s product description page.
The added convenience delivered to customers, who put in time and effort into researching products online and now no longer have to start over in store, results in a much higher likelihood of a store visit and, eventually, a conversion.
More Than Just a Shopping List
For retailers, this added feature is much more than just a shopping list functionality. A copy of the email is also sent to the store, along with the customer’s email address.
This proves incredibly valuable for retailers; with this email, they isolate their high-intent buyers and create a channel through which they can follow up and nurture the lead. Retailers are able to not only get contact information for this lead, but they are also able to understand what they are shopping for. That allows them to better tailor their marketing efforts in a 1:1 strategy with relevant information.
CEO Laura Khoury couldn’t be more excited about this functionality. She says it will deliver retailers the value they’re looking for from their eCommerce platforms as it, “isolates high intent buyers, which really represents a great opportunity for buyers to capture. It’s a great way for retailers to bridge the gap from digital to physical.”
Easy Implementation
Implementing the functionality into existing platforms takes just 1 simple step. Retailers send us their company’s header information and logo to create a branded email along with an email address to send copies of the emails to. We take care of the rest. In a matter of minutes, retailers are given a powerful new tool to turn their web traffic into qualified leads to follow up on and to increase the likelihood that the shopper will visit the store.
To learn more about this new feature and about the Design Experience Platform, please visit www.shoptelligence.com/demo or email us at retailers@shoptelligence.com.
