Retail ecommerce: Content as your sales strategy

Ecommerce players need to look at content as a key strategy to differentiate themselves from competitors. This is due to the fact that 85 percent of shoppers do an extensive online research about the items that they wish to buy before making a final call. This number indicates that if you can create good content around the ecommerce business, you can build a good brand with strong customer loyalty.

Content can drive sales, traffic conversion and loyalty

Content is often not talked much about, in a retail ecommerce business, but data now points towards the fact that content is a powerful lever in driving more sales, traffic, conversion and loyalty in the ecommerce world.

Data shows that 85 percent of shoppers do an extensive online research on their items before making a final call to buy or not. Note that at the end, they maybe buying offline or online, but it is decoupled from fact that reading things like online reviews and checking out unboxing videos have become a standard process for a buyer who is in process of making a buy or no-buy decision.

This indicates that content is indeed a key strategy, often overlooked, in a retail ecommerce business.

What kind of content are we talking about?

Consumers, before making the final buy call, go through a wide range of content where they seek to validate their decision to spend money on the item.

Let us highlight major content sources and how ecommerce businesses may harness them in creating a better and more personalized user experience.

Unboxing videos

Unboxing videos have become a must-have for content marketing. Every ecommerce business must look at a possible option of integrating such videos in their flow. Unboxing videos create a much needed anticipation, which forces the shopper to close the deal on the item.

Unboxing videos often play on the psychology of the buyer where it subliminally urges the buyer to experience the same feeling that he or she thinks is being felt by the person who is doing the unboxing on the video.

In-depth reviews on the product page

Buyers nowadays love to know the nitty-gritty of the item they are purchasing. It gives them a sense of security. Also the presence of an in-depth review assures the buyer that an expert has looked deeply into the functionality of the item and has validated its operation to be as per specification.

Video reviews and comparison to peer-products

This might seem very similar to unboxing videos, but it actually serves a different purpose. While the highlight of unboxing video is to create positive anticipation, video reviews and peer opinions provide for a more unbiased approach to the review of the product.

Video reviews are also interesting because they make the user stick to the site and browse for more videos till they find something, which they feel is right for them to buy.

Summarized textual product reviews from shoppers

This review acts as a social validation of not only the item but also the validation of the seller in case the ecommerce business is based on a marketplace model. The ecommerce business can use ‘Natural Language Processing’ techniques to summarize the user reviews into more palatable content.

Several organizations are now adopting this technology to summarize feedback and push it back to prospective buyers. Ratings and Q-n-A about the item, are also a part of the feedback input.

Content will be the key differentiator

As technology democratizes further, strong content strategy will be a key differentiator in creating value for shoppers. If not for direct conversion, content strategy is definitely a key lever in building a solid ecommerce brand by engaging the buyer and increasing repeat visits.