Why websites generate much more than sales

Brands achieve a far higher ROI if they treat their retail website and mobile app as an integral part of a customer’s journey, Michael Barnett heard at the Marketing Week 1-2-1 ecommerce summit.

Retailers’ websites are for more than just transactions. They are the starting point for a customer’s journey through the buying process, whether the final sale is made online or offline.

Websites and mobile apps should not be considered standalone sales channels, but part of the overall shopping experience, according to marketers from some of Britain’s biggest retail brands at Marketing Week’s 1-2-1 Ecommerce Summit last month.

Similarly, the audience heard, sales made online do not tell the whole story of an ecommerce strategy.

Sienne Veit, business development manager for new technologies at Marks & Spencer’s online operation M&S Direct, says: “Customers do not notice channels. They just see your brand, and anything that makes their life easier has got to be a good thing.”

Speakers at the event, from retailers including Shop Direct, Argos and Tesco, argued that a well-conceived ecommerce strategy is likely to increase overall sales across a business, rather than cannibalising sales at bricks-and-mortar stores.

Whether ecommerce sites are accessed via a mobile or desktop browser, giving customers more reasons to use them than just for making a transaction is fundamental to growing a business’s overall revenues

The mobile element of ecommerce also feeds into the same process, even if it has a distinct purpose from a website optimised for desktop computers, or from shopping in-store. Annabel Thorburn, head of mobile and web development at Tesco.com, says: “Mobile commerce is not a different way of shopping. Mobile allows browsing to take place where it previously couldn’t. But you cannot actually say if people are converting the sale on a mobile, on the website or in store.”

The portable nature of a smartphone makes a mobile website an ideal tool for comparing prices and products when shopping on the high street, or for researching information after seeing an ad while out and about. However, this is no guarantee of where, when or even if a purchase will eventually be made.

Veit at M&S Direct admits that once the benefits of the mobile web had been identified, part of the reason for the brand wanting to develop a site optimised for phones was being seen to be first to do so. She argues, however, that there is not necessarily any further competitive advantage in developing a smartphone app.

Appearing ahead of the curve in terms of an ecommerce app would be of little benefit in terms of consumers’ perceptions of the M&S brand, she says. “We have not yet found the thing that is repeatedly useful and engaging. When you see an app from M&S, it will be because it is something that you cannot do on the mobile web.”

Whether ecommerce sites are accessed via a mobile or desktop browser, giving customers more reasons to use them than just for making a transaction is fundamental to growing a business’s overall revenues. Brands should be looking to maximise their marketing opportunities by lengthening the time visitors stay on their site, and increasing their exposure to alternative products and information about goods and services.

However, James Balmain, head of ecommerce at home shopping group Shop Direct, says: “The vast majority of ecommerce sites have little unique content and do not provide a good customer experience.”

Retailers need to invest in creating their own content for websites, as well as encouraging user-generated content, Balmain told Marketing Week’s conference. This provides a reference point for anything that might help inform a purchase, and also benefits search engine optimisation, which can be enhanced further when users are encouraged to talk about their experiences and link from external sites like blogs.

“The aim of this activity should be to build things up to where you effectively own page one of Google,” he says.

Argos ecommerce controller Matt Roberts says customer reviews are one example of content that not only draws users to the company’s website, mobile site and app, but also feeds back into its product design. He points out that even though Argos had a low return rate before establishing its reviews site, that did not necessarily mean customers were always satisfied with its products.

He gives one instance of customers complaining that a wooden Argos wardrobe had plastic feet and a cardboard back. This influenced changes in the product’s specification, with knock-on effects for the perception of Argos’s designs. According to Roberts: “It improved customers’ impressions of our own-brand product quality.”

This was only possible as a result of being open to both positive and negative content appearing on the site. “We are as prepared to put up a one-star review as a five-star review. As long as it does not have swearing in it, it will go up,” says Roberts.

Understanding the impact of an ecommerce strategy requires a retail brand to take all of these factors into account, and to measure traffic originating from different sources accordingly. This might mean customers make a purchase after using an app, visiting the website or mobile site, or arriving from an external link. “There are three or four touchpoints on most orders. The last click is not the answer,” says Balmain at Shop Direct.

Moreover, it requires a brand to join up its thinking about how connected consumers also shop in store. Wherever they begin their journey to a purchase, this is only a part of a story where the customer might travel down several channels before choosing what to buy.