In France, the fashion and homeware e-commerce industry is booming. According to the Fédération du e-commerce et de la vente à distance (Fevad), fashion is France’s leading online purchasing sector, with 60% of online shoppers making purchases in this area by 2022. The home sector, including decoration and furnishings, generates around 26 billion euros in sales in France. Admittedly, the rise of e-commerce has radically changed consumer behavior.
Advanced personalization to optimize the customer experience
In the fashion and home goods industry, personalization has become an essential element in delivering a better customer experience. At a time of increasing online competition and high consumer expectations, a frictionless e-commerce experience can guarantee success for e-tailers.
- Effective sales support for online stores
- Fast, reliable delivery
- Payment facilities tailored to their needs
- Responsive after-sales service
- Smooth returns management.
How to optimize the customer experience?
To meet these expectations, you need to focus on personalization strategies that create unique experiences tailored to each customer. By recommending, for example, products based on purchase history, you can guide consumers towards products that match their tastes and preferences.
Artificial Intelligence at your service
Leverage artificial intelligence solutions to integrate and synchronize your customer data. For example, you can use AI-supported self-service solutions to help your customers find answers to their questions quickly and autonomously.
Sustainability and ethics: follow the path to success
According to the Observatoire de la Consommation Responsable, over 70% of French people are showing a growing interest in responsible purchasing. They are motivated by environmental and ethical concerns. They want products that meet their aesthetic and functional needs, but that also have a positive impact on the planet and society.
How can we meet the expectations of responsible consumers?
Several strategies can be adopted to address consumer concerns. The aftermarket offers an interesting alternative for reducing waste and extending product life. Respond to ecological initiatives such as Vinted. This second-hand community achieved sales of 245 million euros in 2022, up 60% on the previous year.
- Using recycled materials
- Adopting eco-responsible production methods
- Setting up recycling programs for end-of-life products.
Etc.
Make a significant contribution to preserving the environment and promoting ethical practices.
You’ll earn the trust and loyalty of consumers.
Omnichannel: the key to a fluid, enriched customer experience
With the increasing multiplication of sales channels, offering seamless communication to consumers has become more than a priority for retailers.
Today, more and more retailers have both physical channels, such as points of sale, and digital channels (website, mobile application, social networks, etc.).
At first, brands and retailers deliberately separated the different channels. However, with over 25% of the French population doing their shopping both online and in-store, meeting their needs on both channels is becoming a matter of urgency.
- Start your shopping journey by browsing a brand’s website
- Check product availability in-store via a mobile application
- Finalize your purchase in a physical store or online.
Omnichannel enhances the customer experience by offering greater flexibility and personalized interactions. Omnichannel also enables you to collect and analyze customer data more comprehensively. This means you can track and identify your customer across the channels they use.
How do you migrate to omnichannel?
There are many challenges you still face in creating a unified experience between offline and online channels. You need to succeed in maximizing conversions across channels, especially mobile. Here are the key points for a successful transition to omnichannel:
Phygital for a consistent, immersive customer experience
Many factors, such as the health crisis, are forcing brands and retailers to abandon physical points of sale. With digital, you can now offer your customers a more “physical” experience. This is Phygital, which converges online and offline channels.
How to adopt Phygital?
Leverage the convenience and personalization of digital while offering the immersion and personalized service of physical.
Thanks to augmented reality, for example, a customer can try out a piece of furniture virtually in his living room.
In this way, you can facilitate the start of a purchase on one channel and its completion on another.
Here are a few best practices to adopt as you embark on phygital.
The cross-channel customer experience
Create a cross-channel customer experience, i.e. a seamless experience across all your channels.
Facilitate access to in-store product availability, online product fitting and reservation, and store location.
You can also promote local commerce with Click and Collect.
Augmented reality
Offer your customers an enriched shopping experience. Rely on innovative technologies such as virtual fitting rooms or interactive mirrors. Superimpose the image of an item of clothing or footwear on your customers’ reflection on your various platforms, so they don’t have to queue. At the same time, you offer them an experience that’s both innovative and fun. Merge online and in-store experiences by combining the best of both worlds.
Equip your store with specific equipment
Transform your store to offer your customers a better physical experience.
Provide them with specific equipment such as an interactive screen.
This makes it easier for them to find an item in the store.
Provide your sales staff with tablets, too, so they can quickly log in to customers’ accounts.
Social commerce: the new revolution in marketing strategies
Social networks can no longer be excluded from your marketing strategies, especially now that they have integrated commerce functionalities. The trend is now towards social commerce! More and more consumers are completing the majority of their purchasing journey directly on social media.
To ride the new wave of social commerce, you first need to define your objectives.
Do you want to increase traffic to your e-commerce site or points of sale?
Do you want to raise your profile?
Set yourself concrete, achievable goals.
Then choose the social media that matches your objectives and your target audience.
Tik Tok, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn… More and more social media lend themselves to social shopping.
While the LinkedIn platform favors B2B professionals, Instagram, Tik Tok and Snapchat have quickly won over Generation Z. Generation X, meanwhile, likes to shop mainly on Facebook.
Content optimization
Content is certainly the foundation of social commerce. Consumers generally turn to social media to consume content that is inspiring, entertaining, but also educational. So you need to publish content that interests. Your content must serve, but above all attract, your target audience. The aim is not to make a post every day. You need to make practical, but above all topical, content available to Internet users.
Using the right formats
Video content, photos and infographics are among the most effective formats.
So make sure you use high-quality photos and videos.
Remember that 65% of information is quickly retained when accompanied by an image.
Creating a customized shopping experience
Some social media like Facebook offer new, customizable features.
Leverage them to deliver a customized experience that’s consistent with your brand.
With Facebook stores, for example, you can customize fonts, images and colors.
You can even import your product catalog from your e-commerce site.
A partnership with influencers
Social commerce is for those who know how to federate an active community on social networks. Influencers are essential to this evolution. Their ability to reach a large audience and influence purchasing decisions makes them invaluable partners for brands.
