The popularity of online retail is growing at pace, but how can etailers ensure the shopping experience lives up to a bricks-and-mortar store?

As readers of this publication will be acutely aware, online shopping has shown exponential growth in recent years. In May 2016, the amount spent online accounted for 14.3% of all UK retail spending, having grown 21.5% over the previous year, according to the Office of National Statistics.

As a result, retailers are increasingly investing in online channels to drive overall growth of their omnichannel businesses. Retailers are also adding innovative features to evolve the online model and improve the customer experience in ways that bring the most attractive elements of the physical retail experience into the online environment.

“An enhanced and differentiated online shopping experience, with features that support and inspire the customer, will improve the convenience aspect of online shopping while generating affinity and customer loyalty”

Alastair Harvey

These include features such as chat bots, online visual merchandising and searching by images.

These features are aimed at improving the user experience and, in doing so, extending the average dwell time on a site and lifting online sales.

An enhanced and differentiated online shopping experience, with features that support and inspire the customer, will improve the convenience aspect of online shopping while generating affinity and customer loyalty – introducing a personal and emotional element to the customer’s relationship with the retailer that is difficult to sever.

But can the in-store shopping experience ever really be matched online?

Creating personalisation online

For example, for many customers one of the most attractive features of shopping in a store is the helpful shop assistant who can answer queries and provide advice and suggestions, enabling the customer to identify and locate exactly what they are looking for – and sometimes steering the customer towards items they might not have otherwise considered.

The customer will leave the store with that warm feeling that comes from receiving good service, often having purchased an item that they hadn’t even planned to buy when they walked into the shop.

The online retail experience does not, on the face of it, lend itself to this kind of interaction. However, online retailers are increasingly using a range of technologies that endeavour to do just that.

“Image search can help a consumer seeking a particular item and style of clothing to find similar merchandise and, in doing so, broadens the selection”

Alastair Harvey

Take the chat bot, for example, a technology enabled by artificial intelligence (AI) that provides real-time customer support in the online environment.

A virtual online assistant, the chat bot promptly and accurately responds to a broad range of customer queries – often with a greater level of product knowledge and expertise than a mere human shop assistant might possess.

Another pioneering technology in this context is image search technology, also powered by AI. Image search can help a consumer seeking a particular item and style of clothing (or, indeed, another product altogether such as a kitchen implement or an armchair) to find similar merchandise and, in doing so, broadens the selection.

Equally, the technology can steer the consumer towards an alternative design or product in the same category if the desired object is not in stock or not available in the right size.

In this way, the “inspiration” capabilities of image search play the role of the discreetly helpful shop assistant who gently guides the customer to explore other products and keeps the customer engaged.

These features help to create a more compelling shopping experience online and encourage the consumer to remain on the retailer’s website, rather than seek an item elsewhere – and, as many studies have shown, increased dwell time will greatly improve the likelihood that the visit will conclude with an online transaction.

  • Alastair Harvey is chief solutions officer at Cortexica