As consumers spend more of their time online, etailers are creating their own content to attract the increasingly digital-savvy shopper.

From social commerce apps to blogs, many retailers have invested in content creation as a way to inspire and engage promiscuous online shoppers, and not just as a means to generate sales.

Content also adds a point of difference to physical stores. Ecommerce may be the growth engine of many retailers yet few have been able to create the theatre online that they have been able to achieve in bricks and mortar. 

Made Unboxed allows shoppers to upload photos of their purchases into the etaier's social platform

Made Unboxed

Made Unboxed allows shoppers to upload photos of their purchases to the etaier’s social platform

Inspiring customers

For some retailers, creating content for their customers is a means of differentiating themselves from their rivals.

Foyles, which is currently overhauling its website to be more content-led, has started featuring blogs, top five lists of best books in different genres and author interviews on its homepage to achieve this aim.

The book retailer’s head of marketing Simon Heafield says: “We recognised that providing a richness of content around the books we’re selling is a point of difference for us as a retailer – we’re experts in our field and our website needs to reflect that.”

While Foyles is using its expertise to inform its customer, Net-a-Porter is using content to create a more aspirational experience for its customers.

The luxury retailer’s NetSet app, which launched last year, started as an invite-only platform in order to create a community of trendsetters before making the app available to the public last September.

Net-a-Porter's shoppable social media app

The Net Set mobile app

Net-a-Porter’s shoppable social media app

The app, which allows users to create personal profiles and follow other accounts for inspiration, also enables users to identify themselves in different ‘style tribes’ based on their preferences for different clothing items.

Vice president of social commerce Sarah Watson says: “We wanted to speak to our shoppers on a more personal level – appealing to their style, not just their shopping habits”.

Creating a community

By offering an online platform where customers can have conversations, retailers can create the social shopping experience of a bricks-and-mortar environment that has previously been difficult to replicate online.

“Shopping is not a lone pastime – it is something that other people have an influence on,” says Watson, who describes NetSet as the digital equivalent of seeing someone pick up an item in store that you then wish you’d grabbed for yourself.

“Shopping is not a lone pastime – it is something that other people have an influence on”

Sarah Watson, Net-a-Porter

“It’s been really interesting that people with no previous connection to one another have been conversing,” she says.

“They share pictures of themselves or what they’re inspired by and help each other make purchasing decisions”.

Made has seen a similar community of shoppers connecting with each other on its Unboxed platform, which allows users to upload photos of their Made purchases in their homes and links to the items on the etailer’s transactional website.

Made’s social projects manager Hannah Pilpel says: “People invest a lot in their home decor and we wanted to create an accessible platform for people to show their purchases off.”

In January, Made’s data showed that the dwell-time for shoppers who had used Unboxed soared 200%.

The furniture etailer also found that the average order value of shoppers using Unboxed rose 6%.

The future of retail content

For retailers, providing a platform on which shoppers can communicate with one another can offer customer insight they would not otherwise have had access to.

“The data from NetSet is going to be really valuable for our business to show anything from seeing what is trending in real time to which designers are more popular with our shoppers”

Sarah Watson, Net-a-Porter

“The data from NetSet is going to be really valuable for our business to show anything from seeing what is trending in real time and in a specific location to which designers are more popular with our shoppers,” says Watson.

The luxury etailer plans to build on the growing popularity of its mobile app, which the average user currently engages with over twice a day, and ensure the brand is relevant for millennial shoppers.

“NetSet should appeal to a younger user – they should be able to engage with the brand without having to shop and instead pick up styling tips and ideas,” adds Watson.

Made is focusing on expanding the international usage of Unboxed as well as further integrating the platform into its ecommerce website.

Foyles Website

Foyles Website

Foyles is overhauling its website with a focus on content, including blogs, featured authors and reviews

“The growth of Unboxed has been very organic so far and we’re learning from the community of users how to improve the platform,” says Pilpel.

All three retailers say the main benefit of self-published content lies in increasing customer engagement and loyalty rather than purely improving sales.

“We want people to want to come to Foyles’ website to browse and engage with our content, rather than exclusively because they want to buy something,” says Heafield.

By creating a space online for consumers to inspire and interact with one another, etailers are bringing a sense of retail theatre to the online shopping experience which has previously been reserved for physical stores.