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COVID-19 Ecommerce Marketing Purchase Funnels

Why retailers should focus on their ecommerce content

Jellyfish

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May 18, 2021 | 3 min read

Shopping online has been a fast-growing trend, with ecommerce sales being 200% higher than they were six years ago

Shopping online has been a fast-growing trend, with ecommerce sales being 200% higher than they were six years ago. Despite this, many traditional retailers’ ecommerce efforts have been mediocre at best, with a considerable number relying on physical stores and brand image to maintain their reputation.

And then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Change forced the world to shop online, and retailers had no choice but to switch their efforts to ecommerce, or face being added to the growing list of retail casualties. The pandemic introduced online shopping to a new league of consumers who are enjoying this new way of shopping, indicating that this change in behaviour is not temporary.

To effectively adapt to an ecommerce era, retailers need to be investing in their digital presence. What the consumer experiences online needs to be the same standard or better than what they experience in a physical store. Competition is no longer a street or a short drive away but a mere click away, and potential buyers will leave if they don’t find the experience they are looking for. Not sufficiently investing in an effective digital presence can result in lost revenue, a diminishing reputation, and a decrease in return on all marketing investment (ROI) that drives traffic to their ecommerce sites.

One of the many ways to improve the online consumer experience is to level up on your Performance Content. This is content designed to turn browsers into buyers by providing them with the information they need to make an informed purchase decision. Performance Content can be detailed product and category descriptions, or SEO-friendly how-to or buying guides. In an ecommerce world, websites are often the primary point of contact that consumers have with brands, so having high-quality pre-purchase content is no longer a luxury, it’s a critical enabler of success.

A recent report by Jellyfish looked at the online consumer experience of 100 prominent US retailers. Worryingly, the analysis has revealed that many retailers are falling short with their Performance Content, or lack of it.

  • 78% of retailers are losing organic traffic by offering sub-standard category descriptions, with 23% having no category descriptions at all
  • 48% of retailers have incomplete or unhelpful product descriptions, with fashion brands being the worst offenders.
  • 55% of those featured failed to provide helpful conversion assisting content such as guides, with a staggering 42% providing no content whatsoever.

Download the report to read the full analysis and find out how your online store measures up against best practice.

COVID-19 Ecommerce Marketing Purchase Funnels

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