The COVID-19 pandemic created a perfect storm of opportunity for online retailers. Global lockdowns pushed customers online, driving the most competitive brands to implement solutions that would allow them to deliver more highly personalized, interactive, and experiential online shopping.
Google found that online shoppers will increase spending by around 40% when they are met with a highly personalized and adaptive ecommerce experience. Meanwhile, according to research published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, it takes approximately 66 days for new behaviors to become automatic.
Over the last two years, people around the world have rapidly adopted ecommerce as a solution. Growth in high-frequency sales categories such as groceries and consumer packaged goods (CPG) has far exceeded expectations. According to Carrie Tharp, VP Retail & Consumer - Google Cloud at Google, searches for “in stock” products have increased 800% YoY since 2020.
Customers are more comfortable shopping online than ever before. They care about supporting brands that they feel a personal connection to. They are loyal to the platforms that consistently deliver a highly personalized customer experience coupled with a smooth and seamless process that matches the expectations set by leaders such as Amazon and Zalando.
At the center of all of this is the rise of an entirely new sales channel that promises to make it much easier for the most successful brands to convert sales with the most likely customers to spend the most money.
Every single day, more and more customers are completing purchases using voice-activated technologies. Retailers that implement voice boost conversion rates by decreasing the friction between interacting with their most loyal and motivated customers. Voice delivers the convenience consumers crave and the Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) that your brand needs to exceed targets and smash expectations.
Conversational Commerce Delivers the Convenience Customers Crave and the CRO Your Brand Desires
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is the subtle art and science of influencing on-site customer behavior leading to more positive business outcomes in the shortest and quickest possible ways. It’s a means of getting the most out of your visitors, providing them with the best possible opportunity to find and buy the things they want, and a chance for your brand to simplify the purchasing process by removing barriers to success wherever possible.
Voice-activated retail technologies deliver that utility, making it easier for your customers to complete sales and reorder products online. In high-frequency sales categories such as the grocery business, retailers are seeing customers rapidly adopt voice technology because it simplifies their lives.
When coupled with automated reordering alerts, shopping lists that can be updated and viewed across multiple devices, and platforms that deliver simple, safe, and reliable transactions, conversational commerce adds incredible value that offers a considerable return on investment.
Instead of needing to motivate kids, drive to the store, and navigate the aisles of a massive Whole Foods, customers today will complete their grocery shopping simply by saying:
- “Add strawberries”
- “Add milk”
- “Add whole wheat bread”
- “Add cheddar cheese”
...All directly to a voice-powered interface on their smart speaker. With the uttering of a few simple command phrases, a transaction can begin and be concluded in a much faster way than could even occur in person.
This speed and utility deliver measurable benefits, and customers are gravitating to voice technologies as a result. Savvy retailers see the immediate benefit of their investments: voice-powered interfaces are highly cost-effective and allow your brand to deliver a more personalized and 24/7 always available, always open compatibility that customers crave.
The result is a more simplified and seamless online shopping experience that can be completed without the need for hands to even be on a computer, tablet, or smartphone. Industry analysts predict that conversational commerce inside cars will account for massive growth as more and more companies make voice-assisted interfaces the industry standard for new vehicles.
In the first half of 2021, smart speakers and smart display shipments rose to more than 77 million units, a 35.4% increase over the previous year. Every day more customers are using voice to interact with companies online. It is the perfect time to harness the power of voice to deliver the next stage of your ecommerce platform’s growth.
The future of online shopping is voice-powered technology. Interactive, experiential, and conversational platforms are here to stay, and there are immense benefits in delivering them to your customers in a straightforward and low-code way.
Use our Voice ROI calculator to determine your company’s projected ROI from implementing a low-code conversational commerce solution by Blutag. 