With Europe in the grips of a cost of living crisis, fuel prices and inflation still rising, this year’s peak trading season will be like no other. In everyday customer research, we are already seeing customer sentiment and behaviour starting to shift markedly.
Across a range of research projects, the message from customers has been consistent and growing louder:
- They are making purchases less frequently and are driven by value, with a focus on discounts.
- But value is not always about price – customers are also buying quality products that will last longer, or they can resell later.
We can’t predict overall spend patterns of course, but these shifting priorities mean this year’s peak will be more competitive than ever and there will inevitably be winners and losers, simply because we are once again entering unknown territory.
It is, however, still not too late to take steps to increase the chances that your brand will emerge as one of the winners – relatively simple, low effort optimisation activities can have a significant impact when you’re likely to need it the most.
This is not about big projects like adding payment methods or delivery options, but how your brand is presented to customers. From campaigns and tone of voice through to basic usability improvements there's still time to make a big difference - and it all starts with the customer.
So, with around nine weeks to go, here are three things you can still do to optimise for peak trading:
1. Optimise the mobile shopping experience.
The simple fact is that around 60% of all ecom purchases are now carried out on mobile[i]. Meanwhile, plenty of brands are still concerned that their responsive mobile experience simply doesn’t yet live up to customer expectations.
Whilst there's no time for a full overhaul of your mobile site, a focus on meeting the basic needs and expectations of customers can still deliver significant upsides. Key areas to focus on here are likely to be:
- Discoverability - can customers find what they are looking for (products or inspiration)? Do menu / structures and other navigation methods make sense?
- Product Presentation - are product images optimised for mobile? Are image interactions intuitive to use and seamless? Are reviews easy to find and read?
- How easy it is for customers to access the information they need to evaluate products? Are there any barriers in the purchase process?
There's still no substitute for conducting moderated 121 usability sessions with real customers to answer these questions and identify opportunities quickly. If you haven't put customers in front of your site for a while, you may well be surprised how much their attitudes have changed.
The legacy of pandemic is that this can now be done remotely, saving time and effort with no loss of quality, so there's no excuse for delay. Use your analytics data to identify and explore relevant micro-conversions and these will help you prioritise what you've found.
The aim should be to create a package of improvements that can be implemented in time to make a difference for peak, from simple copy updates to changing layouts and interactions that can be implemented and measured using A/B testing tools.
2. Strike the right tone throughout the customer journey.
With consumers feeling the pinch, facing an uncertain Christmas period and concerned about rising prices this winter, tone of voice will be crucial.
From email content to campaigns and checkout messaging – the entire customer journey in fact - it is crucial that the brand tone of voice hits the right notes at a time when it is all too easy to unintentionally seem insensitive.
To give an extreme (and very unlikely) example, an email urging customers to ‘enjoy a bumper Christmas’ this year wouldn't land well with the vast majority of consumers.
Meanwhile messages more in tune with customer sentiment – for instance, focusing on ‘magic moments’ rather than big spending – may fare better, though clearly the right answer for one brand may be totally wrong for another.
Most brands will already be well down the road when it comes to campaign and promotional content, but that doesn’t mean it’s too late to make tweaks that could make all the difference.
Again, the first step is to understand customer responses to your tone of voice through customer research – and, as with usability testing, rapid, remote research can be just as valuable as in-person focus groups. Find out how your customers respond to your tone of voice in the current context, listen to their feedback and, if necessary, adapt your content accordingly.
3. Be sure your campaign creative will resonate.
The thought of scrapping a long planned peak trading creative would strike fear into any brand – abandoning that work is simply not going to happen. But again, that doesn’t mean your existing campaign creative can‘t be optimised to better reflect the current reality of customer sentiment. After all, you only get one chance to make a first impression.
Here, it is important to recognise that we are living through a time of almost unprecedented uncertainty. So, using customer research and testing to understand how well your creative - from imagery, themes, messages and content - resonates with customers’ right now, and making changes, if necessary, seems a sensible precaution.
History is no guide
The simple truth is brands cannot rely on insight from peak seasons of the past to understand likely performance this year – we are in uncharted territory. The only people who can tell you how customers will respond to usability issues, tone of voice and creative this year are customers themselves, so it's essential to engage with them.
The most likely winners this peak season will be those that listen to customers and adapt accordingly. They will use rapid customer research to identify quick wins across usability, tone of voice and creativity – to take a little of the uncertainty out of peak trading and ensure they have done all they can to adapt to changing customer sentiment this Christmas.
[i] https://www.statista.com/statistics/612872/mobile-e-commerce-transactions-europe/