Published on: October 27, 2022 | Last updated on: March 13, 2024 |
Appearing on the digital shelf involves more than just listing your products across multiple channels.
It’s about making sure that you’re presenting them in the right way, so that customers will keep using your brand because they trust that you can deliver.
But retaining customers means first maximising your digital shelf visibility, which is tricky given how crowded the online space has become.
In this article, we look at why digital shelf visibility is so important, as well as suggesting ways of appearing more visible across the internet.
A retail e-commerce market set to be worth an estimated $6.4 trillion by 2024 – that’s what your business needs a piece of if you want it to survive.
Nowadays, customers are spending more money shopping online than they are in physical stores. This means your brand has entered an incredibly crowded market, and will need to stand out for all the right reasons in order to win at the digital shelf.
Investing time, money and effort into maximising digital shelf visibility will help you position your brand in the most attractive way and give it the best chance of bringing more customers through its virtual doors.
Achieving greater digital shelf visibility means taking every single element of your online presence into account.
How you appear is just as important as where you’re appearing – maybe even more so. Pay close attention to all your digital activity and address any glaring issues head-on, before they further compromise your position.
Want to maximise digital shelf visibility but don’t know where to start? Check out our 10 top tips:
Product copy is the gateway between click and purchase. It should tell customers everything they should know about specific items, including size, special features, discounts, etc. All this and more could mean the difference between making or losing sales.
Have a dedicated content team in place to write, monitor and update your product copy where needed throughout the digital shelf. Consistency is key for this task, so brief everyone thoroughly to make sure they’re all on the same page.
Imagery is arguably the most important element on the digital shelf. How a product looks will persuade a customer to buy it, unless of course you haven’t done your due diligence and the visuals look bad or are out of date.
Product images should be clear, visually appealing, and display all relevant information where necessary (think nutritional details, size, weight, etc.). As online customers can’t physically inspect your items, you must make it obvious to them exactly what they’re buying.
Another thing to note is that packing imagery must be reworked for the digital shelf if needed; something on display in-store may look totally different when listed online, and you don’t want to be caught unawares.
Ever heard the phrase, ‘the customer is always right’. Well, like it or not, when it comes to the digital shelf, they are.
Consumer feedback can make or break businesses vying for attention online. The brands who actually interact with shoppers, addressing their concerns and helping them out, usually fare much better as far as retention goes.
Act on your customers’ feedback quickly, paying attention to reviews and addressing any concerns they may have right away. Who knows, they may even thank you for it!
Long gone are the days when people would sit around on their sofas on a Saturday afternoon, laptop browsing the latest deals. Now, customers convert mostly via their mobile phones, no matter what the hour may be.
For your brand to maximise its digital shelf visibility, it needs to have a strong presence on mobile devices. You should consult your UX team, or perhaps even appoint one, to devise an interface that captivates mobile audiences and therefore encourages them to convert!
How you price your products on the digital shelf will directly affect how many customers actually buy them. If they think they can get a better deal elsewhere, that’s exactly what they will do.
Consider all your pricing options, weighing up the pros and cons. Retail pricing strategies come in many different forms, after all, and you will need to experiment with them to find the optimal price for your products.
If a customer can’t get on with your online interfaces, they will not convert. It’s as simple as that, really.
You must therefore provide a user experience that is clean, concise and gives them exactly what they want for minimal effort. Buyers are busy, too, and do not want to be bombarded with links and long journeys when they plan on completing a purchase.
Search is one of the most competitive elements on the digital shelf, and balancing your organic efforts with paid advertising is a surefire way of reaching customers at peak times for your business.
Consider investing in paid search during key events that will help boost sales, such as Black Friday, Christmas, etc. Being on top throughout these periods should almost certainly see your conversions increase and your brand gain new audiences.
Customers want their products quickly, so you need to stay on top of how much inventory you have and whether it can reach them in time.
Magpie’s Stock & Delivery module has been designed to focus on this very important area of your business, providing you with key insights from across your retail network so that you can react where needed and keep customers happy.
There’s nothing worse for a brand than when it appears out of sync, as this can create confusion among customers and lead to them shopping elsewhere.
Brand compliance must be top priority for your business as it looks to grow within the e-commerce world. After all, you can’t become a household name if no one can confidently identify who you are!
Having a strong platform from which to monitor your digital shelf analytics ensures that you always know which elements are scoring well and which ones need work. Every retailer you partner with will require different degrees of optimisation, as far as your products are concerned, and acting fast helps rectify any potentially damaging issues before they harm your overall brand.
Magpie DBX is best positioned to offer a unique combination of insights and data-led solutions that allow you to drive meaningful action across your business as it looks to maximise its digital shelf visibility.
A one-stop shop for all your digital shelf needs, Magpie DBX gives you the tools needed to effectively manage every aspect of your brand that customers care about, from click through to purchase.
Whether you require insights into competitor performance or simply want to see how much inventory you have in stock, Magpie is here to help streamline your digital operations.
For more details about how Magpie can improve your digital shelf visibility, get in touch with our team today and request a demo!
Some brands you know just by looking at their logos, others from the colours they display.
These businesses are winning at brand compliance for a reason: they’re instantly recognisable!
But it takes a long time to make your brand memorable for all the right reasons. The question is can you emulate the success of household names through your own digital marketing?
In this article, we show you how to create a brand compliance checklist that, if used correctly, will give your business the boost it needs across the digital shelf.
Have you ever viewed products online? Of course you have; it’s the 21st century!
But do you notice they often look similar to how you find them in-store?
From browsing all the way through to checkout, a company’s digital shelf is basically the online equivalent of buying their products IRL (in real life).
With the element of touch taken out of the equation, businesses are having to be more and more creative when it comes to replicating the feel of in-store shopping online.
So, how do you go about getting your brand ready for the digital shelf?
In this article, we ask, ‘What is the digital shelf?’, as well as looking at why it matters and providing ways of bolstering your own digital shelf space.
Want to learn more about how Magpie DBX can help your business? Get in touch with us and let us show you!
