By Aimee Chanthadavong
Online shopping is a continually evolving space. In order for retailers to keep pace with these changes retailers need to ensure they’re providing detailed and clear product information to customers so they can make better informed purchasing decisions.
Daniel Roberts, founder and CEO of SKUvantage, told RetailBiz retailers have the opportunity to do this by offering high quality images and product content to customers on their websites.
“Fundamentally retailers need to recreate the environment they have in-store online. This is because in-store they can try it on, read the box and get the sensory information they need to make a purchasing decision and that’s effectively what you need to create online to drive your conversion rate,” he said.
“The biggest reason people choose overseas websites is product content because it often has better description, specification data and basic functionality, which enable people to get that information they need.”
But retailers – particularly Australian retailers – are lacking to provide this service to their customers and according to Roberts there are three primary reasons for this.
“It’s a natural learning journey retailers don’t realise yet. It’s also extremely hard to do at a large volume because gathering product content is like a production line of producing content and that’s not a natural skill set for them,” he said.
“Lastly, to retailers it doesn’t seem like a natural investment to them because they don’t see how taking photos would be a return on investment and therefore it’s quite difficult for them get around that.”
Coles recently selected SKUvantage to update product images and data across the full range for its Grocery Home Shopping website.
Roberts said retailers such as Coles who take this step in providing such information allows them to be viewed as an authoritative figure.
“You want to make yourself the destination for information and if you can do that it will reduce your marketing cost because they know where to go and it will increase your conversation rate as they won’t need to go elsewhere,” he said.