Ecommerce Personalities: Get to Know Your Customers and Prospects! (PART TWO)

As an e-tailer, it is important to know the behaviour of your prospects and customers in order to offer them the most relevant offers.

For this, Content Square, who specialise in customer experience optimization, has spent the last few months investigating ecommerce personalities and have now come up with 16 representative online shopper behaviours. This is the ultimate opportunity for you get to better know and understand your customers, especially as 80 out of every 100 internet users correspond to at least one of these profiles.

The impulsive Shopper: 12% of purchasers

Closely linked to the expert shopper’s profile, impulsive individuals also get straight to the point. The only difference is that they don’t need to visit a site twice to be decisive. Determined to make a purchase, they look at 6 pages instead of the average shopper’s 20 pages, and take as little as 10 minutes before finalising their transaction, versus the average 28 minutes.

Tip: Your website should be as clear as possible to allow the impulsive shopper to have all the information they need on their first visit to your online store. This is why you need to make better use of your call to action buttons and shopping cart options.

The Strayed Shopper: 12% of Internet users

Those who stumble accidentally across your online store, usually spend up to 20 seconds on the first page of the site before realising the content does not match their expectations. This causes a high bounce rate for the site and very few sales. 

Tip: Rework your SEOs to make sure only qualified leads come to your site from search engines.

The Disgruntled Shopper: 11% of Internauts

The disgruntled shopper tends to pay your site a fleeting visit, without finding the information he seeks. As the content does not entice them enough to even start the purchase journey, their session doesn’t usually exceed 2 minutes.

Tip: Make sure your offer is presented in the clearest possible way to ensure even the most impatient shopper can easily find what they are looking for.

The Nervous Shopper: 11% of Online Shoppers

Naturally anxious, the nervous shopper typically needs to inspect various reassurance elements the website has to offer and is likely to look at the terms and conditions. They consult 30 pages in comparison to the average 7 visited by other internet shoppers and take 2 times longer over their purchase. However, once reassured, they don’t hesitate to complete their purchase.

Tip: Be as transparent as possible and provide as much information at the beginning of the purchasing process. It is a good idea to offer a range of different payment methods, so that the nervous shopper is more likely to find a method they feel comfortable with. 

The Connected Shopper: 9% of users

The connected shopper feels comfortable using a range of mobile devices to browse sites and make purchases. They will generally view more than 3 times as many pages via mobile devices than the average online shopper.

Tip: Customise your online store for mobile to ensure browsing on mobile devices is optimised.

The Novice Shopper: 9% of users

Whether they are new internet users or just a new visitor to your site, the novice seems hesitant while browsing. During the first visit to a website site they are in the discovery phase, maximising their interactions.

Tip: Enjoy the novice’s interactions with your online store and use it to retrieve information about them which will help them to discover your offer.

The Frustrated Shopper: 6% of Online Shoppers

The frustrated shopper is unable to find what they are looking for during their visit and it annoys them. They therefore tend to only stay 7 minutes on the site and click up to 16 times, compared to the average 6.

Tip: Optimise your store’s search to allow frustrated shoppers to find what they are looking for more easily and quickly.

The Ambassador: 0.5% of Internet users

A rare species, the ambassador is nevertheless an invaluable customer for merchants. They interact with the store’s online content on a daily basis: sharing or liking product pages, give product rankings and review products… they believe in the brand and inform those around them.

Tip: It is important to identify your website’s potential ambassadors to create real spokespeople for your brand.

Note: Two month study (June and July 2015) from 15 pre-defined criteria; studied over 100 ecommerce sites in 11 countries over 6 sectors.