While the retail e-commerce environment differs from shopping in-store or in-clinic, pet parents and their motivations haven’t changed. Whether we’re talking about the ‘shopper,' ‘consumer,’ or ‘customer,’ it might feel like you’ve lost the ability to influence their behavior in their shopping journey on platforms like Chewy or Amazon. This really shouldn’t be the case. After all, you’ve gathered decades of knowledge, informed by research about who pet parents are, their shopping behaviors, and expectations.
And how do brands differentiate and promote their products’ benefits when restricted to the uniform space dictated by the categorization of products to suit the search functionality of e-commerce platforms? And is the advice any better than that provided by a pet store and vet clinic staff?
There is an opportunity for brands to play a more active role with e-commerce retailers. Remember the days of category management, when brands partnered with retailers and worked together to meet the needs of the shopper?
If you think about how we shop for our groceries, we have become accustomed to seeing the same sections in the supermarket (like ‘Vegetables’, ‘Meat’ and ‘Frozen’), irrespective of which supermarket we go to. Supermarkets adopted this because it was consistently observed in shopper behavior.
In the examples below, the product is the same, but the color highlights numerous differences in the descriptions used:
And here is another example:
There’s a difference between using actual meat and a ‘flavor’ of meat and potentially misleading or confusing the shopper. It is probably unintentional and likely a result of e-commerce platforms’ requirements to support search functionality - but the responsibility to comply with labeling requirements lies with brands.
In the end, losing the consumer to another brand is your problem, not the retailer’s.
Your efforts and investments in driving traffic are just the beginning. What drives conversion is the shopper experience inside the specific e-retailer’s environment.
We have conducted a detailed pet category e-retailer environment study to help you improve conversion. Our methodology blends traditional mystery shopping with UX principles. It utilizes click-through patterns, cognitive load, and visual eye concepts, which are necessary to understand the shopper's journey in an online store.
Our comprehensive study will help you:
Please get in touch with us if you’d like to learn more.
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