free delivery

10 loyalty-building strategies for customer retention

Ongoing profit from a customer’s lifetime value is generally much higher than any one single transaction. 

However in order to achieve higher customer lifetime values (CLV) you need to have some strong customer retention strategies.

If you do this, you’ll also find that it’s much cheaper to retain a loyal customer than it is to constantly acquire new ones. 82% of companies asked in our Cross Channel Marketing report agree that customer retention is cheaper than acquisition.

Customer retention is a must for any business where its goals are for long-term success. Here are some of the ways that you can achieve this.

How far will customers go to qualify for free shipping?

We’re well aware that free shipping can work well as a sales driver, but the extent to which shoppers will go to qualify is very interesting.

Stats from a UPS study show that 58% of customers have added extra items to their shopping basket in order to qualify for free delivery. 

So what does this mean for retailers, and how should they approach this issue? 

15 useful examples of how to shout about your free delivery service

Free delivery and returns are a major selling point for online retailers as it negates the problems that are inherent with buying something before you’ve tried it on.

As such if e-tailers offer this service they should make sure it’s prominently displayed on their site so that customers don’t have to double-check, which may cause them to hesitate and rethink their purchase.

But occasionally sites are coy about the fact that they offer free delivery, missing out on a valuable conversion tool.

A study published last year showed that delivery and returns achieve the lowest satisfaction scores when compared to other aspects of the ecommerce experience. 

Similarly, when asked what aspect of online shopping retailers wanted to improve, 58% chose free or discounted shipping.

Q&A: John Lewis on the ingredients of a successful multichannel retail strategy

As less forward-thinking retailers have gone under in the past couple of weeks, John Lewis has been a high street success story, thanks in no small part to its multichannel approach.

The retaier achieved a 44% increase in online sales over Christmas, so what lessons are there for other retailers? 

I’ve been asking John Lewis’ Head of Online Delivery and Customer Experience Sean O’Connor abut the secrets behind its success… 

14 reasons behind John Lewis’ 44% increase in online sales

It proved to be a fruitful Christmas for John Lewis, with like-for-like sales up 13% in the five weeks to December 29 compared to the same period in 2011.

And the news from its ecommerce store was even more impressive. Online sales grew almost three-times faster at 44.3% and now account for a quarter of all group sales.

In fact it reached more than £800m in annual sales through Johnlewis.com in December.

So how has John Lewis managed to pull off such a massive increase in online sales? Here’s a run down of some of the reasons behind its continued success…

Useful e-commerce trends: the promo strip

This post highlights a simple, useful feature that’s crept onto most of the UK’s largest e-commerce sites over the last couple of years, with no real coverage. 

“The promo strip” is not new, but has slowly caught on to the point it’s almost standard for high street retailers, yet still fairly rare on smaller sites. 

promo strip

It’s a very useful addition from both the customer perspective (quickly informative without being overbearing) and from the brand perspective (conversion orientated without being overbearing!). 

There are 12 examples below, including variations on the central idea.

Etailers offering more flexible delivery options – survey

More online retailers are now beginning to offer more flexibility in their delivery options, such as next-day and Saturday delivery.

According to the new E-commerce Retail Delivery Report from Snow Valley, 64% of the retailers studied provide choices for customers about when the delivery
would arrive.

However, a lot of online retailers still have some way to go to offer the kind of flexibility that online shoppers would like.

Free shipping works in emails: study

Offering free shipping in emails is a tactic which is increasingly used in marketing and rightly so, as in can result in higher transaction rates, according to a new study.

A US focused report (pdf) by Experian CheetahMail has looked at the trends and offers tips on using this offer effectively. Here are a few key takeaways from the study, as well as some useful observations on search trends… 

Shopping cart abandonment rates rise

Shopping cart abandonment rates for US online retailers have risen over the past 12 months, with 60% of US seeing abandonment rates of over 20%
this year.

This information comes from a survey by the etailing group, so why are so many customers abandoning the process, and what can they do about it?

Delivery costs sending bargain hunters offline

Cash-strapped shoppers are moving offline and shopping at discount stores like Primark and Matalan, mainly to save on delivery charges, according to a survey released this week.

Verdict Research’s e-Retail 2009 report predicts online retail growth of 13.3% this year, to £20.9bn, but also had some interesting stats about how the recession is affecting online shopping habits. 

Did free delivery work this Christmas?

More online retailers than ever chose to entice customers with free delivery offers over Christmas. It’s something that web shoppers have pointed to as a major factor in their purchase decisions.

Retailers who hadn’t previously done so, started offering it, while others like Amazon dropped their threshold for free delivery. We have previously advocated this as a sales driver, as well as being useful bait for marketing campaigns, so did it work for etailers in Xmas 2008?