This year, the Magento eCommerce consumer preferences 2020 has been released with insights as to what people expect from an eCommerce website.Having looked at the insights, in this article, we’ll be looking at how you can foster customer loyalty, reward their loyalty to make them spend more, helping to improve orders on your website by rewarding your loyal customers.

54% shop more online with websites that offer a loyalty program with exclusive discounts, rising to 61% of frequent users

People will generally prefer to buy from a website they trust and familiar with, than sign up to a new website. Having a website that shows loyalty for shopping with them can help to drive repeat sales.

There are multiple ways that this has been put into effect, both online and in brick and mortar stores, for example, Amazon, every year, they have had a special Prime Deals day, exclusively for those who have an Amazon Prime membership and, for the past few years, it has been their most profitable day of the year, even beating out Black Friday.

Another example is Tesco supermarkets. Something they have done recently, both for their online shopping and when buying in-store is expand on the benefits of being a Clubcard member. They now have, on multiple items, two prices, the regular price and the price you will pay when you scan your Clubcard at checkout. This shows, as you are shopping the money you can be saving, as you go through the aisles, helping to push people to join.

Both of these examples can be replicated on an eCommerce website, for instance, Amazon Prime day, you can have special discounts for those that are registered/have an account on your website, providing the discounts for a limited time on certain days or weeks of the year.

For the Tesco discount, there are two ways that this can be done, the subtle way, which is to have on your website, something that says that get better prices when they create an account. There are then multiple ways to apply the discount such as showing alternate prices, automatically giving money off at checkout, discount code that only works for registered customers as well as others.

Or, you can take a more obvious approach, where you show two prices, the normal price and a second discounted ‘member’ price. This then shows how much customers can save by becoming a member.

All of this can then help to increase the number of people who are signed up to your mailing list and then tailor product suggestions based on their habits.

44% are more likely to shop more if the website is visually appealing

This point sounds simple enough on the surface, but is vastly more complicated when you actually get down to looking at what makes a visually appealing website. What makes a website look nice, is more than pretty pictures (though they can certainly help). A visually appealing website also will include the user experience (UX), how easy it is to navigate the website, they way different pages are laid out, like categories, products etc. Even how simple the checkout is to use.

If you need some examples of a visually appealing eCommerce website, take a look at some of [our previous work]. If you want more information, check out our [service page] or if you want to discuss [get in touch].

39% of frequent shoppers are more likely to shop more if the website shows them products based on their past purchase history

Have you ever noticed, that when you have browsed some products on Amazon (yes Amazon again, there is a reason they are so successful and big), that over the next couple of days, you will receive and email from them, suggesting products similar to the ones you have looked at?

This is because, as customers, we do not always buy when we first look at a product, in fact, it can take several searches and looking at various products before we make a purchase. With many products, because there is so much choice out there, both in terms of products that perform a similar task, and websites to purchase from, we tend to do some research before making a final decision, the bigger the purchase, the more research we do.

This can be used to your advantage, if the systems you use, tracks what your customers have looked at, you can send them follow up emails on similar products. This helps in multiple ways, firstly, it keeps both the product and your website in your customers mind. Secondly, you are being helpful by showing them other, similar and alternate products they may be interested in, making the customer aware that you have other, similar items they may be interested in, that they can find on your website.

This can also be used to tailor your home page for your customers, showing items they might be interested in, as opposed to what many websites do and simply having a static page, where everyone sees the same page regardless.