Brands are seeing the power of connecting with their customers in meaningful ways.
Powerful storytelling ignites imagination and inspiration. Brands are seeing the value in providing magazines, lookbooks, videos, guides, and digital experiences that inspire purchase when showcasing their products in beautiful lifestyle content. Customers are constantly being inundated with advertisements demanding their attention to buy their products. In an era of brimming commercialism, consumers are desiring to make more conscious purchasing decisions.
Shoppable content has become another form of storytelling, and consumers are now favoring it over ads. What is shoppable content and how does it add value? Shoppable content is any digital content including shoppable images, shoppable video, shoppable magazines, and user-generated content (and the likes) that enable products to be viewed and added to their carts directly from the content. Brands are using shoppable content to tell stories and engage with their customers in a more meaningful way.
In a Content Preferences survey, the results showed that 91% of buyers prefer interactive content over traditional ones. Brands are looking for more ways to enhance the way they interact with their customers. Retailers are seeing how user-generated content has become a successful channel for online sales. According to Instagram “More than 130 Million shoppers tap to reveal products in images every month” It’s clear there’s a growing Instagram and Facebook user-base, and now brands are reaping the profit gains from social media channels.
Wordstream shared, “Instagram and its parent company, Facebook are the kings of social shopping in 2019. For example, 60% of Instagram users say they find new products to buy on the app, and 26% of people actually go to Facebook looking for things to buy. That’s why we’ll be focusing on how you can use these two social apps for social commerce right now.” Consumers are not only turning to social media for inspiration, but are definitely being influenced enough to the purchasing stage. According to Olapic, “90% of those using earned content “are seeing measurably positive results from their campaigns.”
With the rise of visual shopping on social media, and climbing customer expectations, brands must find more ways to not only make their content more shoppable, but also more engaging outside of these platforms in order to remain competitive. In fact, according to Forbes, “Customers Who Have Excellent Experiences With Brands Spend 140% more”
Reducing the number of steps in the path to purchase, simplifies the shopping process and enhances the experience for the shopper.
Shoppable content shortens the path to purchase, allows for easy product viewing and adding to cart and is trackable via analytics reports.
How do shoppable images and shoppable video optimize a website’s experience?
Stunning lifestyle imagery, and less text has proven to enhance the experience for customers and increase conversion rates. We’ve already started seeing this trend on the gallery layouts of instagram and instagram shopping. In fact, “Visual information gets to the brain 60,000 times faster than text, and 90 percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual.”
The right shoppable content solution, however, allows users to minimize details that aren’t relevant to them and magnify product imagery along with their details that appeal to them. It should be a tap-to-view-more browsing experience that prevents the text from overpowering the viewing experience.
The easier it is to find what they want, and the less friction they experience, the more willing consumers are to buy and spend more each time they interact with the site. Shoppable content reduces the number of steps to make a purchase and ultimately enhances the user-experience for the consumer.
How do brands create engaging shoppable content experiences for their customers?
Brilliant examples of shoppable content:
VIDEO and TCOMMERCE:
Video is a rising form of shoppable content that brands are acknowledging as key to remaining competitive. Consumers are 27 times more likely to click on a video ad than a traditional banner ad. “According to Think With Google, 68% of YouTube users watch YouTube to help make a purchase decision.” Videos alone are not enough, they need to be truly engaging, interactive, and shoppable. Video monetization provides a better customer experience and has proven to increase revenue for retailers.
Ted Baker gives a thrilling example of a creative shoppable video. The brand launched their keeping up with the bakers campaign. The video series is an interactive shopping experience where consumers get to explore through the house and view all the products highlighted in the video.
LANDING PAGES:
Eddie Bauer’s Come out and play campaign is an excellent example of an engaging shoppable landing page. The landing page comes to life with video plays and a navigational journey with prints and quotes guiding the user throughout the landing page. It feels more explorative and the product descriptions are not overpowering the navigational experience. It has mini looped videos of a jacket demonstrations for different climates. Visitors get to hover over products and learn more, and see the products in action without having to read a lot of text about the product’s features and benefits. It’s a more visually appealing experience that inspires and delights the end-user while engaging with the product content.
MAGAZINES:
The high-end fashion retailer, Net-a-porter launched a magazine which featured editorial pieces discussing fashion and interviews with well-known celebrities. What’s interesting about Net-a-porter is how they’ve paved the way for blurring the lines between catalog and magazines. Nordstrom featured items in Vogue as a catalog, but this is unique in that it is a magazine with exclusively Net-a-porter’s items by Net-a-porter. Luxury fashion retailers are seeing the value in providing thought pieces to complement the items they’re showcasing in their magazine. With fashion constantly evolving, fashion-forward consumers are looking to stay abreast with the latest trends in fashion. The magazine launch was announced in the Wallstreet Journal stating, “The print version gives only the barest hint that it’s “shoppable”: a notation on the cover that it’s “Powered by Net-A-Porter” and a small line at the bottom of pages throughout the magazine that advises readers to “Shop Porter with the Net-A-Porter app.” There are no barcodes to scan.” What could make this experience even more seamless, however, is if it had a scan and shop capability to allow magazine viewers to scan and shop the products featured in the magazine.
SHOPPABLE IMAGES:
Inside the White House Black Market catalog, consumers are given a catalog with eye-catching, high-resolution images that reveal even the most granular jewelry, fabric and stitching details. Consumers get to interact with inspiring outfits and explore various accessories to complete fashionable ensembles. The catalog itself has barely any text and the product images and lifestyle imagery are the forefront of the experience. The experience is not only aesthetically appealing, but functional. From a single tap to view on a product, it shows product information while giving end-users the ability to hide the details when navigating through the catalog. It’s a sleek and seamless shopping experience allowing consumers to see product information when they want it and hide it when they don’t.
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