Shopify highlights new products and features twice a year – and the Summer 2023 Shopify Editions is out! Last year we did a quick recap of what we thought was most interesting, how it might impact your business, and provided some suggested next steps merchants can take to implement the updates. You let us know you thought it was helpful, so we’re doing it again! Check out what’s new and awesome below. 

Think you’re saving money by deferring improvements to search on your eCommerce site? You might want to think again. While it’s been found that on average 5-15% of visitors to an eCommerce site use on-site search, that 15% of traffic can account for 45% of your revenue. 

How do you define your brand’s end-to-end customer experience? Does it cease after the purchase transaction goes through? Consider your own eCommerce shopping experiences – you’re really not done “shopping” until that package arrives at your doorstep. In fact, for leading DTC brands, the customer experience (CX) never stops. These brands strategically leverage ongoing opportunities for post-purchase customer engagement with their brands via lifestyle content, personalized recommendations, and more. 

Nearly half of shoppers in the U.S. buy multiple sizes of the same apparel item with the intent of returning the ones that don’t fit. That’s according to a survey that was conducted in the summer of 2019, before the pandemic. With the resultant surge in and broadening of online shopping since then, we can infer this practice has only increased. Which means more brands may be seeing narrower profit margins.

This blog is part of a series about how and why retail brands must “earn the customer” – their trust and loyalty – to remain competitive in a digital world. See other posts, including Earn the Customer with Unique Brand Content on Your eCommerce Site and Earn the Customer with Customer-Centric UX Design.

If your brand is committed to being customer-centric, then every interaction in the customer journey should merit close attention, including post-purchase experiences like returns. Although your gut reaction may be to focus on revenue-generating areas of your business versus profit-sucking returns, it might be time to take a different view (and tap a potentially lucrative upside). “Return” is not necessarily synonymous with “refund.” If you expand your definition to include exchanges and store credit and treat the return experience as a way to support customers, returns can actually be an opportunity to increase customer loyalty and lifetime value.

This year’s holiday season is going to look different from past seasons, with heavy emphasis on eCommerce versus in-store -- a potential win for tech-savvy DTC brands. Early reports indicate retailers are searching for creative ways to generate shopping excitement online beyond “hot” prices -- such as offering early start dates, exclusive products, personal shoppers, virtual reality, credit/payment plan options, social and gamified interactions, and more. 

A subscription program can be a powerful strategy to make your business more valuable to investors and help make it easier to raise funding. Subscription models bring in more reliable, longer-term revenue, and can flatten out seasonal spikes, making forecasting easier and more accurate. However, it’s not easy to do eCommerce subscription programs right – it’s a delicate dance to optimize retention, churn, customer acquisition costs, revenue per customer and other factors. 

This blog is part of a series about how and why retail brands must “earn the customer” – their trust and loyalty – to remain competitive in a digital world. See the first post on "Earn the Customer with Unique Brand Content on Your eCommerce Site".

Variety is the spice of life. Many eCommerce merchants take this sentiment to heart to keep their customers satisfied, offering multiple styles and features for the products in their stores. However, the different features or variants offered – colors, sizes, widths, etc. – can quickly add up and add unwanted complexity to the shopping experience.

The behavior shift to increased online shopping during the pandemic is no blip. Experts predict that even after life goes back to some sort of “normal,” more consumers will continue to shop online. COVID-19 has had some interesting effects on not only where consumers shop, but which brands they’re purchasing. For example, many consumers who switched brands due to product shortages or low availability may not switch back. This may come as a big shock to well-established, multi-channel brands that have historically benefitted from pre-pandemic shopping habits, relying on store chains and large online platforms to manage customer service and sell their products for them.