Why You Need to Focus on Customer Experience, Not In-Store Traffic

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. - Oct. 13, 2017 - PRLog -- When you run a jewelry store website, you need to understand how customers understand and navigate through your site, and are given a seamless and enjoyable customer experience. Studying analytics and using A/B testing will help you learn what type of features help your site. Here are the reasons why you need to focus on customer experience, rather than in-store traffic.

Online vs In-Store Traffic
As the internet continues to advance with new web tools, it's becoming harder to distinguish between online and in-store traffic. The main difference is that online customers can come from anywhere at anytime, whereas in-store customers are limited by location, scheduling, and even transportation issues.

Forrester has projected that US cross-channel retail sales will reach $1.8 trillion by the end of 2017 (https://www.astutesolutions.com/blog/articles/the-changing-customer-experience-part-2-new-trends-in-retail). However, despite this massive growth in online sales, it has not spelled the end of brick-and-mortar establishments, and has rather served more as a complement.

A key difference has been in pricing, as ordering online often presents better deals. But the main difference has been the convenience for customers to explore an online store without ever leaving the comfort of their home. While a physical store can only display so many products, an online store does not have such limitations. An online store also allows for deeper product information, which helps SEO.

Improving the Customer Experience with Technology
If you measure the success of your business with an in-store head count, you may be overlooking the real prize of customer loyalty. This goal can be met by providing online tools that speed up the customer journey and answer questions quickly. Selection and pricing are two important variables that shape the customer's experience, as well as the aesthetic appeal of the brand or the products.

An effective solution for improving customer experience within the jewelry business, are applications that help the user customize and build their own jewelry pieces, such as rings or pendants, so that they can build jewelry that is exactly to their liking and is within their budget. GemFind offers tools such as the RingBuilder (https://www.gemfind.com/applications/ring-builder/), StudBuilder (https://www.gemfind.com/applications/stud-builder/), and PendantBuilder (https://www.gemfind.com/applications/pendant-builder/) to help improve customer experience JewelCloud, for example, connects you directly with vendors and customers. It gives you access to databases of suppliers so that customers can always choose from a wide selection and you're never out of stock.

Conclusion
Ultimately, if you focus on customer experience over in-store traffic, this will create a stronger brand loyalty, and generate more sales in the long-run.  Visit GemFind (http://www.gemfind.com) to learn more about tools that can help you provide a seamless and memorable experience for your customers.