Home > Tech > Expert Contributor

The $144 Billion Opportunity for Mexican Retailers

By Julio Velázquez - Google Cloud Mexico
Managing Director

STORY INLINE POST

Julio Velazquez By Julio Velazquez | Managing Director - Tue, 05/16/2023 - 15:00

share it

Mexican retailers are losing money. Annually, more than MX$2.6 trillion (US$144 billion) is the amount they let go when the function or search box of their online sites does not show the products that their consumers want to see, revealed a study commissioned by Google Cloud to Harris Poll.

In online sales, finding an object quickly or not is a determining factor for an e-commerce business to ensure conversions. Currently, consumers are looking for tools that facilitate their purchases, such as digital resources that allow them to find the items they’re looking for and with a wide variety of personalized options according to the taste of each buyer. The search function or the search box is one of the most used tools when looking for products on retail websites; its importance is such that 9 out of 10 buyers consider a good search function as essential when visiting retailers’ websites.

The research carried out by Harris Poll threw up information that could be a watershed for the future of companies focused on e-commerce: The lack of consistency in search experiences causes consumers to be less loyal to a brand, which results in lost sales opportunities and a negative shift in buyer sentiment associated with the website.

The behavior observed in the study indicates that almost half of the consumers in Mexico abandon their shopping cart and look elsewhere for the desired item, creating a domino effect for future occasions, since they will try to avoid the sites where they experienced search difficulties in the past, generating millions in losses for companies.

When the consumer bumps into unsuccessful search experiences, they think the brand needs to invest more in their website, as well as seeing it as disconnected from what customers want and seeing it as a brand that needs to update with current technology.

Fortunately for retailers, there are solutions for when their customers encounter failed search experiences. Offering some type of discount or sending an email with the information they requested can reverse the negative thinking and thus regain their loyalty, says the report.

Having a precise search bar allows positioning e-commerce as favorites among customers, which supports loyalty. Some retail organizations generated a digital transformation focused on profitability and improvement of the customer experience, through the creation of a modern internal data analysis platform that allows improving operational efficiency and identifying discrepancies in processes, which results in better productivity and response time of processes for users.

Today, there are digital commerce solutions that offer integrated omnichannel services, which include everything from product management, catalogs, shopping carts and unified payments, to operational and business information, providing consumers seamless shopping experiences, accompanied by enough options to satisfy all their specific needs.

In addition to easy navigation, consumers value how quickly a retail website loads and provides options. Customers spend an average of 25 minutes searching for a specific item on retail websites, after that time they often give up and look elsewhere.

There are also organizations that aim to provide shopping experiences for their customers, resulting in improved store operations and new ways to shop and interact with brands, building loyalty and longevity. A good online shopping experience favors customers and benefits the business. Suffice to say that 4 out of 5 Mexican consumers say they are more likely to make repeat visits to retailer sites that are easy to navigate compared to those that are not.

This also brings benefits to merchants, helping them to know their public better and, in this way, offer information and articles according to the specific preferences of each client. Now consumers can get all the insights they want, whenever they want, from their transactional, inventory, and subscription data.

For those organizations that are still debating whether or not to adopt new exploration and navigation technologies in their companies, it is worth remembering that they still have  time to make it possible and that the positive impact can be enormous. Because, the billion-dollar loss for some is an opportunity for others.

Long gone are the days of customers allowing mistakes from online stores. People now expect search engines to return valuable results and help them discover products of interest with personalized recommendations.

Boosting their e-commerce website has become a priority for retailers. The investment in the creation of digital stores brings the deployment of its full potential through the optimization of its tools, without neglecting good digital customer service, in the same way as would be expected in a physical location. As a result, people stay loyal and return to the websites of retailers who are dedicated to providing a good online browsing experience.

Updating and making use of all the resources that are available allows you to know, learn and grow at the same time. Those organizations that are willing to face the digital transformation and with it, improve their adaptability, will prosper in a world as competitive as the current one.

Photo by:   Julio Velázquez

You May Like

Most popular

Newsletter