The importance of offering value (not just products) to your customers

One of our customers (Head of CX in brand apparel) recently shared this statistic with me: 50% of customers come to your website because they already know what they want to purchase, and 50% of others come to get inspired.
Social media success (Instagram, Pinterest, and, more recently, Tik Tok) has set the path. Being inspired is now a must-have, and shoppers will be engaged with brands they share values and inspiration with. Engagement is the new loyalty. This is what TikTok marketing-based company Revolution Beauty Digital Director, Sally Minto, perfectly described in a recent conversation.

To inspire and engage your customers, there is nothing more effective than offering services before (only) selling products. Everybody appreciates a personalized and insightful experience. There is no better feeling than buying the right product(s) for your needs.

How can you offer value to your customers? Here are 5 great examples from our customers at Akeneo.

From the now classic Usage Finder… with a focus on education

To ease the product research process, you can offer the relevant filters on your website to make the search experience easier and the process more visually appealing.

Below is a great example from one of our customers, Made.com: when you buy a sofa or any piece of large furniture, the most important first step is to ensure that you find one that will fit into your room. The Sofasizer enables you to drag to the maximum size allowed by your space and instantaneously display only the relevant sofas.
You’ll be more willing to buy when you save time and are sure the products you’re browsing are the right size for your space.

And if you need help on what to pay attention to when you buy a specific piece of furniture, Made.com has prepared some Guides for every important product category. They guide you with measurements and questions to ask before buying a product. Once you know what to look for, the brand suggests the most appropriate shopping list.

Educating your clients is one of the best ways to increase customer loyalty and retention. It gives them a feeling of being cared for and supports their informed decisions. Additionally, it allows you to stay up-to-date on the latest trends in your industry so you can offer them the best service possible.

It is even more true when it comes to the Cosmetics and Food Industries - people really want to be aware of what they eat and use for their skin.
Belco is a coffee sourcer that sells directly to coffee roasters and upholds sustainable, environmentally-friendly coffee culture, showcasing its extensive farming know-how and land identity.

Their enhanced filtering capabilities allow their B2B users to filter based on the aromatic family of the coffee you’re looking for (floral, fruity, malty, milky, roasty, spicy, etc.), certification or origin, and each matching coffee is introduced with the farmer, and producer who cultivates it. This transparent process helps customers learn about their coffee beans' history and source, humanizing everyone in the process and making it easy for Belco to communicate and share their values with their shoppers.

To the Emotional Finders…

Whether you’re building a product recommendation quiz or a virtual consultation for consumers to find their right style or fit, quizzes help brands engage with their target audience in more meaningful ways.

Through a well thought-out series of questions, brands can improve their retargeting and personalization strategies to acquire new customers and keep every visitor returning for content and products relevant to their needs.

And remember, quizzes aren’t just fun for your customers; they help provide valuable information for brands, making the shopping experience at your eCommerce store, on your App, or in store, better for the customer—while increasing your sales.

Let’s start with the Beauty industry. Sephora offers a quiz to find the perfect product for the lips. From the type of lipstick finish to the benefits and the composition of the makeup to the kind of brand (“hot” vs “best sellers”), you’ll get a selection of products that match 100% with your desired product. This reconciles both the usage and the inspiration and is a near-guarantee to selling a product.

And the more expensive and important the product, the more customers will want to be sure of their investment.
Beds are a good example as you don’t change them every month. This quiz from a US-based company, Sleep Number, takes care of several people’s considerations (you and your partner) to suggest the best mattress.

And this is not relevant for human needs only! All pet owners want to offer the best for their loyal companions. This is why Royal Canin wants to ensure every pet gets the food he or she deserves.

The quiz delivers a personalized outcome to the user, making the entire shopping experience engaging and fruitful. You can then go on to link the recommended products to your website and complete the sales cycle.

Remember, the primary goal behind the best product recommendations should always be to provide the best value to the customers.

Ready to offer the best product experience to your customers?

Wait a minute! Even if that kind of service can look easy to deliver, this requires that every single product you sell has a high quality of product information so that every single piece of data can be used as a filter, a tag, a possible answer to a quiz question, and can then be displayed as a possible result.
And this is possible only when you get a mix of the right people involved, the right optimized processes, and the right dedicated tools to support your product experience strategy. A user-friendly PIM, like Akeneo PIM, empowers every stakeholder to collaborate around the product information to ensure that the (e)merchandising team can easily offer the best product experience thanks to accurate information enriched by the product or marketing teams.

Now you know how to delight the 50% of customers coming to get inspired!