6 Ways to Provide a 5-star Buyer Experience

Are you providing a 5-star buyer experience, or do you only think you are?

There’s a gap in customer experience, with 80% of business owners believing they deliver a superior buyer experience but only 8% of their customers agreeing. 

With customer expectations growing alongside your competition, how do you shine in such a crowded space?

The importance of a 5-star buyer experience

A 5-star buyer experience is much more than the shiny five-star review it generates (although that’s important too).

Every star-increase in a review also gets a 5-9% increase in revenue, thanks to:

• More conversions: Thanks to social proof, more reviews can mean more conversions from shoppers who were on the fence about purchasing from you.
• Higher customer retention: When you create a great experience, people come back for it, helping you extend your customer lifetime value. 
• Referrals: Dazzling your buyers means they’re more likely to tell their friends, or share it on social media. 
• Fewer complaints: Having a seamless buyer experience means giving customers no reason to complain, also freeing up your customer support agents to further enhance the buyer experience. 

But, perhaps most importantly of all, a 5-star buyer experience makes your Shopify store stand out from your competition, including online marketplaces and other Shopify sellers. And this is key to a successful business. 

You Might Also Like: How To Increase Sales Using Installments

6 ways to provide a 5-star buyer experience

Let's face it: there’s a lot of competition to stand out from. There are now 7.1 million online retailers globally, and that number is rapidly increasing alongside the move away from traditional retail. 

To provide a 5-star buyer experience, you need to do your homework and get savvy about speed.

1. Personalize their experience

Marketing emails addressed to your customers and filled with AI-driven product recommendations are great, but you need to go further than that to provide buyers with an unforgettable experience. 

Dynamic fast shipping ads

Tailor your Facebook, Instagram, and Google Shopping ads with dynamic 1-2 day delivery badges that use real-time inventory positioning to advertise fast shipping speeds to customers. 

VIP tier ranks

Personalize your VIP program to a customer’s spending habits, by creating tiers that reward customers for their loyalty.

Wishlist boards

Allow customers to create wishlists personalized to different occasions, people, or moods using wishlist boards, similar to Pinterest. 

2. Make it seamless to buy from you

Shopping is often a chore, and it’s your job to make that chore as enjoyable as possible. A seamless buyer experience has long been advertised as the way to achieve this. 

But to deliver a seamless 5-star buyer experience, you need more than a one-page checkout and customer accounts.

Social media purchasing

Create a Facebook Shop and Instagram Shopping tab to help customers find, browse, and buy your products without ever leaving the app. Even better, allow customers to log into your store with their social media accounts for fast checkout. 

Multi-channel selling

Implement a multi-channel sales strategy to allow customers to buy from you via online marketplaces when they want to. For example, when they have an eBay voucher or if they’re paying for Amazon Prime. 

A multichannel e-commerce strategy can be simplified with a multichannel fulfillment partner like Ware2Go. Their fulfillment software allows you to integrate all of your sales platforms with your fulfillment process and view all of their sales and delivery performance levels through a single platform.

3. Provide lightning-fast shipping

When the industry average shipping speed is 3-5 days, one quick way to deliver a 5-star buyer experience is quickly delivering your orders. 

2-day shipping

Use fast fulfillment processes to provide 2-day shipping across your store. Not only does this help your Shopify store compete with online marketplaces, but it also provides customers immediate gratification and pleasure. 

1-day shipping

Use a fulfillment partner’s network of warehouses to disperse stock across the country and offer customers 1-day shipping where possible. Even better, use dynamic shipping tags on your product pages to auto-calculate the fastest shipping speed depending on the customer’s zip code.

Shipping countdown timers

Use a fast shipping countdown timer on your product pages to show customers exactly how long they have left to order and receive an item in one or two days. This makes it easier for customers to make urgent purchases while making non-urgent purchases suddenly feel urgent.

4. Offer free delivery

Free delivery is still a customer favorite — it’s the most critical factor for 80% of shoppers. Therefore, it’s fundamental to a 5-star review.

But that doesn’t mean you must compromise on your lightning-fast shipping speeds. Instead, make free delivery affordable with minimum spend requirements, loyalty programs, and outsourced fulfillment.

Minimum spend requirements

Set a minimum spend requirement that triggers free expedited shipping while increasing average order value. 

Tiered VIP loyalty scheme

Remember the tiered VIP loyalty program we recommended? Add free shipping as one of the earnable perks (e.g., free 2-day shipping after your second purchase).

Outsource your fulfillment

Use an outsourced fulfillment partner with all-inclusive pricing to achieve fast shipping speeds in the most cost-effective way possible.

Tip: Use a fulfillment cost calculator to figure out how much shipping will cost, so you can build it into your base product prices instead.

5. Be proactive about your customer service

Bad customer service results in low reviews, but being proactive and acting quickly to repair relationships can salvage this.

Proactive eCommerce customer service involves reaching out and helping customers before they reach out to you. You can do this at various stages.

Pre-purchase

Set your live chat widget, email marketing, or push notification tool up to automatically offer customers help or advice after a certain amount of time browsing on your website. 

Delivery

Provide customers with tracking details to trace their order throughout the delivery. If you suspect delays, inform them immediately and compensate for any inconvenience. 

Post-purchase

Thank customers for their purchase and provide them with details about returns, product use, and joining your loyalty scheme. 

6. Showcase your 5-star reviews

Success breeds success. Customers rely on social proof to make shopping easier, looking for information on quality, information about sizing, reassurance about shipping, and encouragement to make a treat purchase. 

Showcase your 5-star reviews across your Shopify store using:

• Product reviews and star ratings on your listings. 
• Real-life questions and answers in your product details. 
• User-generated content from your social media channels. 

Wrapping it up

A 5-star buyer experience requires 5-star work, which means you must go above and beyond for your customers pre- and post-purchase. This includes personalization, fast shipping, customer service, ease, and customer reviews.