Kristen Kelly is the Senior Vice President of Product at Loop, a leading post-purchase platform that helps ecommerce brands streamline returns, exchanges and customer retention strategies. Kristen has 15 years of experience driving product innovation in e-commerce returns, leveraging AI and technology to streamline reverse logistics and enhance overall customer experience.
To increase your margins, take a proactive approach to the customer experience.
You can start by focusing on your pre-purchase journey, an area of customer experience that is often overlooked. By optimizing your customer’s experience before checkout, you’ll be able to deliver a superior brand experience that leads to more initial conversions, higher revenue retention, and increased customer loyalty.
Here are some tips for building a pre-purchase experience that boost confidence in both new and returning shoppers, and help you keep your margins strong.
Optimizing the Pre-Purchase Journey
To deliver a streamlined pre-purchase experience that keeps profitability high, you’ll need to focus on meeting your customers’ expectations around purchases and returns.
Shoppers won’t commit to a purchase in the first place if they have doubts about your delivery process. Chances are, you’re losing a lot of business due to shoppers’ anxieties: they might worry about when they’ll receive your item, and whether your return process is easy to manage.
Want to boost conversion and retention rates? Address these concerns upfront with features that give them more confidence in your brand.
1. Build in Safeguards for Shipping and Returns
During the checkout process, you can offer optional add-ons for a small upfront fee, such as Package Protection (which enables shoppers to get a full refund instantly if their item is damaged, lost or stolen), and an option to pay a small fee at checkout for access to a free and simple return later if they need it.
Fees collected from these services can go directly to your business’ bottom line, helping you control the costs of delivering high-quality post-purchase support and boost your cash buffer. More shoppers will purchase these protections than actually take advantage of them, so you’ll be able to shore up your cash reserves and offset the cost of these services.
2. Provide Delivery Estimates and Real-Time Order Tracking
Transparency around the delivery journey is crucial for converting more customers. Even before a customer adds an item to their shopping cart, they should have access to an estimated delivery date based on their zip code for any product you sell, giving them confidence that your brand will achieve on-time delivery.
Once they’ve made the purchase, keep them informed with real-time order tracking updates from order confirmation, all the way to “your package was delivered” with proactive updates if anything changes around their scheduled delivery. By linking your shoppers to a branded order tracking page on your site, you can showcase complementary products, and boost upsell revenue while they’re waiting for their order to arrive.
Giving customers clarity around their order process gets real results: Maude, an intimacy products brand, boosted their conversion rates by 20% after implementing estimated delivery times, and saw a 12% increase in add-to-cart upsells.
3. Streamline Returns and Exchanges
Did you know 77% of shoppers check out a brand’s returns policy before committing to making a purchase? If yours isn’t clear and easy, they’re likely to make their purchase somewhere else without a second thought.
Instead of losing those would-be shoppers, clearly communicate your return policy ahead of their purchase. Customers will have more confidence in their purchases and in your brand, and your CX team will thank you for the time they get back not responding to return policy questions. Bonus, you’ll see fewer policy abuses that can cut into your margins.
Bottom Line: How an Enhanced Pre-Purchase Journey Protects Margins
With rising economic pressures on today’s shoppers, they’re more skeptical when it comes to making purchases—and if they don’t feel confident in a brand, they’re less likely to hit checkout.
By exceeding their expectations with delivery transparency, purchase protection features, and seamless returns and exchange management, you can win over uncertain shoppers – and increase revenue generation and retention among your existing customers.
Focusing on attracting new shoppers without having a plan in place to retain them means that you’ll spend heavily on customer acquisition costs only to see your shoppers churn quickly, leaving you treading water. Instead, by prioritizing your pre-purchase journey, you’ll be able to boost conversion rates, generate additional revenue through package and return protection fees, curb returns policy abuse, and increase upsells and exchanges. By building trust in your brand at every turn, your shoppers are far more likely to buy from you again – leading to higher customer loyalty rates and lifetime customer value.
By identifying ways to both add and retain revenue through your customer interactions, you’ll be able to shore up your brand’s cash buffer to protect margins and fuel your future growth. With the right pre-purchase strategy in place, you’ll be prepared to build a sustainable brand that stands the test of time.
About Loop
Loop transforms returns into revenue for Shopify brands. As the industry’s most sophisticated end-to-end platform, we help 5,000+ leading brands convert refunds into exchanges and retain over $2.2B in revenue. Our AI-powered platform delivers automated workflows, instant exchanges, and real-time analytics that streamline operations while delighting customers. As a Shopify Premier Partner, Loop goes beyond traditional returns management to deliver value at every touchpoint—from pre-purchase optimization to post-purchase engagement and seamless resale solutions. Learn more.
Need a Reliable 3PL?
We’ve been in business for over 40 years. Let us know how we can help your company grow.
