– Buy with Prime program by Amazon offers free 2-day shipping, free returns, and two-click checkout on any ecommerce website.
– It reduces the need for customers to comparison shop on Amazon and encourages more intent-based purchases.
– However, it limits post-purchase interactions and data collection for the ecommerce stores, requiring them to pivot and focus on collecting data upfront and creating a narrative about their brand to enhance the customer journey.The key action item is to collect customer data upfront before the purchase and focus on creating a narrative about your brand on your website to enhance the customer journey.Amazon’s Buy with Prime program is going to upend every e-commerce store and e-commerce generally. Because it’s all about the customer journey. Buy with Prime allows you to let people take advantage of Prime to order items on your website. It’s 2 clicks to checkout using their existing Amazon login. No discounts, no sales, just good old-fashioned high level of service. The current problem that a lot of stores face is their customers are leaving to see if their products are on Amazon and wind up comparing to other available products when they go to Amazon. From a customer journey perspective, I look to see if something is sold on Amazon even if I go to a DTC website. It’s also an easy place to search for a good to find similar goods for comparison to see if there’s something I might like better. It’s not about raw price, it’s about total price and ease of experience. It’s the customer journey we already take.
So Buy with Prime offers:
1. Free 2-day shipping
2. Free returns
3. Two-click checkout
On any e-commerce website.
1. Fewer people will comparison shop on Amazon
2. More people will purchase, taking advantage of a post-purchase process they already enjoy and are accustomed to
3. Price becomes less relevant, so more intent-based purchases
It’s the customer journey, it’s about ease of experience in ways that most stores can’t compete natively. Nearly all DTC websites have to require a minimum for free shipping and have to charge for returns, or else lose a lot of money. These two things greatly impact my willingness to purchase something from a store directly. I’ve also been trained to get things fast with 2-day shipping. I’m clicking on Buy with Prime every time to purchase unless there is some unreal deal for me not to or the order size large enough to use a coupon. Buy with Prime is set up on individual item purchases, it’s still in beta. With the majority of people’s first orders being one-off purchases for individual items, it will win a lot.
Now here’s the downside – when a transaction goes through Buy with Prime, you only get the order info when they transact. No more post-purchase surveys. No more cross-sells, upsells in cart. No more SMS collection during checkout. No more shipping experience. Attribution? Gone. The direct Amazon experience accounts for of 37.8% of all ecommerce in the US already. This only leaves customer experience generally. How well do you know your customers?
The pivot
-1. You need to collect data upfront before the purchase and currently that only happens at best for 50% of purchases and then the vast majority are only doing email and/or sms.
2. Your website truly should be come a narrative about your brand to help people with their journey, it switches to become an information gathering place that focuses on the customer.You can’t fight progress.#ecommerce #marketinghttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jivanco