Did you hear? The ecommerce market for power tools, accessories, and home improvement equipment continues to boom following exponential growth during the pandemic. By 2028, this market is expected to grow at an 18.1% CAGR and that means brands all around the world are now facing stiffer competition and must move towards differentiating themselves from competitors if they wish to increase sales growth and stay ahead in the game. To help you accomplish this, we’ve compiled some helpful tips for you to consider, some of which involve making the purchasing of power tools and other DIY materials less complicated and overwhelming for potential customers.
1. Remove complexity from product information
Reducing complexity from product information is tip number 1 for how to improve your omnichannel selling for power tools and DIY. And it’s easy to understand why when complexity reduction aims at removing all unnecessary complex processes that hinder change, speed, growth, and increased costs for your business. For example – ever gone shopping for power tools that came with descriptions like Ryobi HJP-1270 with 1200w? Most customers won’t understand the relevance this information has to their problem. But imagine it said Ryobi HJP-1270 high-pressure washer with 1200w, available in black and green, and perfect for quick and effective household cleaning.
This type of clear and informative product information helps to simplify your strategy, organization, products, processes, and information about the technology you’re using, and furthermore, it forces you to rethink products and processes from a customer’s point of view, bringing in a combination of lean and agile product lines, simplified end-to-end processes, and a business-oriented portfolio. All of this ultimately enables your company to achieve faster growth. And did we mention that complexity reduction also goes beyond cost-cutting?
2. Use bundles for compatible accessories or parts
Now here’s the thing, some products just go well together, no matter what you’re selling. This could be because they’re used for similar purposes as part of an unofficial set or simply because they complement each other in some unique way. Some products are intended as accessories to another product and cannot even be used alone like a battery charger for a cordless drill, while others serve a more exclusive purpose. Brands that recognize the importance of providing customers with the right products and accessories on digital channels are seeing dramatic results. German-based power tools manufacturer, Einhell, saw their ecommerce sales grow 60% by leveraging a bundle configurator for the launch of a multi-use battery system.
For products that aren’t like the latter, grouping them in a bundle package is not only a good idea but smart too. Generally, customers shop in bulk, which is why creating product bundles makes sense. But for customers who arrive on your website with the intention of only buying one item, bundles compel and encourage those customers to divert away from their original plan and head towards a plan that’s more to your liking, which in turn, increases your AOV. If this strategy tickles your fancy, don’t forget to make it easier for customers to know what additional products they need by only surfacing compatible accessories to the forefront of your website’s options.
3. Leverage video and rich media to educate customers and provide guidance for what they’re intending to purchase.
Here’s another tip – Use video and rich media to educate your customers so that they know what they’re looking for and where to find it! Video, for example, is an increasingly popular tool to attract and retain new customers to your company or brand. Whether it’s for marketing or educational purposes, implementing video into your business strategy can be exceptionally beneficial to your business. Why? Because video or any rich media content provides easy-to-follow information that your customers actually want to consume while on their buyer’s journey. Buyers want a great customer experience to the point where they are willing to pay extra to get that. Video offers that. By offering them a great customer experience, you’re creating customer loyalty, which means customer returns, and of course, increased annual profits.
4. Support retailers by improving discovery of digital sales
The consumer of today is not limited by boundaries and is exposed to an overabundance of information across different forms of media, which means if you’re not one of those platforms or websites offering a smooth buyer’s process, you’re being left in the dust by those companies or brands that are. Because, like it or not, today’s consumers will leave your website in favor of websites that make their buyer’s journey easier. So what to do? The winning strategy — or rather, strategies, is first to be a better partner for your channel partners – you want to make your products the top in the category amongst competitors by providing the best discovery experience.
It’s also important to remember the omnichannel reality, where customers may do their research online and then go into a store. And then secondly, any retailer interested in this new generation of customers — is to have a strategy that is both digital and physical. But how easy (or difficult) is it for a brand to decode the deeply subjective experience of browsing through the aisles of a physical store and translate it online? It is this ability to reimagine physical experiences and incorporate them into the digital realm that retailers refer to as the product discovery experience, and it lies at the core of any successful ecommerce business. Here are a few ways to achieve this product discovery experience:
- Upgrade your search bar by using intelligent site search
- Optimize your home page
- Improve your navigation
- Understand your customer
- Enlist digital assistance by bringing in the right digital tools
Experiences like conversational assistants & configurators can be used online and in-store to make the buyer’s journey satisfying
Something that we’ve always said is, “If they can’t find it, they can’t buy it.” And we’ve said this for a reason. The experiences of a customer in-store, compared to their experiences in an online store, need to be the same, and how to make it so is rather straightforward. Leveraging digital commerce search enables customers to guide themselves through each product they’re considering, and it also helps them navigate their way through your website as easily as they would inside a physical store. With the right AI assistants added to your website, such as conversational assistants and configurators, to name a few, you’re setting your company or brand up for success.
Implement all the above with ease
Since its inception, Zoovu has been a pioneer in the competitive product search marketplace by providing AI-powered products that turn its customers into high-rising competitors for leaders in their respective fields. For example, Bosch Power Tools wanted to give their customers a better discovery experience – they found Zoovu.
With Zoovu, Bosch Power Tools would be able to:
- Enrich their over 35,000 SKUs and make their product content customer-centric and relatable
- Build discovery experiences to help combat choice paralysis when buying power tools
- Scale discovery experiences across channels, third-party sellers, regions, and languages
Now they’ve seen one of the first power tool brands to deliver experiences that help buyers find and customize their selected products.
If you’re looking for a platform that can do all that for you, try Zoovu today.