Sephora is one company that truly understands how online consumers shop, and what is needed to take the consumer from brand awareness, through the conversion funnel to purchase, experience, and recommend. Here’s why Sephora will always have a share of my beauty product spending…
But first, a bit of backstory: I’ve followed Sephora since before it existed in Canada, when an in-store Sephora experience was a novelty reserved for trips down to Seattle. At that time, there was nothing similar to Sephora in Canada (or Vancouver, at least) which in explains the buzz generated when Sephora announced it was finally going to open a store in Vancouver. As part of the group of consumers that was excited about Sephora coming to Canada, you’d think that I would become a regular in-store shopper, right? Wrong. More of my Sephora purchases are done online than in-store, and I tend to spend more money when I shop online. So what is Sephora.com doing that has me hooked?
First of all, Sephora understands that beauty product purchases usually are not made on a whim; it takes time, and sometimes even research, to decide what to buy. To account for this, items that are added to the shopping cart remain there – even if it takes days to come back to it. Anyone that has ever spent time creating the perfect “shopping cart” only to have it all lost due to inactivity can relate to how important this is.
Secondly, the Sephora online shopping experience is superior in that hundreds of additional products can be found online, including bundled, limited time, products that offer exceptional value, such as this:
Third, Sephora offers a way for customers to make a “favourites” list, and share it with friends who might be into similar products. This is a great way to turn a solo online shopping experience into a social experience. And from a business perspective, increased consumer engagement is always a good thing.
And most importantly, given the individual nature of beauty products, the return policy is simply amazing.
All of these factors together make Sephora a “best in class” online retailer from my perspective. And the result: a repeat buyer that’s sure to sing the praises of the brand to anyone who’ll listen. This is the online conversion funnel at it’s best.