Since the COVID 19 period, French e-commerce has been booming, with market share continuing to grow.
According to FEVAD
by 2023, the e-commerce sector will have total sales of 159.9 billion euros, up 10.5% on the previous year.
This increase in online orders can become difficult for retailers to manage if they are not prepared for this new way of consuming. Orders are increasing, but so are returns!
So how can you reduce these returns while maximizing the effectiveness of your product sheets?
To counter this phenomenon, discover our 4 tips for optimizing your product sheets and effectively reducing returns.
Tip 1: Enrich your data
It’s essential to provide your customers with all the information they need about your products to avoid unwanted returns. For example, a customer who wishes to buy specific food products, but discovers on receipt that crucial details such as ingredients or nutritional values are not specified. This can be a major disincentive for the customer, and he will certainly return the package to you.
Correctly enriching and categorizing your products is therefore essential to prevent such situations. Make sure that all essential information, such as composition, allergens, nutritional values, best-before date and origin, is included. Make sure you avoid duplication, maintain linguistic consistency and classify your products in the right categories. This diligence will contribute to reduce unwanted returnsimprove the customer experience and build trust in your brand.
What’s more, prioritizing your products has a number of advantages. Firstly, it allows you to
optimize your inventory
by identifying which products are in greatest demand and which are selling more slowly, thus helping to reduce costs linked to overstocking or stock-outs. By understanding which products are included in the “top sellers”, you can adjust your stock levels to meet demand and avoid surpluses or shortages.
What’s more, this knowledge enables you to better manage your sales by focusing on the most popular products and adjusting your marketing strategy accordingly. By identifying products with high sales potential, you can maximize your sales by featuring these items in your promotional campaigns and presenting them attractively on your website.
Effective prioritization also facilitates delivery management by helping you to plan shipments according to forecast demand for each product, helping to optimize your sales by avoiding stock-outs and minimizing the costs associated with inefficient inventory management.
This synchronization of supply and demand helps reduce operating costs, improve supply chain efficiency and guarantee an optimal customer experience.
Tip 2: Add visual aids
It’s crucial to ensure that each product is well represented visually, so as to offer a complete view of its use and features in various working contexts.
For example, when a customer is looking to buy tools or equipment for their business, they want to see not only the technical specifications of the product, but also how it can be used effectively in day-to-day operations. This involves showing products in action and in typical work scenarios.
Visual media, such as demonstration videos, high-resolution images and user guides, play an essential role in this process. A well-crafted video can dynamically present a product’s features, performance and practical use in a variety of tasks.
What’s more, it reinforces confidence in product quality and helps reduce purchasing errors and unnecessary returns.
What’s more, this attention to visual detail also has a significant impact on your supply chain. By providing comprehensive information and visual demonstrations of each product, retailers can reduce unnecessary returns and optimize logistics processes. A better understanding of products by customers enables optimal decision-making, which translates into more accurate ordering and more efficient inventory management throughout your supply chain.
Tip 3: Offer alternatives
In today’s context of exploding online ordering, anticipating customer orders is an essential practice. Even before a purchase is finalized, customers often have a clear idea of what they’re looking for. This is why ordering suggestions play a crucial role in positively influencing their purchasing decisions. When a customer is browsing your page, the presentation of products similar or complementary to the one they initially selected can be very beneficial.
By offering customers these alternatives, you provide them with additional options that they can add to their shopping cart, which can lead to a larger sale. This proactive approach contributes to maximize sales and respond effectively to customer needs and preferences.
In addition, the
sales forecasting
plays a crucial role in the efficient management of inventory and sales operations. Using historical data and market trends, you can anticipate future demand and adjust supply accordingly.
In-depth analysis of sales data enables us to identify peak periods and seasonal fluctuations, thus optimizing product availability and avoiding overstocking or out-of-stock situations. This accurate sales forecast also enables resources and production capacities to be planned, helping to reduce operating costs and maximize supply chain efficiency.
Tip 4: Highlight customer feedback
Displaying customer feedback on your website has several advantages. Firstly, it reinforces potential customers’ confidence in product quality and brand reliability. By showing authentic feedback from other buyers, you establish credibility that can encourage new customers to make a purchase on your website.
Secondly, reviews help customers make decisions about purchasing the product they want. This makes it possible to considerably reduce the risk of return and dissatisfaction on their part.
Finally, by offering a platform for customer feedback, you show that you value customer feedback and are open to continuous improvement of your products and services, which can foster long-term customer loyalty.
Conclusion
Maximizing the effectiveness of product data sheets to reduce returns has become an imperative in the current context of e-commerce growth. The rise in online purchases is inevitably accompanied by an increase in product returns, which represents a major challenge for retailers.
By providing detailed information, adding visual aids and offering alternatives, retailers can improve the customer experience and reduce the costs associated with returns.
