We all like having choices. And that’s no different when you shop online. An online storefront naturally has more selection than a traditional bricks and mortar establishment. That’s the promise of the long tail of eCommerce and the simple, pragmatic reality of limited space.
So being online means you should provide your customers with more selection. Being online also means you should provide your customers with a positive user experience, critical to their satisfaction and to you driving incremental revenue.
Say you sell clothing. You will certainly sell the same type of product, say a jacket, but in different sizes and colors. How do you present that product in way that is easy for your customers to view and select, without forcing them to scroll and scroll and…you get the idea…through multiple images? How do you make is easy for them to do what matters to you the most – make that purchase?
Enter Product Variants, which is defined as a group of identical products that only differ by specific attributes, of which the most common are size, colour, material, pattern, and price. A jacket in 3 sizes and 4 colors may have a total of 12 variants.
Let’s go back to our clothing store analogy. Instead of having to add multiple products to your store for each jacket color or size, you can offer all the multiple product options from a single product in your store.
What your site looks like without Product Variants:
And what your site would look like with product variants:
Product Variants Can Help Your eCommerce Business
Two ways product variants can help improve your online presence are through increased clickthru rates and enhanced user experience.
- Increased Clickthrus – customers looking for a specific item (say a brown jacket) might not find it in the search results unless you use product variants. Onsite search is often an overlooked aspect of site design, but an essential contributor to online conversion.
- Enhanced User Experience – without product variants, your customers would not be able to click on a product and look through the variants to make a customized purchase. Instead they may be forced to scroll through countless product images. If you don’t provide your customers with a simple way to select the right product (variant) you are providing them with a reason to go shop elsewhere.
Let’s Recap
Product Variants make it easier for you to maintain your online catalog and easier for your customers to select the right product and make the purchase.
- Your customers expect an easy-to-navigate, organized eCommerce experience. Product Variants make it easier for customers to navigate your store by combining products with multiple options and choices.
- Product complexity is not your customers’ problem. Product Variants allow you to simplify what can often be a complex inventory. In other words, you can present complexity in a simple, easy-to-view online inventory.
- They say variety is the spice of life. When it comes to your eCommerce presence it certainly broadens product appeal for your customers and increases satisfaction rates.
About commercebuild
commercebuild is the missing piece in transforming your ERP data into a truly personalized eCommerce experience. Flexible and frictionless, our turnkey eCommerce solution delivers 24/7 revenue opportunities to you and your customers. Quick to deploy and easy-to-use, we eliminate the need for middleware between the storefront and ERP data to enable seamless online buying and selling.
Our solutions can be live in 30-days and offer complete eCommerce capabilities at a price B2B and B2C businesses can afford.
Drive revenue growth for you, and your customers, while enjoying rapid ROI for both. Go head-to-head with the online retail giants of the world, and win. Experience a solution that integrates with your ERP data and provides automagical cross-sell and upsell opportunities to every customer on your site.
At the height of ecommerce growth, commercebuild offers scalable, reliable, and robust eCommerce solutions for everyone.
Want to give your customers the power of choice with product variants? Book a demo with us, we’d love to help!
If your business is using Sage 300, Sage X3 or Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central ERPs, commercebuild can build a ERP-driven B2B and B2C eCommerce webstore or Customer Portal.