Breaking Down Your Digital Shelf Strategy
Working in the retail media space, you’ve likely come across the term Digital Shelf. In case you may have not and are wondering ‘What is Digital Shelf?’, the Digital Shelf is the representation of your brand’s products on the internet. While sounding simple enough, truly optimizing your digital shelf can be surprisingly complex — and is increasingly vital in today’s e-commerce space.
After all, the evidence, both in the United States and around the globe, is that consumers love retail D2C shopping online. For success in this e-commerce economy, you’ll need to ensure your Digital Shelf both meets contemporary consumer expectations and has a strategy to compete with global competition.
That’s why Macarta is here to help you with digital shelf optimization! Our ultimate goal is to ensure that when consumers reach your digital shelf, their experience is:
- Informative
- Positive
- Likely to convert into a happy purchase
Meeting Current Consumer Needs
Numerous factors contribute to purchases in a brick-and-mortar setting. Each of the following can directly affect the likelihood of a consumer making a purchase:
- Staff friendliness
- Distance
- Less conscious things (such as store layout or scent)
That said, what is relevant for online shopping?
Consumers can’t physically interact with the product in an e-commerce marketplace. Instead, they have to explore its packaging visually, through a high-resolution image, and make an educated decision by consulting other sources. Data shows that e-commerce consumers do their own research before reaching a decision, including:
- Scouring reviews
- Looking at ratings
- Checking related products before reaching a decision
Key Factors that can make or break the performance of your Digital Shelf include:
- Detailed and up-to-date product information
- Competitive price
- Sufficient inventory
- Product images
- Audio/visual content
- Brand information
- Reviews
- Discounts and promotions
A great Digital Shelf template is the Product Detail Page (or, PDP) on Amazon. On these PDPs, brands provide an eye-catching title, 3 to 5 engaging product bullet points, up to six illustrative images, a video, and an extensive description. Additional content, such as Amazon’s A+, can also be leveraged to enrich the user experience and provide more detailed information.
Once your PDP has achieved Retail Readiness, meaning it has been optimized to comfortably meet all the above key performance metrics, then your products will be good to go into the e-commerce marketplace arena.
Cross-Platform Consistency
For brands, simultaneously one of the best opportunities and greatest challenges is bringing your retail-ready Digital Shelf to multiple marketplaces. With Harvard Business Review highlighting that 73% of consumers prefer to use multiple channels during the online shopping process, it isn’t enough for a brand to have just an official website. Offering consumers different channels to purchase is crucial, meaning a presence on the following is a necessity:
- Amazon
- Walmart
- Mercado Libre
- Others
Recognizing the importance of continuously optimizing, unifying, and improving your Digital Shelf across multiple e-commerce platforms is vital to succeed in today’s retail environment. It can be challenging to uphold a consistent strategy across diverse sales channels, but the rewards will make it all worth it.
Mastering the Digital Shelf
Truly mastering the Digital Shelf means standing out against competitors and offering users a worthwhile experience, all while maintaining the same level of quality across platforms. The trick here isn’t to just share your brand story and provide product specs; brands need to leverage high-end video content, unique and informative imagery, and copy that is both SEO-rich and engaging to consumers.
Brands will also need to manage negative factors that can hurt their Digital Shelf. Outdated details, poor-quality visuals, and a lack of inventory can cause massive harm to listings and, in some cases, permanently tank them.
Plus, this new generation of digital shoppers has different expectations from brands. To circumvent future hits to your Digital Shelf, here are some examples of things to keep in mind:
- Flexible payment options
- Complimentary shipping
- Simplified product exchanges and/or returns
Brands need to cover all bases to ensure that their digital shelf is fully optimized, ready to both attract potential customers and meet their needs at every stage of the funnel.
Next Steps
Having read this far, you understand that a high-end Digital Shelf is a necessity in today’s e-commerce environment. That’s why Macarta is uniquely positioned to transform your Digital Shelf to meet the current needs of marketplaces, and beyond.
Using advanced software to centralize your product content in one place, we monitor your brand presence across marketplaces, updating information, editing products, managing inventory, and more. Simultaneously, we are operating in tandem with:
- Distributors
- Retailers
- Clients
Effectively managing and maintaining the digital space can become a highly challenging task without the aid of suitable platforms. With new e-commerce marketplaces popping up every day, brands must understand the current state of play.
From our Denver-based headquarters, and with offices around the world, Macarta is a global full-service marketplace agency specializing in retail media to drive growth and sustained success for our brand partners. Reach out to us here, and let’s master your Digital Shelf together!