The visual generation & the ecommerce revolution

You might have a great website, selling great products, but if you don’t have a compelling visual experience online, you might soon be struggling to keep up with your competitors.

Visual innovation

According to Kissmetrics, 93 percent of consumers place visual appearance above all other factors when shopping online. So how does this affect online retailers? Well, the same as product placement and store layout does in bricks-and-mortar stores. As always, it is a case of fight or flight for retailers, with global competition and technological changes confirming the need for visual innovation on eCommerce sites.

Emotional connection

It seems that online retailers sometimes forget that people have always communicated in a visual manner, dating as far back as the days of prehistoric cave painting.

Nowadays, we connect emotionally to images more than video, audio or text. People make decisions and take action quicker when prompted by images, rather than by reading a lot of text. According to Hubspot, 90 percent of the information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text.

So why is there a need for a visual revolution? It’s simple. eCommerce sites are yet to perfect the art of visual display as well as physical stores have, and now there is a generation demanding it.

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Visual revolution

The demographic ranging from ages 18-34, are the driving force behind the visual revolution that is and must take place in eCommerce. This key demographic is part of a new ‘visual generation’ that is driven even more so than the generations before them by visual imagery.

We all know how the saying goes: a picture is worth a thousand words. This could not be truer in today’s society where images have become even more popular reinforced by the ability to take and share photos with smartphone cameras. WeSEE report that 40 percent of consumers aged 35 and under have used their mobile devices to take photographs of products in-store that they wish to purchase later on. Why wouldn’t online retailers quickly encourage and even influence this behavior?

The visual generation readily adopt new shopping technologies but they are hungry for more to further enable their online and mobile shopping. Research confirms that at least 40 percent of young consumers expect a richer visual experience while shopping online. These shoppers are not only more visual in their web usage, but it is a part of their inherent nature to share their shopping and purchasing ideas with friends, hence the demand for greater visual technologies in eCommerce.

Visual technologies

If you want to make your site more appealing to shoppers, the time is now to put your visual foot first. Here are some technologies that allow online retailers to engage and delight the visual generation.

Interactive display’s such as Show. See. Sold.powered by thereitis, help shoppers browse an entire collection finding items that catch their eye, while increasing time on site, conversion and average spend for online stores. Online shoppers can spin, zoom and click through items delivering a more immersive interactive experience.

Zoom technologies like Magic Toolbox allow online retailers to showcase their products up-close in stunning detail, providing a rich visual experience for site visitors that is second only to physically viewing the product.

With Visual Shopping Engine’s like PicCommerce, customers can visually search online stores by color and shape, meaning that shoppers can enjoy a shopping experience closer to the sophisticated outfit matching and color coordination experiences that happen when shopping in the real world.

Now over to you. What will you be doing to target the visual generation? Leave us a comment and let us know your thoughts.

About the author

Shaylee Rogers is the Marketing Coordinator for thereitis Show. See. Sold.Interactive Display for Shopify. Learn more about Interactive Display at www.showseesold.com