Customer experience biggest differentiator in e-commerce

Customer experience, product range, delivery, payment and customer service are the top five things Indian digital commerce players should focus on to grow their business, according to a recent Gartner report.

The report identifies customer experience as the most important differentiator of a digital commerce service as price becomes transparent across sites. Providers that can design a compelling user interface, personalise landing pages, search results and product feeds based on the shopper's behaviour, and effectively engage shoppers to make them loyalty customers, will win over those that cannot.

When it comes to product range, the report says due to the nascent nature of India's digital commerce market, product range and choices are still quite limited even on major marketplaces. Providers will need to expand the product ranges to make the service attractive to shoppers through organic growth and partnership. It says focusing on a few categories, such as consumer electronics, fashion and grocery can also be the right strategy to deeply penetrate a product segment and become the go-to site for that category.