As online commerce becomes more ubiquitous, geopolitical borders fade. Aside from an uptick in shipping, shopping with a company based down the street is functionally identical to shopping with one on the other side of the globe.
Or, as Harvard Business Review explained: “Business leaders are scrambling to adjust to a world few imagined possible just a year ago. The myth of a borderless world has come crashing down.”
Accordingly, emphasis on digital experience shouldn’t be a phenomenon specific to one country or part of the world. In Canada, a booming ecommerce sector indicates the need for refocusing on Digital Experience Intelligence (DXI):
According to The International Trade Administration, there were over 27 million Canadian ecommerce users in 2021, accounting for 72.5% of the Canadian population. That’s expected to grow to 77.6% by 2025.
According to Statistics Canada, ecommerce sales more than doubled in 2020—with a 110.8% increase compared to the previous year.
Digital Experience Intelligence is revolutionizing the global landscape of online retail. Keep reading for stories of how two Canadian retailers are reemphasizing their digital experiences, and what retailers of all sizes can learn from their approach to DXI.
How HBC's Saks Fifth Avenue uses DXI
About Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC)
As the oldest commercial corporation in North America, HBC has gone through many evolutions. Today, the company owns and operates one of the most respected luxury fashion brands in the United States (Saks Fifth Avenue) as well as the most beloved department store in Canada (Hudson’s Bay).
Before using FullStory
Prior to FullStory, Hudson’s Bay Company struggled to identify actionable digital experience insights efficiently. Technical complexities and over-burdened data teams made it difficult for product owners to quickly spot and address shopper frustrations and opportunities for improvement.
After onboarding FullStory
With FullStory, product owners at HBC can diagnose and prioritize issues based on real-time shopper interactions with the digital experience. For example, the team used FullStory’s DXI solution to better understand the customer journey, touchpoints, and friction on their current website. They used this data to identify opportunities and build a website that will be tailored to customer needs.
Their results:
1 Saks+ pilot program validated with FullStory insights
18 bugs identified and fixed in 3 months
3 site migrations kicked off using FullStory
What retailers can learn
Getting a thorough understanding of how shoppers filter and navigate through Session Replay is critical to improving user experience. When product, UX, and engineering teams can watch logged sessions, investigate Rage Click trends, and more, qualitative and quantitative data can be aligned for website and mobile app improvements.
With FullStory, the team is able to find and effectively fix any usability issues. From understanding how shoppers filter and navigate, to investigating dead click and Rage click trends, the team can confidently improve the user experience before moving into phase two of the pilot.
FullStory takes the guesswork out of customer experience issues.
Request a demo to start building a data-backed digital experience strategy today.
How Shoppers Drug Mart uses DXI
About Shoppers Drug Mart
The largest drug store retailer in Canada, Shoppers Drug Mart has been in business since 1962 and operates more than 1,300 storefronts throughout the country.
Before using FullStory
Because of certain regulations, a major sector of Shoppers’ business is conducted online-only, and requires users to complete a registration process to order prescriptions.
Before FullStory, Shoppers’ digital team knew that roughly 90% of users were abandoning the registration flow mid-login. They believed that this high rate was linked to issues with the proprietary login system used by Shoppers’ parent company, but were unable to offer evidence that this was the cause of customer confusion.
After onboarding FullStory
By using FullStory’s Digital Experience Intelligence solution, the digital team was able to use hundreds of session replays to validate their theory to leadership, and then used FullStory data to design a new login system that has reduced the funnel dropout rate by 45%.
Their results:
45% reduction in registration funnel drop-off
1+ week reduction in time to resolve support tickets
4 digital Shoppers teams using FullStory cross-functionally
According to Shoppers’ digital team, now it often takes less than five minutes to nail down bugs that would otherwise be totally unidentifiable.
Read Shoppers Drug Mart’s story here.
What retailers can learn
Useful, scalable conversion funnels are the backbone of a world-class ecommerce user experience. A DXI solution that allows product, UX, and engineering teams to scrutinize those funnels might be the cure to what ails your online retail checkout flow.
By identifying unknown variables, testing hypotheses, and measuring the impact of funnel optimization efforts—among other approaches for analyzing ecommerce funnels—retail teams can find, triage, and address areas of friction.
Equip your team with the insights they need to improve the digital customer experience.
Request a FullStory demo to get started.
