Ecommerce is rapidly becoming the primary mode of purchase, and by the end of this year, it’s predicted that one in every five retail sales will be made online. Whereas in the past, people would trek to the local high street to spend the day visiting various shops, today, the first touchpoint a customer has with a business typically takes place digitally.
This is especially true of the travel industry, where consumers have switched from visiting travel agents on the high street to booking flights, hotels, holidays and travel ancillaries online. The great thing about an increasing appetite for online travel booking is that your airport can get in on the action too.
By creating a highly engaging ecommerce experience for your customers, you can level up your airport, compete with airlines and online travel agents, and unlock revenue growth from previously untapped sources.
To succeed, you need to focus on the fundamentals of a great ecommerce experience – design, functionality and support. Join us as we take it back to the basics and hone in on the key ecommerce principles your airport must deliver.
Mobile friendly / responsive design
Did you know that mobile has accounted for half of all website traffic globally since 2017? Statistics also show that consumers who have a negative experience on mobile are 62% less likely to purchase from a brand in the future. The lesson here? Your ecommerce website needs to be mobile-friendly and built with responsive design, which means it will adapt and optimise itself to best suit the device it’s accessed from.
For airports, there’s never been a more critical time to be responsive. The percentage of people booking travel products online via mobile has steadily increased year-on-year. In addition, 48% of consumers say they would happily book and plan a trip using their mobile devices alone.
Building a device-friendly ecommerce website is not only crucial to delivering a great customer experience (and boosting revenue) but also improving your airport’s SEO. In 2018, Google implemented mobile-first indexing, meaning its search algorithms prioritise mobile-friendly websites. So if your site isn’t mobile-friendly, it won’t rank well, meaning you’ll lose out on traffic and potential sales.
The good news is that Rezcomm’s flexible and fast-to-launch ecommerce marketplace for airports is 100% mobile-friendly, device responsive and optimised for search engines.
User-friendly shopping experience
To convert website traffic into airport ecommerce sales, you need to carefully consider your customer’s online shopping experience. A smooth, streamlined, user-friendly experience is vital in keeping customers engaged on your ecommerce website and geared up to spend money with your airport.
Branding
Firstly, your airport ecommerce website needs to have a strong brand identity. Visitors must be able to instantly recognise it as your brand to maintain trust and be willing to make a purchase. Using consistent colours, fonts, logos, and language is crucial.
The Rezcomm Marketing module benefits from a fully customisable ecommerce marketplace to match your airport’s existing website to ensure a seamless transition.
Search functionality & navigation
Secondly, your ecommerce website needs to be easy to navigate. Ensure visitors can search and access the products they’re looking for or the information they need in seconds. A strong and clear Call to Action with a visible button will remind customers what you want them to do and make reaching the checkout stage easier.
Personalisation
Improve your customers’ shopping experience with personalisation, such as suggesting other products they might be interested in or offering an upgrade. Rezcomm’s intuitive booking journey automatically works to upsell customers a better product, such as parking closer to the airport, or cross-sell a complementary product like airport lounge or fast track. Therefore, customers benefit from making all purchases in a single basket, and get to sign up to receive marketing communications from your airport at checkout, leading the customer into a loyalty loop.
Smooth checkout
You might be surprised to hear that a whopping 69.82% of online shopping carts are abandoned and some of the most common reasons for this are a lengthy checkout process and mandatory customer registration.
A quick, frictionless and logical checkout process will prevent cart abandonment. Make it easy for customers to complete their purchase, with the option to checkout as a guest. You can still ask for their marketing permission by ticking the box at checkout, or suggest registering for an account later, when you send customers a confirmation email.
Customer service
Even once you’ve optimised your ecommerce website with a mobile-friendly design and streamlined the shopping experience, there will still be times when customers need help with their purchases. For instance, if they can’t login to their customer account, find their confirmation email or want to make changes to their bookings. While providing a phone number or email address for your customer service team is a good start, today’s consumers aren’t always willing to wait for the answers they need.
Creating an informative and helpful FAQ page on your ecommerce website will support customers and answer many of their questions, taking some of the pressure off your customer service team. Rezcomm also has a centralised Manage My Booking module, which provides customers with a single location to manage all booking and reservations self-service style. Customers can see what they’ve purchased and (perhaps more importantly) what they haven’t, make any changes they need to their bookings and purchase additional products.
With instant access to the answers they need, customers are more likely to convert and enjoy a positive brand experience, which can lead to repeat purchases on your airport ecommerce website, improved loyalty and positive word-of-mouth marketing in the form of customer recommendations.
There will inevitably be times when your team requires tech support to maintain its ecommerce website. Passengers don’t fly 9am-5pm, so Rezcomm provides 24/7 multilingual support to all our airport partners to ensure you can continue delivering the best possible ecommerce experience to your customers, wherever your airport is, whenever you need it.
Discover new digital revenue opportunities
With Rezcomm’s plug-and-play marketplace, building an airport ecommerce experience your customers will love is easier than ever before. Plus with our cutting edge Ecommerce modules, you can sell more than just lounge and parking reservations to customers, expanding your retail, food and beverage markets beyond each physical outlet, and encouraging customers to start shopping before they even arrive at your airport.
There’s nothing stopping your airport from selling customers everything they need to enjoy the best possible travel experience, all in a single basket on your ecommerce website.
So what are you waiting for? Start selling online with our flexible and fast to launch ecommece platform. Download our brochure and book a meeting to launch ecommerce at your airport.
Orchestrating digital strategy, Victoria Wallace is Rezcomm’s Chief Digital Officer. With specialisations ranging from digital marketing and CRM to UX design and ecommerce, she is an expert in integrating innovation and technology to deliver outstanding results in sectors like travel, parking, and airports.
