Crowdtesting in the retail & e‑commerce industry
To succeed in a highly competitive market, it takes more than just putting a few products with inviting images in your online store. Customer-centricity becomes the decisive factor. And crowdtesting gives you the winning edge.
“In keeping with the motto „details matter“, it‘s often the little things that make the difference and even decide whether a repurchase happens. This is exactly why the Testbirds insights are so important to us.“
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”Together with Testbirds, the company worked on a Prototype Evaluation where the menu structure of their prototype was compared to the existing website structure. The ability to customise and the personal relationship are important factors in Beter Bed’s choice of Testbirds as a testing partner.”
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“Testbirds helps us deliver more customer-friendly websites and keep them customer-friendly (…) Testbirds offer their testing solutions with the same flexibility and agility, which made us decide to embed their testing services continuously into our development cycle.”
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Knowing what your diverse customers really want
Everyone’s online shopping journey is different. What’s perfect for one customer might not work for someone else. For every 5-star review, someone will throw in a 1-star. Was it because of a confusing interface? Did your landing page look dated? Was your online shop incompatible with their mobile device?
Understanding what is working and what isn’t is essential for keeping (happy) customers.
Show moreA customer’s journey with you doesn’t start and stop at the point of purchase. They saw an ad, or someone referred them, or your shop came out on top of a search. That was the first step on their journey. But their true experience starts once they visit your online shop or download your app.
This is when meeting diverse customer expectations becomes challenging – especially when each step could now be their last with you – but it’s possible.
Show lessCrowdtesting helps you understand their journey
Our customer journey testing is developed to provide a comprehensive look at what is working and what isn’t when it comes to your customers and the user-friendliness of your digital solution – throughout their entire journey with you, from landing on your site to paying at checkout.
For the long haul and specific events, such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, and everything in-between!
This includes developing use-cases that address specific scenarios, a range of open questions that can be answered as our crowdtesters go through your product, usability ratings, and more.
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Every aspect of your digital solution can then be tested to determine its usability, functionality, and compatibility. Can your customers seamlessly connect between your website, your mobile app, social channels, on any number of connected devices? Are there any potential issues at point-of-sale? How easily can they connect to your support services?
As your customers’ expectations continually evolve, ongoing testing can keep your products fresh and relevant – particularly when considering the many factors that influence your customers’ experience, from cultural, emotional, and socio-economic to more tangible factors including your product’s performance, accessibility, and localization.
Only then can you develop a truly seamless and consistent customer experience.
Show lessReplicating the customer experience
You don’t want your customers to stumble upon issues when they’re shopping. You want their shopping experience to be perfect from the moment they visit you, to be rewarding when they receive their purchase, and stress-free if they return any items. That means using unbiased testers, who stand in for your customers, to check all customer journey touchpoints. You’ll then have real customer feedback to fix any issues well before your actual customers shop with you.
This is what our crowdtesters have already done for our clients and what they can do for you.
With thousands of packages being sent out each week, our client wanted to benchmark their delivery service to see if there was room for improvement and to discover any delivery issues when they were entering a new market. To replicate their delivery capacity, we brought in 300 crowdtesters to order 600 products.
Not just from our client, but from one of their competitors.
Testers would receive information about what to order and would then answer several questions about the process. How long did the delivery take? How was the delivery service? Were all documents included? Was the packaging correct and what was their experience when unboxing their purchase? Every aspect of the purchase – from finding the product to receiving a refund when returning it – was tested.
Our crowdtesters’ customer feedback clearly highlighted areas that needed work, such as on average their competitors’ products arrived in three days and theirs in four. A clear area for improvement.
Being able to process so many orders in such a brief time was a clear benefit.
For many customers there’s something special about opening a package. It’s all part of the experience that started with their initial purchase. In addition to the overall user experience of their online shop, our client wanted to better understand if the ‘unboxing’ of their products truly met the expectations of their customers.
As a provider of high-end luxury goods, they didn’t want their customers to be let down as they opened their delivery.
But to get this information, they needed unbiased feedback.
Our hand-picked crowdtesters were then brought in to provide a comprehensive quality assurance check on the entire ordering process but with a specific focus on unpacking their purchase.
Based on their comprehensive notes, our client could clearly see where, and why, improvements were needed to meet high expectations.
Too often the entire customer experience is hidden from retailers. Our client, Munich-based KELLER, wanted to ensure that they fully understood their customer’s shopping experience.
Especially after an order was made, so they create unique digital experiences derived from data-based insights.
Our crowdtesters, who exactly fit KELLER’s target group profile, were then brought on board to conduct a Customer Journey Test. During their time on KELLER’s sites, each tester was monitored with Remote Usability Videos to directly record what they did and hear what they had to say about each step as they did it.
Testers were also asked to note what they did ‘after’ the purchase. Did they regularly check their order history or perhaps look at competitor’s stores?
When the order finally arrived, what was that experience? Was there enough communication to the point it was delivered?
How did they feel when unboxing their purchase? As part of the overall test, products were then returned. How did it go, were there any issues regarding refunds?
In a second round, further qualitative feedback on brand perception was obtained through in-depth interviews. For KELLER, the testing revealed in detail what their customers experienced along every touchpoint with their brand. The results also helped KELLER to enrich their personas with more characteristics in order to better serve the needs of their end customers in the further development of their stores.
How to deeply understand your customers
Scalable capacity: It’s all in the delivery
With thousands of packages being sent out each week, our client wanted to benchmark their delivery service to see if there was room for improvement and to discover any delivery issues when they were entering a new market. To replicate their delivery capacity, we brought in 300 crowdtesters to order 600 products.
Not just from our client, but from one of their competitors.Not just from our client, but from one of their competitors.
Testers would receive information about what to order and would then answer several questions about the process. How long did the delivery take? How was the delivery service? Were all documents included? Was the packaging correct and what was their experience when unboxing their purchase? Every aspect of the purchase – from finding the product to receiving a refund when returning it – was tested.
Our crowdtesters’ customer feedback clearly highlighted areas that needed work, such as on average their competitors’ products arrived in three days and theirs in four. A clear area for improvement.
Being able to process so many orders in such a brief time was a clear benefit.
Show lessUnboxing excitement: Avoiding Pandora’s box
For many customers there’s something special about opening a package. It’s all part of the experience that started with their initial purchase. In addition to the overall user experience of their online shop, our client wanted to better understand if the ‘unboxing’ of their products truly met the expectations of their customers.
As a provider of high-end luxury goods, they didn’t want their customers to be let down as they opened their delivery.
But to get this information, they needed unbiased feedback.But to get this information, they needed unbiased feedback.
Our hand-picked crowdtesters were then brought in to provide a comprehensive quality assurance check on the entire ordering process but with a specific focus on unpacking their purchase.
Based on their comprehensive notes, our client could clearly see where, and why, improvements were needed to meet high expectations.
Show lessOnline shopping experience: Making the black box transparent
Too often the entire customer experience is hidden from retailers. Our client, Munich-based KELLER, wanted to ensure that they fully understood their customer’s shopping experience.
Especially after an order was made, so they create unique digital experiences derived from data-based insights.
Our crowdtesters were then brought on board to conduct a Customer Journey Test.Our crowdtesters, who exactly fit KELLER’s target group profile, were then brought on board to conduct a Customer Journey Test. During their time on KELLER’s sites, each tester was monitored with Remote Usability Videos to directly record what they did and hear what they had to say about each step as they did it.
Testers were also asked to note what they did ‘after’ the purchase. Did they regularly check their order history or perhaps look at competitor’s stores?
When the order finally arrived, what was that experience? Was there enough communication to the point it was delivered?
How did they feel when unboxing their purchase? As part of the overall test, products were then returned. How did it go, were there any issues regarding refunds?
In a second round, further qualitative feedback on brand perception was obtained through in-depth interviews. For KELLER, the testing revealed in detail what their customers experienced along every touchpoint with their brand. The results also helped KELLER to enrich their personas with more characteristics in order to better serve the needs of their end customers in the further development of their stores.
Show lessUnderstand your customers with crowdtesting
With our hand-picked crowdtesters conducting customer journey testing, you’ll receive real feedback from people who closely resemble or already are your actual customers. It’s the ideal way to understand their expectations and whether your digital solutions are meeting them.
Our range of flexible and fully customizable customer journey testing services can help you to stay ahead of the competition and create digital solutions your customers will love. Keep customers happy, boost conversion rates, increase revenue, and cost-effectively optimize your online shop to gain and retain customers.
Check out the latest trends and challenges in retail and e-commerce.
We provide you with the latest insights from the world of crowdtesting
Stop guessing if your product meets the expectations of your users and start making decisions based on facts.
Do you have questions about testing in the retail and e‑commerce industry?
Want to know how we can help make your digital products even better? Just send us a message, one of our solution consultants will be happy to get in touch with you.
Three hands-on examples
Real user testing and mystery shopping
We make customer-centricity more than just a phrase. Whether you want to introduce a new referral program, a customer loyalty program, or check your delivery process after your customers hit the “Buy now” button, what you need is more than just a gut feeling of what your customers expect. You need direct feedback from your target group on processes and programs.
Does it work? Does the UX and UI represent what we want them to represent? Do our customers like what we plan to offer? Our testers have the answers to those questions.
We can also send them on cross-channel mystery shopping tours to give you unbiased and direct feedback on the experience online and offline. Our testers can complete a standard purchase, ask product-related questions, make a complaint, and more. Afterwards, you get direct feedback on your processes online and offline, as well as recommendations for areas of improvement.
Guidance services
Augmented reality is not just a buzzword that should be dropped from time to time. AR has already been spreading throughout the retail and e-commerce market for quite some time. Imagine the value you bring to your customers when they can try on clothes, shoes, or make-up virtually, while browsing through your online store. Or think about concepts where virtual reality and AI lead customers through the real-world aisles while checking their shopping list and helping them find everything they need. That would make life much easier for them and give you a huge competitive advantage, right?
Of course, it’s difficult to establish what customers really need and expect and what can be discarded as mainly a gimmick that most customers can do without. The easiest way to find out, again, is to ask your target group and receive immediate feedback. Regardless if it’s just an initial concept, a prototype, or already a fully developed product, crowdtesting will provide you with valuable insights on both UX and QA.
Perfect experiences all over the world
Imagine you have different brands and want to showcase them on websites all over the world. That can quickly become a huge project for your developers and designers. That’s why you should make sure that the website is perfectly suited to the needs of the different regions – it’s not only language and grammar that play an important role. The requirements for features and designs can vary significantly from region to region. That’s why it’s so important to test your websites with local users. That way you have the chance to check translations, but also to see if the UI is suitable for the intended market. Make sure your website’s or product’s look and feel meets the needs of the regional target audience to ensure a successful launch.
No matter if your target group are young female fashion lovers or male tech enthusiasts, we have your target group ready to give unbiased feedback for your digital product. Start making decisions based on facts and feedback from your exact target group and not just on gut feeling.
The biggest “pains” in the retail & e‑commerce industry
New technologies and digitalization bring new opportunities, but also new challenges, for the e-commerce and retail industry. Customers expect the same experience both offline in the shops and online in your e-commerce store. However, just snapping a few photos and bringing your product range online isn’t enough. You need to think customer-centrically and adopt a “digital-first” mindset. Addressing the emotional side of your customers’ shopping experience is decisive and digital journeys, together with curated marketplaces, should be at the top of your list.
In the retail and e-commerce sector especially, competition is huge. Big players like Amazon have perfected their online experience, starting from their product range, through pricing, and ending with delivery. But it’s more than just big players that are shaping the market. More and more smaller pure online retailers are entering the race and taking the wheel.
Although digitalization comes with completely new opportunities to enter new markets around the world, implementation is also a topic with many challenges. Markets around the globe can differ extremely when it comes to customer demands, as well as other circumstances like network speeds. Finding a new logistics provider that can ensure perfect delivery in your desired market can be a neverending story in itself. And that’s only a small piece of the many things you need to consider.
