What Does Post-Purchase Mean? Breaking Down the Customer Experience
While ecommerce has existed for decades, the competitive landscape has evolved greatly over the years, making it increasingly imperative for ecommerce companies to differentiate themselves and attract customers. This has led many companies to devote resources to better understand their customers’ expectations and preferences, so they can provide a tailored, top-tier experience.
More specifically, many of these companies are discovering the opportunities to build more lasting relationships—and increase revenue—by implementing one or more post-purchase marketing strategies. But what does post-purchase marketing entail, exactly, and what are the keys to success? Keep reading for an overview of post-purchase marketing and some post-purchase experience examples that can inspire your own strategy.
What is the post-purchase stage of the ecommerce customer journey?
As you would expect, the post-purchase stage begins after the customer has finalized their payment. Here, it’s important to distinguish between the post-purchase stage and what we at Rokt call the Transaction Moment™. In short, the post-purchase stage is the final two (of four) stages of the broader Transaction Moment.
What is the Transaction Moment?
In ecommerce, the Transaction Moment includes the cart, payment, confirmation, and thank you pages of the customer journey. Within the Transaction Moment, the post-purchase process spans across the thank you and confirmation screens of each customer’s order.
Ultimately, each of these Transaction Moment and post-puchase stages—from cart through confirmation—provides companies with opportunities to deliver added value for customers, with the potential to increase ancillary revenue, as well.
For example, the cart and payment pages can deliver tailored recommendations for related purchases or alternative payment providers—while the thank you and confirmation screens similarly provide opportunities for up-sells, cross-sells, and even third-party (or non-endemic) offers.
Of course, simply pushing additional offers is not the point of post-purchase marketing. Instead, it requires these to be relevant offers, closely tailored to individual priorities and preferences. This is where many ecommerce companies struggle to capitalize on this potential for additional revenue: they either promote too many offers at once or they promote offers that don’t align with their preferences or expectations (eroding trust).
The key to success is to provide only a few–but highly–relevant offers to customers. In some cases, the best post-purchase experience is to receive no additional offer at all. The customer may have already seen an ad and own the product/service, or they’re simply not in the market for it.
What are the 3 post-purchase outcomes?
Broadly speaking, there are three main post-purchase outcome types for ecommerce customers: they’re either happy with their purchase, unhappy with their purchase, or simply content or satisfied with their purchase. Focusing on positive outcomes, though, there are three different outcomes that largely predict customers’ next actions:
- Expressing satisfaction: Especially within ecommerce, it’s difficult to overstate the importance of online reviews in attracting new business. By providing an efficient and easy end-to-end buying experience for their customers, ecommerce companies can help to ensure that customers have only positive experiences to review.
- Developing loyalty: When you consider how crowded and competitive the ecommerce landscape can be, it’s no wonder that customers can be fickle. They prefer to do business with companies that not only deliver excellent value for their money, but also understand their expectations and preferences and tailor their experiences accordingly. By optimizing the post-purchase experience, companies can increase the chances of creating loyal, repeat customers.
- Recommending the company: When customers are particularly impressed with their buying experience (including the post-purchase stages), they’re more likely to recommend your business to their friends, family, or colleagues—a form of promotion that doesn’t cost much but can deliver lasting results, bringing new business to the brand.
What is an example of a post-purchase evaluation?
There are several different forms of post-purchase evaluation, including product reviews, testimonials, and social media posts. Creating a positive buying experience means providing value at each touchpoint, across both the buying and post-purchase processes.
When evaluating your brand or its product/service offerings, different customers have different expectations and priorities. It follows, then, that the better you understand them, the better position you’ll be in to make a positive impression and gain trust.
Again, each touchpoint provides an opportunity to build positive and productive customer relationships. Even the post-purchase stage has an impact on customer satisfaction—something we’ll explore in the next section.
What is an example of a post-purchase process?
The post-purchase process includes the thank you and confirmation stages of the buying journey. While often overlooked, these stages provide key opportunities to build value and unlock an additional, ancillary revenue stream for ecommerce companies.
One of the most effective post-purchase strategies involves promoting relevant offers on the order confirmation or thank you page. If you’ve made many online purchases, you’ve almost certainly experienced this. For example, maybe you’ve purchased tickets for an event and been offered discounted parking or VIP access. Or, perhaps you were offered one month of a specific streaming service or similar subscription based on a purchase you made.
Today’s ecommerce customers increasingly encounter post-purchase offers on order confirmation or thank you pages, and brands should capitalize on the opportunity to increase revenue. When these offers are relevant and present significant value to the customer, they can foster post-purchase satisfaction (the opposite of post-purchase dissonance).
With Rokt, ecommerce companies can derive insights into their customers’ post-purchase behavior, using them to enhance the customer experience and increase their overall revenue. By leveraging Rokt’s innovative platform, brands don’t have to resort to guesswork or trial-and-error in how they approach post-purchase marketing—Rokt Ecommerce predicts which offers will be most likely to convert, based on each customer and transaction.
Discover Rokt Ecommerce
Visit our website to learn how Rokt Ecommerce enables brands to use AI and first-party data to predict which offers are most likely to convert customers on a 1:1 basis, elevating the post-purchase experience and unlocking additional, ancillary revenue. You can also read some customer stories, or reach out directly to chat with our experts.