How to Optimize Your Post-Checkout Tech Stack for Shopify

As rising acquisition costs and cut-throat competition continue to impact ecommerce brands, online retailers are under immense pressure to boost customer retention. 

Yet, long-lasting customer relationships have never been harder to build. They involve the careful management of each stage of the customer journey and establishing a continuous CX program.

But perhaps the most crucial step is deploying a high-impact tech stack at the post-checkout buying stage. Indeed, there’s tremendous opportunity in the stage after a customer makes a purchase to reduce friction and improve the overall buying journey. 

We understand that choosing the right tools can be overwhelming. This is why we’ve put together this guide for Shopify merchants to help you optimize your post-checkout tech stack so you can turn one-time shoppers into repeat customers. 

First, let’s take a look at why customer retention should be an integral focus for ecommerce brands, and how you can boost it.

The Quest to Keep Customers Engaged 

Consumer power is on the rise, and it’s weighing on marketers’ minds. Not only are you under more pressure than ever before to deliver personalized ecommerce experiences, but your margin for error has shrunk. In fact, data shows that 54% of consumers today say they would stop using a brand after just one bad experience.

At the same time, customer acquisition costs are rising rapidly and eating away at organizations’ sales goals. This means that the financial repercussions of losing a customer go far beyond just the loss of that one customer. It also accounts for the thousands of dollars spent on marketing, advertising, and sales initiatives to attract new shoppers. 

With this in mind, ecommerce businesses are striving to keep customers engaged from the moment they checkout. More specifically, they’re zeroing in on the order confirmation page as a pathway to strengthen customer relationships. This is, after all, a peak moment of engagement in the buying journey. Which means a huge opportunity exists to leverage it to perfect those memorable details that earn you a repeat purchase. 

Now to the tech stack to help you achieve this…

What to Include in Your Post-Checkout Tech Stack

When a software developer designs a program or application, they think about how quickly the end user will be able to see its value. It’s important to think similarly in ecommerce. Specifically, you must ask yourself: “How do we get a customer excited about making a repeat purchase?”

Thankfully, the 21st-century software boom has inspired new technologies that are transforming the ecommerce experience. In particular, new software applications for Shopify ecommerce merchants are revolutionizing the post-checkout shopping experience and enticing customers to come back for more. 

However, it can be difficult to know which apps to choose for your post-checkout tech stack. You want to utilize apps that ensure you’re engaging your customers at critical moments to help drive more purchases, AOV, and revenue. To help with these decisions, we’ve compiled a list of key components needed to ensure your Shopify brand’s post-checkout experience is second to none.

Loyalty and Referrals 

Customers will inevitably come and go. But maintaining a base of loyal customers that have an emotional connection to your brand is integral for success. Loyal customers not only engage more and spend more with your brand, but they have the power to help you gain more customers organically. 

This is why loyalty and referral programs are so valuable to the customer experience, and why Shopify brands are increasingly embedding rewards and referral programs into their order confirmation pages in particular. This way, you engage the customer with rewards right after the purchase, enticing them to purchase with you again. Today, these programs are helping the world’s fastest-growing ecommerce brands acquire new customers and boost customer lifetime value. 

Friendbuy can be an excellent addition to your post-checkout tech stack. Friendbuy helps you get more out of your customers with best-in-class referral and loyalty programs. You can integrate referral and loyalty throughout your customer journey, including a post-checkout overlay that displays on your order confirmation page,  to drive more awareness for your referral program. 

Intelligent Product Recommendations

Consumers today expect fully-tailored shopping experiences from the merchants they buy from. Our 2022 Holiday Shopping Report found that 79% of consumers say that personalized brand experiences, including personalized product recommendations, are an important component of their shopping experience. 

Indeed, ecommerce brands stand to massively benefit from delivering on their customers’ expectations for personalization. And post checkout product recommendations are a great way to achieve this. 

They make for a more convenient shopping experience for consumers by giving them immediate access to the options they want. (Or perhaps more accurately, options they didn’t know they wanted!) 

Meanwhile, they also empower brands to build more meaningful relationships and boost sales. In fact, Barilliance data shows that product recommendations account for 31% of e-commerce revenue. 

Rebuy is a great Shopify app to use for your post-checkout product recommendation solution. Rebuy’s technology helps you to capitalize on active attention and maximize high-intent moments with intelligent post-purchase experiences. With Rebuy, you can use the post-checkout space to incentivize additional action with personalized recommendations, highlight non-hero products, promote special offers, or even push overstocked items at a discount.

Shipment Tracking

Shipping has quickly become one of the most important parts of the post-purchase customer experience. In a landscape where more brands are starting to offer two-day shipping or even next-day delivery, customer loyalty is growing increasingly reliant on promises of a speedy and well-defined shipping experience. 

In other words, the shipping experience is now often the decisive factor when it comes to who a consumer chooses to buy from. This is why automated shipment tracking has become such a crucial component of your post-checkout tech stack. Now more than ever, consumers want instant access to the exact location of their package at any given moment, and details on when it will be in their hands. 

Aftership is a great shipment tracking solution. It allows customers to track their order on a branded tracking page while sending engaging updates via email and SMS from the time an order is shipped to the moment it is delivered.

Aftership’s shipping visibility feature also offers insightful tracking data in one place so businesses can resolve delivery incidents faster. By providing the latest carrier updates automatically instead of manually, customers are able to track their packages seamlessly.

And last but certainly not least…

Post Checkout Surveys

Did you know that post-purchase surveys enjoy a 50%+ response rate?

In-moment micro-surveys, which are surveys consisting of 1-3 questions, are an indispensable component of every post-checkout tech stack. They have the power to transform the way you collect zero-party data (ZPD), enabling you to create more personalized offerings in non-intrusive ways.

With Okendo Surveys, our simple yet powerful post-checkout micro-surveys deliver massive response rates and highly actionable customer insights. Deployed on the order confirmation page right after a customer completes their purchase, our NPS surveys enable you to learn more about what your customers liked (and disliked) about their online shopping experience. 

Moreover, brands can also set up marketing attribution surveys by asking newly won customers, “How did you hear about us?”. This empowers marketers to drill down into the performance of specific channels and campaigns using Question Logic and optimize their marketing spend accordingly.

Another way brands can utilize Surveys on the post-purchase page is to ask their customers about their buying behaviors, purchase intention, demographics, and preferences. These critical insights help brands take immediate action to create more personalized messaging and experiences that ultimately drive more engagement and revenue.

Turning One-Off Transactions into Lifelong Customers

A tremendous amount of value lies in the post-checkout stage of the buyer’s journey. As a result, it’s imperative that you know how to deliver a positive and personalized experience. In doing so, you can build those long-lasting, profitable customer relationships that every ecommerce brand strives for. 

But you’re not alone in this quest to turn one-time shoppers into lifelong customers. By arming yourself with the right tech stack, you’ll find you’re better equipped to optimize the post-checkout experience. Which, in turn, will enable you to meet your sales goals, hit KPIs, and improve customer lifetime value. So, are you ready to optimize your post-checkout tech stack?