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Ecommerce success starts with customer trust

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Tim Carroll, Global Head of Marketing and E-Commerce at Digi-Key Electronics

In today's crowded digital marketplace, where customers have seemingly endless options for shopping online, eCommerce component distributors must find ways to stand out. Because customers have so many sites to choose from, Digi-Key chooses to focus its efforts on earning customer trust, making the customer experience as personalized, seamless, and easy as possible, and providing the level of detail each customer needs. you need as key differentiators.

Furthermore, in these challenging times where supply chain disruptions are common, it is of paramount importance that customers can not only get the products that are in stock, but also access all the information they need about the components. to make sure they get the right product the first time instead of wasting time returning and replacing products.

Trust is essential

Our e-commerce strategy begins even before we hit the digital platform: Digi-Key prioritizes making the shopping experience as seamless as possible for all customers, while providing access to the details customers need to make informed purchase decisions.

Loyal customers are earned by providing powerful search tools, accurate product data, leading inventory levels, and fast shipping.

At Digi-Key, we have a team of industry experts specializing in certain technologies who carefully examine the parts we offer to ensure they meet specific criteria for ease of use and long life. Based on these technologies, the team spends thousands of hours researching every single part available on our website, ensuring customers have access to verified product specifications, compliance details, and more.

In addition to earning customer trust, it is of the utmost importance to provide an effective user experience. With that in mind, we've designed our site specifically for engineers and procurement professionals to help them do business as quickly and easily as possible.

Advanced search features

What good is an eCommerce site if you really can't find what you're looking for? Searchability is key to providing an effective user experience and is something Digi-Key has invested heavily in.

There was a time when we had to mail physical catalogs that were sometimes several inches thick; they simply had to be to list the millions of products available and provide the essential specifications needed to make informed purchases.

Today, those catalogs are found online at the Digi-Key website, where thousands of users search for parts every day. With regard to the distribution of electronic components, there are many considerations that must be taken into account: engineers and procurement professionals need very detailed, specific and technical information about the parts they are purchasing.

We have continually improved our shopping experience to ensure that customers can easily find, research and order the components they need that meet their exact specifications, as seamlessly as possible.

An excellent example of this is our rich parametric search filters. For each product category on the Digi-Key website, we provide many different parameters that visitors can use to filter results in real time to find the exact part or parts they need. If desired, customers can even save search filters for the next time they visit the site, saving valuable energy and time by not having to re-enter various filter preferences.

We've also built robust features like cross-referencing that can identify similar products, and help users find all the other identical or similar parts they might want to consider.

Even small updates, like Elastic Search, which has type-ahead capabilities that provide instant recommendations on what parts a user may be looking for, can help make the shopping experience more streamlined and effective.

Personalized and localized experience

Because we do business with customers around the world, our e-commerce site must support multiple languages ​​and currencies, at a minimum. Comprehensive language and currency options allow customers to transact in their local currency, using their local language. We also provide local Customer Service and technical support in key areas to better serve customers who may need assistance.

We also spend a lot of time tailoring the online experience based on the customer's role, interests, and the level of detail they want to see to help ensure a positive user experience. Some users know exactly which parts they want to buy and even the exact product number, while others are still researching which components are best suited for their project. For example, we carefully designed the Digi-Key site to ensure that each user can access the level of information they need, without feeling overwhelmed, as well as enabling more complexity as their needs evolve.

Continuous improvement

In a dynamic marketplace, e-commerce strategies for electronic components are constantly improving and evolving: finding new ways to improve digital platforms and offerings is crucial.

Digi-Key aims to provide a user experience built on customer trust, and customers ultimately return to the site for every purchasing need, including research and sourcing.

Tim Carroll is the Global Head of Marketing and E-Commerce at Digi-Key Electronics. Digi-Key is the leader and continuing innovator in the high-service distribution of electronic components and automation products worldwide, supplying more than 12.6 million components from more than 2,000 quality brand name manufacturers.

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