How to optimise your digital shelf to increase sales on retail websites

How to optimise your digital shelf to increase sales on retail websites

We’re excited to partner with ISBA to develop the digital shelf guide, “The Power of Digital Shelf Optimisation: A Guide to Increasing Sales on Retail Websites”. Retail media is a hot topic at the moment but don’t overlook what is usually the biggest opportunity for maximising your sales via third party websites, optimising your digital shelf.

What is the digital shelf?

The digital shelf is a multitude of data points that allow businesses to understand the experience a shopper has when interacting with their products in an online retailer. In many ways the digital shelf is similar to bricks and mortar. For example:

• shield and store location are replaced by search priority
• the packaging and branding are replaced by images, video, and reviews

Why is the digital shelf important?

Due to the acceleration of ecommerce growth in recent years, more sophisticated brands are putting increasing resources in trying to win on third party websites versus their competitors. So, understanding the levers you need to focus on and optimise has never been more important.

However, there seems to be quite a gap between the opportunity and reality for many brands. For example, in a recent survey we conducted with ISBA members, only 20% of respondents believed their organisation’s leadership team fully understand what digital shelf is and the implications of ensuring the business performs well against the key metrics.¹

There are typically 3 pillars when measuring and optimising the digital shelf:

1. Availability
2. Search
3. Content

Statistics from Salsify, Edge Ascential, and DataImpact show that having an optimal digital shelf can drive significant improvement in sales.

Availability

• Brands experience up to 22% loss of weekly sales every day a SKU is out-of-stock.

Search ranking

• Improving your search ranking by just 10 spots can drive a sales increase of up to 21%.

Content quality

• 46% of British shoppers will abandon a product page if there’s not enough information or details provided.
• An accurate Product Detail Page (PDP) can result in a 31% weekly sales uplift for a content compliant product.
• Brands can experience a sales increase of up to 5% for 10 additional reviews and a 9% sales increase for a +0.5 star rating on their PDP’s.

How can I improve my digital shelf?

An easy way to improve your digital shelf is by working with 3^rd party vendors who have the knowledge and expertise in digital shelf. In our guide, “The Power of Digital Shelf Optimisation: A Guide to Increasing Sales on Retail Websites”, we go into more details about how 3^rd party vendors can help improve your digital shelf. You can also take a self-assessment to determine your digital shelf maturity to identify areas of opportunity for your business.

Request the guide or contact us to learn more.

1. Based on a poll conducted in May 2023.