I was recently invited by SmartCompany, in partnership with Visa, to sit alongside two other Australian founders, Ariana Hendry of Beysis and Stephen Pastor of Kings of Neon, to talk about what it takes to build an online brand that customers trust and keep coming back to.
Three very different businesses, one shared belief: the brands that win online are the ones that obsess over the customer experience. Here is where I landed in that conversation.
Simplicity wins. A good e-commerce experience is really about simplicity. Less is more. When a customer is ready to buy a rare bottle or build out their cellar, the last thing they want is friction. One click to pay? Fantastic. Every step we remove is a step closer to a confident purchase.
Security is the experience, not a box to tick. Our customers trust us with their private information and their payment details, and that trust is mission critical. If we want people to come back, they need to know that everything we do is safe. It is why we use tools like Visa Click to Pay at checkout: it is fraud secure, it is fast, and it protects the customer without getting in their way.
We sell experiences, not just products. We learnt very early that selling premium wine and spirits is about the enjoyment and every part of the experience around the bottle. Last year a client purchased a highly collectable 1982 vintage. The sale did not end with the wine. It included a vineyard experience, a Michelin-star dinner and accommodation. That is the difference between a transaction and a memory, and it is the standard we hold ourselves to every day.
AI is the next frontier. AI-assisted shopping, through tools like ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity, is still a small share of purchases today, but it is growing quickly. Being visible and genuinely useful in that environment is fast becoming part of the fundamentals, and we are getting ahead of it now rather than waiting.
My thanks to SmartCompany and Visa for including United Cellars in this feature, and to Ariana and Stephen for a genuinely sharp conversation about where online retail is heading.
Read Full Article: https://www.smartcompany.com.au/partner-content/three-aussie-e-commerce-brands-on-standing-out-online/
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