Whether you work in retail or just have ample shopping experience under your belt, you know what both optimized and not-so-optimized shopping experiences look and feel like. Let's quickly paint two starkly contrasting pictures...
But do these sorts of seamless and struggle-city shopping experiences translate online?
Heck yeah, they do. And in an increasingly saturated ecommerce marketplace with decreasingly patient shoppers, it’s digital design, marketing, and merchandising that drive experience optimization and ultimately the success of your brand.
Definition: E-commerce Quick ViewsAn overlay window (aka lightbox or pop-up) that allows online shoppers to see more details about a particular project and add it to their cart – without having to navigate to the product detail page (PDP) Can be used in many different places and ways, but are commonly implemented on product listing pages (PLPs) or to make shoppable images. Benefits: Streamlined customer journey, shortened path to purchase, increased navigation ease, reduced bounces, increased AOV, increased product awareness & knowledge
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Just like merchandising any brick-and-mortar store – think perfectly spaced hangers, mannequins inspiring multi-item purchases, and easy-to-navigate aisles – there are a lot of ways to optimize the shopping experience online and turn browsers into buyers.
Enter quick views.
They’re one of many ecommerce merchandising tactics, but a true heavy hitter for brands wanting to facilitate a shortened path to purchase like that painless paint-buying errand and never play host to anything like that denim shopping disaster.
Take a look at a few examples...
The downside? These digital merchandising magic-makers are more labor-intensive than sliding a display rack into the paint aisle where any employee can restock as needed. Quick views require a combined effort from both technical and creative teams to build, manage, and get right – and "right" is not a one-size-fits-all...
Customization – that's how you get your quick views "right" for your brand, products, and customer base. Take some time to think through key considerations such as these:
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For which products & where |
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What product details to include |
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See how gymnastics apparel brand, GK Elite, decided on multiple quick view variations for different products based on strategic considerations.
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How to display product variants (ie colors, sizes) |
Additional product photos & format |
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What, if any, customer generated content to include (ie star rating) |
Whether to product bundling, show similar / related products & how |
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Whether to include a subscribe / recurring purchase option |
What to display / where to navigate after clicking add to cart |
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Mobile versus desktop variants |
Whether different products need different quick view formats |
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With logic, functionality, and strategy in mind, you're ready to dig into the creative details and get building...
If you practice the typical frontend-building method, then your division of tasks probably looks like the infographic pictured here.
But, what's not depicted?
The snail-like pace from ideation to live-on-site. The disjointed handoffs between teams with differing priorities and skillsets.
With your creative teams' hands tied and your busy frontend devs bearing much of the weight, a complex frontend project like product quick views may likely feel like a long and steep uphill battle.
Or maybe you’ve already crossed developer involvement off of your list. Perhaps you've got a quick view-building tool that provides some templates ready for drag-and-drop editing. Nice!
...But can your point solution supply the fine-tuned customizations you need to really cater to your products and shoppers? Can you morph their out-of-the-box templates into something that looks beautiful and feels aligned with your brand? And are your devs really, fully off the hook?
Building Any Frontend Experience – The Revolutionary Way:
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These were the visions upon which Fastr Frontend was created. And now, savvy digital brands and retailers lean on our powerful software to bring their own visions and site transformations to life.
Their digital experience-building process doesn't require developers nor creative compromises. For the creative teams (marketers, merchandisers, designers, etc.) behind these ecommerce brands, building quick views – or anything else for their frontend – looks like this:
New Fastr Frontend users don't face much of a learning curve. With a familiar UI, our Experience Canvas – where the design magic happens – is intuitive, collaborative, and stocked with all of the much-loved tools and widgets.
Users can design scratch-made content (as they would in Figma) or they can leverage Fastr Libraries & Design Templates. But these are nothing like the ones your point solutions offer; our templates are fully flexible and entirely editable with not a single rigid element to cramp your customization or style.
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Have a look at a variety of quick view design formats based on different key considerations and customization strategy
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Watch this short demo of Fastr Frontend's quick view templates and get a closer look at all design templates here
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But it doesn't end with design tools because it's not just wireframes getting drafted. With Fastr Frontend, the same teams doing the creative work can also – without any developer handoffs – own the tasks of populating, automating, orchestrating, implementing A/B tests, managing accessibility, SEO, and analytics, and finally: publishing.
No development needed for go-live, either. When an experience is designed, orchestrated, and ready to rock, Fastr Frontend automatically pumps out a line of code that users click to copy, paste into their CMS, and boom – done. Scheduling the content to go live in advance, edits and updates can all be done within Fastr Frontend, making content deployment a true no-brainer, one-time setup.
| Watch how Fastr Frontend makes it easy to populate frontend designs with product components | Get a glimpse of digital accessibility management made quick and easy by Fastr Frontend's Accessibility Panel |
Maybe we buried the lead here, but Fastr Frontend integrates with any and everything from ecommerce platforms to one-off point solutions, business analytics, to inventory data. Keep your Shopify, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Magento, or whatever else you're using. We just make it drastically better. Keep whatever tools you'd like from your (likely over-saturated) tech stack. We just know that once teams get their hands Fastr Frontend's vast capabilities, usually some major tech consolidation quickly follows.
| Watch how Fastr Frontend fuels easily-populated, dynamic shopping experiences | Get the scoop on Fastr Frontend's limitless integration power |
And hey, even with all Fastr Frontend users' next-level frontend capabilities and control, we’ve still got a team of commerce, tech, and design experts ready to assist with any project – be it one-off or ongoing. Our products and services are all about equipping teams to make frontend magic and unlocking their complete commerce genius – no holds barred.
Ready to dive into your quick-view creations? Have another project that's been on hold due to lack of development bandwidth? Maybe it's time to ditch antiquated frontend processes that are holding your brand back.
Contact our team, schedule a personalized demo, or complete the form below to take Fastr Frontend for free spin. We can't wait for you to see how true agility and flexibility will change your digital retail game.