Discover the most effective strategy for competing with eCommerce giants like Clearly and 1800 and keeping your patients coming back.
Key Takeaways
- The big guys like Clearly and 1800 spend millions to be the top Google search results and to be top of mind when consumers need to buy
- Patients are loyal, but predictably pursue convenience over loyalty
- Clinics have the advantage of knowing what a patient will need and when; Otto helps utilize that advantage
- Otto enables clinics to be the "path of least resistance" for patients
- Clinics using Otto enjoy a 38% increase in contact lens sales on average
Understanding the dominance of eCommerce giants
In today's digital age, eCommerce giants like Clearly and 1800 have established their dominance in the eyecare world, becoming household names, ranking higher on search engines like Google and spending millions on advertisements to ensure that patients choose them as their destination for ordering and reordering contact lenses. Their extensive resources and strategic marketing efforts have made it challenging for independent eyecare providers to compete.
These eCommerce giants have successfully captured the attention and trust of patients, making it difficult for smaller webstores to gain visibility. Patients often turn to these well-known platforms first when searching for products, as they appear prominently in search results and offer a wide range of options. Simply putting up your own webstore is not enough to effectively compete with these giants.
Convenience is king
While providers can educate their patients about the eye health risks associated with buying from these online platforms, cost and convenience often drive consumer behaviour. If buying from their eyecare provider is more expensive or too burdensome, patients are more likely to go elsewhere. They'd prefer not to wait for business hours or talk to someone on the phone or give their payment details to a person, so they'll pursue the option that doesn't require that of them. Time and again, patients will take the path of least resistance. They want to be able to see their price, order, and pay on their own time.
Why putting up a webstore isn't enough to compete
Building your own webstore is a natural response for staying relevant in today's digital world and offering patients an outlet for round-the-clock service. And indeed, it is a step in the right direction. However, online stores demand immense resources to build, maintain, promote, and nurture. It requires time and effort to inform your patients about the webstore and to promote it more broadly; it is simply not the case that "if you build it, they will come." Ultimately, it relies on patients taking the initiative to determine that they're ready to order, find your webstore, and navigate through to checkout without interruption. The vast budgets and superior technical resources of the pure-play online incumbents like Clearly, 1800, and others give them specific advantages.
The challenges of competing with the eCommerce giants
eCommerce giants are spending million on ads, engraining their names in the memories of consumers to ensure that they are top of mind when a patient determines it's time to buy. Further, they invest immense resources to ensure that when the patient Googles "Acuvue Oasys" or "buy contacts online", they are the top results. And finally, in-house experts in user experience ensure that visitors get through these sites to make a purchase with as little friction as possible.
What's more, there is a commonly-held perception among consumers that eCommerce giants are always cheaper. However, in reality, most eyecare practices are competitively priced, and when patients buy directly from their provider, they can avoid shipping fees and take advantage of manufacturer rebates, resulting in overall cost savings. The main challenge lies in visibility - unless the patient is inside the clinic, they are unaware of the cost advantages available to them and merely act on their intuition that the go-to eCommerce outlets are going to give them the best deal and the least hassle.
As a result, providers need to find effective strategies to compete with these giants and keep their patients coming back. To effectively compete, you need to go beyond simply having a webstore. You need to find ways to engage with patients proactively, before Clearly or 1800 gets a chance to steal them away, and offer them a frictionless way to get what they need. This is where Otto comes in.
Utilizing targeted, timely outreach to prevent leakage
To keep patients coming back and to prevent them from leaking to eCommerce giants, it is crucial to engage with them proactively at their time of need. A proprietary survey of over 400 contact lens patients concluded that a simple refill reminder will make patients 35% more likely to repurchase from their provider rather than go elsewhere. Otto enables you to provide targeted and timely refill reminders, intelligently scheduled for just when patients are beginning to run out of their current supply of lenses or dry eye products. This proactive engagement helps preempt the step where they might otherwise go to Google or think "Clearly", and does not leave you sitting back and hoping that patients find their way through the SEO gauntlet to arrive at your webstore.
Similarly, automated, proactive engagement takes the onus of store staff and marketing managers to educate and inform patients about the existence of your webstore. They simply get the message right when they need it, and from there a personalized checkout flow makes it easier for them to order than it has ever been, even compared to the eCommerce giants.
Building customer loyalty through personalized experiences
Otto does not just help you send refill reminders. It also includes personalized links that allow patients to reorder their prescriptions with fewer clicks than was ever before possible. And since the eyecare provider retains full control over the prescription, concerns about eye health risks are eliminated. Meanwhile, your branding is on full display throughout the entire patient journey, so there is no confusion that they are buying from you, their trusted eyecare provider.
In conclusion, competing with eCommerce giants requires a strategic approach. Simply putting up a webstore isn't enough. By understanding the dominance of giants, overcoming the challenges they pose, and utilizing targeted outreach and personalized experiences, you can outsmart the giants and successfully compete in the online marketplace, fostering patient loyalty and ensuring that they come back to you, time and time again.
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