Looking for a way to elevate the ecommerce experience for shoppers and your team? The answer may not be as complicated as you think.
QR Codes have become one of the most powerful tools for businesses, helping shoppers navigate the ecommerce customer journey more easily and streamlining operations, such as payment management, for internal teams. These innovative solutions bridge the gap between physical and digital touchpoints, enabling seamless transitions between both worlds.
Best of all? They’re easy to implement, and you can generate them in a matter of minutes with a reliable QR Code generator.
In this post, we look at QR Codes in ecommerce businesses, exploring how they’re reshaping the shopping experience and how to use them in your store.
Note: The brands and examples discussed below were found during our online research for this article.
How QR Codes are changing the shopping experience
While initially developed to streamline inventory parts tracking, Quick Response Codes (or QR Codes) have morphed into one of the most versatile solutions in ecommerce. With a quick scan, they unlock a wide range of digital destinations—from comprehensive product details to post-purchase solutions like returns pages—improving the entire shopping experience.
Let’s look at a few of the ways this innovative technology is changing ecommerce:
Bridging online and offline shopping seamlessly
QR Codes are making the transition between offline and online experiences effortless. When added to physical materials like product packaging, in-store signage, billboards, and printed materials, they provide instant access to product pages on ecommerce sites, facilitating seamless online shopping.
With the demand for “phygital” (physical + digital) experiences growing since the pandemic, QR Codes have become the unsung heroes for brands looking to meet modern consumers’ expectations. They essentially allow customers to interact with physical items and complete their purchases online.
This is convenient and good business, as it can reduce the number of reps needed in brick-and-mortar stores. It also converts physical interactions into trackable digital journeys, potentially helping you better understand your customers, as you can track QR Codes’ scan activity to see which products your target audience is most interested in.
Making payments fast and contactless
With 82% of millennials and 85% of Gen Zs preferring contactless payments to cash, QR Codes have also made their way into the checkout process. Businesses use QR Codes for in-store payments by linking them to checkout pages via URL that feature service options like PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, or local banking solutions.
Using QR Codes for payment software provides a seamless checkout experience for shoppers by eliminating the need to type in lengthy card details, carry physical cash (or cards), or manually navigate to your checkout page. With Bitly Codes, for example, you can instantly connect customers to secure, dynamic payment confirmation pages via URL, facilitating quick checkouts.
Simplifying post-purchase journeys
QR Codes don’t stop being useful after closing sales. Ecommerce businesses use them post-purchase to direct shoppers to pages where they can track their orders, register products for warranties, access product tutorials, provide feedback, sign up for customer loyalty programs, or even process order returns. This reduces friction for shoppers, which could contribute to brand loyalty.
Other brands, such as IKEA, have found creative ways to use QR Codes to make work easier for their teams. IKEA sends QR Codes to customers via email or SMS after registering their returns. Shoppers then present the codes to workers at returns desks, eliminating the need for manual follow-ups when processing returns.
With Bitly, you don’t need to create multiple codes for your post-purchase customer experiences. You can use Bitly Pages to create a post-purchase landing page that centralizes links to multiple experiences, like customer feedback collection and loyalty program enrollment. Then, you can generate a single QR Code for the page. This way, customers can access multiple resources without needing to hunt for different codes.
Pro tip: If you decide to centralize links, accompany each one with a clear call to action (CTA) that lets shoppers know what it leads to.
Creative use cases for QR Codes in ecommerce
The beauty of QR Codes lies in their versatility. You can use them in many ways in ecommerce, including:
Promoting exclusive offers and loyalty perks
This is an excellent way to bring more attention to your business, drive upsells, and encourage brand loyalty. To boost sales and customer retention, consider adding QR Code coupons, or codes that link to your loyalty program signup pages to product packaging, inserts, direct mail, and receipts.
Several brands are already using QR Codes for exclusive offers and loyalty perks, including Coca‑Cola, which recently launched a QR Code campaign in the U.S. The global beverage brand integrated QR Codes in ads, which, when scanned, directed customers to enroll in the “Coca‑Cola Summer Scratch-Off” sweepstakes for a chance to win customized road trips.
Collecting feedback and boosting social proof
QR Codes can help drive reviews, survey responses, and user-generated content (UGC), which are valuable for making well-informed improvement decisions and building your brand’s social proof.
To implement this use case, create a dedicated feedback collection page, link its URL to a branded QR Code, and share the code via email, SMS, or receipts. QR Codes streamline the review process by providing instant access to your page, which can increase responses.
With a Dynamic QR Code generator like Bitly’s, you can access scan analytics so you can monitor when, where, and how people engage with your survey codes. This can help you improve future feedback collection campaigns. If you create unique codes for each channel—for example, email, SMS, and receipts—you can see which medium your target audience prefers.
Circle K, a global convenience store and gas station chain, is already taking advantage of QR Codes to collect feedback. It uses them to provide direct access to customer surveys in-store, making it easy for shoppers to report issues in real time.
Driving app downloads and mobile engagement
QR Codes can increase mobile app adoption when linked to app store pages. They eliminate the need for manual navigation, reducing friction in the installation process. For customers who prioritize convenience, this could be the convincing they need to get your app.
To provide seamless, mobile-first experiences for your customers, consider using Bitly Codes with mobile deep links (available with some paid plans). You can add codes linked to app store web pages to physical materials like receipts to encourage downloads and send mobile deep links via SMS or email.
With mobile deep links, customers will either be routed to an app store to download your application or to a specific page within your app if they already have it installed. For example, they can send them to a page with real-time shipping updates to improve the customer experience.
Authenticate products and boost transparency
Shoppers are more focused on buying the right items than making quick purchases—60% of customers research six or more aspects before buying a new product. This shows how important transparency is for modern consumers.
Streamline their research journeys by providing QR Codes linked to resources that confirm authenticity or provide comprehensive product info (like sourcing details, ingredients, and ethical practices) pages. Add these codes to easily accessible mediums, such as packaging, with clear CTAs that hint at what they lead to.
Optimizing the use of QR Codes in your store
While QR Codes are inherently valuable, you need to do more than slap them onto your products to capitalize on their benefits. You need to select the right type of QR Code, optimize it for mobile scanning, and choose a suitable placement. Here are some tips to help you maximize their effectiveness:
Make your QR Codes easy to find and scan
Take advantage of QR Code customization features to create custom QR Codes that capture audience attention. Use your brand’s colors, choose unique patterns and frames, and incorporate your logo to promote recognition.
However, be sure to keep accessibility top of mind. Test your codes to confirm scannability after customization to make sure customers can use them easily.
Also, ensure prominent placements on your chosen mediums and pair each code with a clear CTA, such as “Scan to unlock a special offer” or “Scan to track order status.”
Optimize every scan for mobile
Friction after a scan can undermine its effectiveness. So, be sure to optimize linked pages before deploying your codes. Ideally, the web pages should load quickly and work well on small screens, as your customers will scan your QR Codes with their mobile devices. To simplify the process, use a no-code landing page builder like Bitly Pages to quickly and easily create mobile-optimized pages.
Other ways to optimize every scan include:
- Maintain sufficient white space around your codes and on your landing pages.
- Make sure landing page CTAs are easy to click.
- Use caching to promote fast loading times.
- Compress landing page images.
Use Dynamic QR Codes to stay agile
Customers’ expectations evolve, products change, new items come to your ecommerce store, and new offers replace old ones. This makes it important to choose a flexible QR Code solution.
That’s where Dynamic QR Codes, like Bitly Codes, come in. Depending on your Bitly plan, you can redirect Bitly Code URLs to new destinations whenever your needs and customer expectations change. This helps keep your marketing campaigns and customer engagement initiatives fresh without constantly reprinting new packaging or marketing materials.
Take your customer experience further with Bitly
With the failure to adapt to changing consumer needs being one of the reasons why retail stores are closing, you can’t afford to overlook QR Codes. These seemingly simple innovations are helping ecommerce brands enhance every phase of the customer journey by connecting offline and online shopping, facilitating contactless payments, and streamlining access to post-purchase content.
Bitly can help you surpass modern shoppers’ expectations and promote operational agility by providing branded Dynamic QR Codes. With Bitly, you can put your brand front and center through customization and track QR Code scan activity, giving you valuable customer insights for informed campaign improvements.
Explore Bitly’s plans today to create scalable, mobile-first experiences that promote customer engagement with your brand!
