In the ever-evolving world of eCommerce, understanding the customer journey is critical for staying competitive and ensuring sustainable growth. As the digital landscape shifts and technology advances, consumer behaviors and expectations are also changing rapidly. Interactions are becoming more complex – spanning multiple channels – yet consumers expect seamless, highly personalized journeys.

Artificial intelligence (AI) will play an increasing role in this. In fact, 76% of CX leaders surveyed for the Genesys report “Customer experience in the age of AI” reported they’re using or piloting AI to personalize their customer experience. And 72% of CX leaders surveyed believe that, in the future, AI will facilitate all proactive service outreach. This blog will explore the best practices eCommerce businesses can adopt to optimize the customer journey, meet evolving consumer needs and boost conversions.

Exploring the eCommerce Customer Journey in 2025

The eCommerce customer journey is no longer linear. Consumers today engage with brands across multiple touchpoints, both online and offline, before making a purchase decision. Ensuring a positive experience during this process is critical to building brand loyalty. In the Genesys report, “Generational dynamics and the experience economy,” 60% of consumers surveyed globally say a seamless transition between different channels (e.g., phone, email, chat) is one of the most important factors for a service interaction.

Understanding this evolving journey and adapting to it can help businesses thrive in 2025. Business outcomes can be strengthened by using AI for proactive service delivery. And in “Customer experience in the age of AI,” 70% of CX leaders surveyed reported that AI is helping their customer journeys feel more empathetic to the customer — a crucial factor in building loyalty and driving repeat business.

Understanding Behaviors of Online Shoppers

In the past, eCommerce was once a simple matter of browsing and purchasing through a website. Today, the process is more dynamic – and it’s influenced by numerous factors, including social media, artificial intelligence (AI), voice search and mobile-first experiences.

In 2025, shoppers will continue to demand convenience, personalization and a seamless experience across all platforms. Mobile devices will dominate shopping behavior, with a growing preference for mobile-optimized websites, apps and social media integration.

Shoppers will also expect faster delivery options and real-time customer service as they navigate their journeys via live chat, AI-powered bots or video calls. Managing these journeys is an essential component of an eCommerce strategy.

Identifying Key Touchpoints in the Modern eCommerce Experience

The modern eCommerce customer journey consists of several critical touchpoints that businesses need to optimize to enable customers to move smoothly and seamlessly from one point to the next. Let’s dive into each of those touchpoints in more detail.

Awareness and Exploration

During this stage, consumers become aware of a brand or product, usually through search engines, social media or influencer marketing. Use cases include understanding what channels drive the most engagement, such as word of mouth, and which messages resonate with various audience segments.

It’s important to understand how long customers remain in this phase and what triggers their move to consideration.

Consideration and Decision-Making

After discovering a product, customers begin to evaluate different options, researching product features, reading reviews and comparing prices. This is a critical phase, and businesses need to streamline this process to make it as easy as possible for shoppers to evaluate their options and move closer to a purchase.

When they’re ready to purchase, make the sales experience smooth and seamless. Consider ways to minimize cart abandonment by simplifying and shortening the purchase process. Any barriers at this stage can lead to cart abandonment and lost sales.

Offer a one-click checkout option for returning customers who have saved their information. And allow purchase without requiring them to create an account. Using progress bars or indicators shows customers how far along they are throughout the checkout process, reducing anxiety. When you minimize friction, you can increase conversion rates.

Purchase and Onboarding

By making customers feel that a brand understands their unique needs, businesses increase the likelihood of a purchase.

In fact, personalization is no longer optional — it’s expected. In 2025, shoppers expect tailored experiences that make them feel understood and valued. Personalization strategies include:

  • Using data-driven algorithms to suggest products based on a customer’s browsing history or purchase behavior.
  • Customizing landing pages, product descriptions and ads based on user preferences and previous interactions.
  • Sending personalized emails that include product recommendations, promotions or abandoned cart reminders.

Usage and Service

This phase is critical for building long-term loyalty as efforts here work to ensure that customers derive the value from a product or service you promised during the acquisition journey.

User journeys encompass many different customer goals, such as renewing a prescription, transferring funds or watching Netflix during a commute by train. At any point, a customer might need timely support and resolution of an issue. The service received while using your product or service impacts metrics like engagement and usage, satisfaction and ultimately, retention.

Support

Deflecting support requests to self-service options is crucial in optimizing customer experience and reducing contact center costs. Effective self-service tools — such as FAQs, AI-driven bots, and help centers – enable customers to find answers quickly, improving satisfaction and engagement.  When well-implemented, these touchpoints reduce the volume of repetitive inquiries, allowing support agents to focus on complex issues and optimizing resource allocation.

Measuring effectiveness requires tracking resolution rates, customer feedback and escalation trends. If customers frequently escalate from self-service to live support, enhancements may be needed.

Building Customer Loyalty and Advocacy

After the transaction, the post-purchase phase is often overlooked for its role in customer loyalty, but it’s just as important as the pre-purchase stages. In 2025, businesses should focus on customer retention and loyalty to drive repeat sales.

Offering excellent customer service, easy returns and proactive communication will encourage customers to return for future purchases. Provide real-time updates on order status and delivery, and offer multiple support channels, including email, phone, chatbots and social media.

Staying engaged with customers after the purchase reinforces a path for trust and loyalty.

Use Customer Journey Data to Drive Growth

Individual journeys across time and channels generate data that, when connected, can unlock a new perspective on the customer.  By gathering and analyzing customer data — such as browsing behavior, demographic information, purchase history, and feedback — businesses can uncover actionable insights that play an important role in creating highly personalized experiences.

Genesys Cloud Journey Management capabilities address each phase of the customer journey in four key ways:

First, it lets you visualize how customers engage with your organization at scale, giving you a data-driven way to not only understand behavior, but to see how well your designed experiences are working in practice.

Second, journey analytics makes insights accessible to everyone. Your entire team — from channel managers to leadership — can use real-time data to drive decisions without needing complex training or technical expertise.

Third, continuous, data-driven experience enhancements drive scalable optimizations as your business and customer needs evolve. For example, if you identify potential issues or pain points, you can fine-tune your marketing strategies to address specific needs at each phase of the journey.

Fourth, with the Genesys Cloud™ platform, you can accelerate your overall time to value by turning insights into actionable improvements — leveraging native control of digital channels, workforce engagement management features and AI capabilities. It’s more than collecting data; Genesys Cloud allows you to swiftly turn insights into value-driving actions.

Best Practices Drive Better Outcomes

The eCommerce customer journey is becoming more complex and personalized, driven by advancements in technology and changing consumer behaviors. To succeed in 2025 and beyond, businesses should focus on understanding each stage of the journey and optimizing touchpoints with data-driven strategies.

As AI, machine learning and sustainability continue to raise the bar on expectations, the eCommerce brands that anticipate trends and adapt quickly to meet evolving expectations will be better positioned for success.

An enterprise journey management approach to eCommerce will enable you to monitor, measure and visualize how individuals interact with you throughout their journey lifecycle. These insights empower you to ensure that individual needs are met and to drive the business outcomes you want.

Ready to improve your customer experience, employee engagement and business outcomes? Read the “Practical guide to customer journey management” to learn about a three-phased approach for implementing journey management, tips to reduce time to value and insights on how leading organizations are succeeding with journey management.