Why the Digital Experience is Make-or-Break for Growth in E-Commerce

Today, every customer interaction online is a make-or-break moment: a smooth, intuitive digital journey builds loyalty and revenue, while a frustrating one pushes customers straight to competitors. This has made the digital experience — and IT’s role in managing it — more crucial than ever for growth. So how do retailers make sure they’re getting it right?

A strong digital experience is founded on full visibility into the customer journey, tracking drop-offs, clicks, timelines, and the true cost of when things go wrong. It’s a problem that IT departments are best-fit to address, yet these teams need to be able to quantify customer friction in business terms to shift from being seen as a support function to a strategic growth engine.

When empowered and provided the right tools, IT can help retailers quantify lost conversions and revenue gaps as well as demonstrate just how integral the digital experience is for the bottom line.

Digital Experiences Fuel Customer Satisfaction, Retention and Brand Image

Fifty-five percent of consumers will abandon their purchase if their digital experience falls short. That single moment of friction could cost not just a sale, but a customer for life. And losing customers to preventable digital friction is no longer something businesses can afford, especially at a time when profit margins are being squeezed by economic uncertainty, geopolitical tensions, and supply chain disruptions.

However, digital experience is a two-way street: When companies enhance the customer journey thoughtfully, they can drive immediate revenue gains while strengthening long-term business outcomes. Every eliminated friction point can mean thousands in potential recovered revenue, with the impact compounding further when repeat purchases and customer referrals enter the picture.

In a landscape where customer attention is fleeting and loyalty is hard-won, a seamless digital experience becomes your most consistent revenue stream.

Turn Digital Experience Into a ‘Revenue GPS’

Improving customer digital experience requires going deeper than most businesses expect. Site speed matters, but so does navigation flow, smooth checkout and other elements. The challenge is usually IT teams’ limited capacity to identify inefficiencies, optimization opportunities and upselling moments, on top of their ongoing responsibilities.

This is where digital experience monitoring (DEM) comes in. Whether it's a slow-loading product page costing 15 percent of potential sales, or a confusing checkout flow losing revenue at the final step, DEM helps companies pinpoint exactly where consumers abandon their journey and understand why.

By capturing every user interaction in a business’ digital environment, DEM creates an accurate picture of the customer's digital experience. Therefore, companies aren’t left playing a guessing game about what’s working and what isn’t. And the true power of DEM lies in its ability to measure problems in business terms. For example, downtime becomes measurable in lost customers, missed opportunities, and concrete revenue impact.

Additionally, when implemented strategically, DEM becomes a growth catalyst. Beyond a monitoring tool, it can act as a revenue GPS — empowering businesses to continuously refine each step of the customer journey and preventing revenue loss, while uncovering opportunities to enhance the experience in ways that drive sales.

Pursuing Business KPIs With IT Alignment

Digital experience offers the latest example of how the relationship between IT teams and senior leadership has shifted from isolated support to strategic partnership. C-suite executives recognize IT’s ability to directly influence performance, revenue and customer experience.

By bringing IT to the strategy table, companies turn real-time observability of the digital experience into a decision-making engine that links system performance to business outcomes, enabling faster, data-driven choices about resources and market opportunities. This collaboration transforms IT from a cost center into a growth driver, strengthens resilience against disruption, preserves revenue and loyalty during crises, and ultimately positions IT investment as a measurable strategic advantage.

Customer Experience Becomes the Revenue-Driver 

The evidence is clear: Businesses that invest in seamless digital experiences drive substantial revenue by creating loyal customers who return and advocate for their brands. What was once a nice-to-have is now a fundamental business driver, and the companies that thrive are those treating digital experience as core strategy, not an afterthought. By embedding observability and aligning IT with business outcomes, organizations can turn complexity into a competitive edge. Those ready to transform their digital experience into a true revenue engine can’t afford to wait.

Rob Van Lubek is vice president, EMEA at Dynatrace, an AI-powered observability platform.