Archive: E-Commerce

Starting an eCommerce business is becoming easier by the day. More business owners are looking to expand their online efforts to include eCommerce and build a true online business. Unfortunately, this presents a large set of challenges, not least of which is the threat of larger, better funded competitors online.

Thankfully, the key to successful eCommerce isn’t complicated. By planning ahead and considering your goals and your audience you will greatly increase your chances of success. Here’s three simple ways to make your online shop stand out from the crowd.

Step 1) Focus on Your Best Products

Selling your entire inventory online is unnecessary and often a mistake. Instead, sell a small sub-set of your products that you think may sell well online. For each product, provide a high level of detail describing the product. Follow up with some solid advice on how to choose the correct product for you, or provide expertise and background on the origins of the product.

This way, instead of building an impersonal warehouse-style shop online, you’re providing more of a boutique, – a personal experience that actually engages the customer and answers more of their questions than other shops do. Think of a supermarket versus a boutique fashion store – one simply fulfills their function, the other assists you to make the right buying choice with passion, knowledge and a personal connection.

Make a conscious decision to be the boutique; supermarket-style online stores are everywhere. Most products can already be found online, but there’s often a lack of detail and advice regarding the product. This can become an important and trust-building point of differentiation between you and your competitors.

This approach also has the added benefit of increasing your chance of ranking in search engines for the products you sell. Because you have plenty of content and information about the products in question, search engines will see you as an authority on that product. Search engine optimization is a whole other article but to put it simply: the more content you have that’s useful and relevant about the products you sell, the higher the chance your shop will rank in search engines when people search for the products on your site.

Here’s a quick to-do list to help you gain focus in your product lines.

• Position yourself. Write down clearly who you are and what you do, and use this as a reference for your decision making. Don’t be afraid to go niche: if you are the boiled, peppermint lolly expert in London, say so… and live up to it.
• Choose Your Products. Choose products that fit your positioning. You might sell strawberry licorice in your offline sweet shop, but boiled peppermint lolly experts wouldn’t sell strawberry anythings! Also, be conservative and choose your best selling or most unique, hard to find products. Your product mix can help you differentiate yourself online, so choose wisely and don’t be afraid to make a statement.
Engage your customers. Allow them to leave comments on products. Write a blog about the heritage of boiled lollies. Show your passion and enable others to share their passion on your website.
• Write fun, interesting or useful content. Can you write a ‘how to’ article about your niche – How do you make boiled lollies at home? Can you write a ‘history of’, or a ‘when to use’, or a ‘how we make’ article? Be creative and be willing to share your knowledge – this sort of content helps with search engine rankings and it helps your customers identify you as an authority they can trust.

Once you’ve chosen your product line and your online inventory, it’s time to turn your attention to your potential audience. Online shoppers are a fickle bunch who will do a lot of research as they compare your offerings to others. But rather than be threatened by the comparison shopper, embrace them and use their research mindset to your advantage.

Step 2) Embrace the Comparison Shopper

Comparison shopping is the norm online; Google is probably the biggest price comparison service around! Not only do online store owners need to accept the comparison shopper mentality, savvy web merchants can leverage this mindset to great effect.

In most cases, however, you cannot (and should not) compete solely on price. Usually this is because you are not the cheapest option out there… and you don’t want to be. Your point of differentiation probably lies elsewhere, such as service, quality, or those little added extras that only you provide. In this case, you should engage in a simple type of proactive comparison rebuttal.

Doing so is quite easy. Simply tell your customers why you are different. Openly and honestly compare your offering with your competitors, either specifically by name (i.e “Bob’s Sweets offers…”) or generally (i.e “our competition offers…”). There are two options in presenting this sort of comparison.

• The Checklist. Here, you provide a checklist comparison chart – where you list you and your competitors and the features that each of you provide. This is easy to scan, digest and understand. It is extremely effective at conveying the differences between you and ‘the competition’. All you need to do is provide a handful of features or extras that you offer that others don’t. Naturally, do your research and make sure your comparison is accurate – especially if you do in fact name your competitors in your chart.
• The Pitch. Provide a written, non-enumerated web page outlining in prose form why your customers should choose you. Make it a page called ‘Our Difference’ or ‘Why 1000 people chose Boiled Lolly Corp last year’. Include customer testimonials with real photos of the customers.

So, how do you choose your approach? Simple: the first approach is a winner if your benefits are clear cut, logical and if your audience is primarily motivated by facts and figures rather than emotions. This varies from industry to industry, but generally you can lean on your intuition about your customers and what they’re going to be attracted to. Think about what ‘feels’ right for your product mix and your branding. For example, if you’re selling tools, computer parts and electronics, or if your branding is no-nonsense and direct, I’d suggest that the checklist approach probably ‘feels’ right.

The second approach will suit if your product or service’s advantages are more intangible, emotional or based on a ‘prestige’ mindset. This is because The Pitch approach is deliberately emotional. It avoids a logical break down of facts and uses testimonials to provide social proof. It should be convincingly eloquent – in many cases, you may want to hire a professional copywriter. It must appeal to the desires, perceptions, and even the social status that your product or service may bring. Again, this approach will feel right or wrong depending on your branding, your products and your services. If your point of differentiation revolves around emotional connections, good service, or a strong sense of heritage, then this is the choice for you.

Whatever your choice on how to do it, by openly and directly featuring why you are different you’re providing the comparison shopper with some food for thought. Most shoppers ostensibly compare prices, but they won’t always buy the cheapest option. The design of the store, the ‘feeling’ your website imparts and the overall delivery of your products or services does matter, and can make all the difference.

After embracing and then converting our comparison shoppers, it’s time to turn our attention inward to the most important part of any online business: you.

Step 3) Online Businesses, Not Websites

Many online merchants still think of their online store as a website that sells products. And yet, how many times have you heard business owners complain that their website and online shop were a waste of money – no-one visits and no-one buys? The truth is, their lack of success is due to a failure to see their website as something more than a brochure that one creates and then leaves online for customers to find.

The harsh reality is that there are billions of websites out there – how many of them are actually being seen by their intended audience? Building a website is simply the first important step towards growing an online business.

A store owner with this mindset treats the launch of their website as they would the opening of a new branch or office. Just like their bricks and mortar store, their online store is an ongoing business that needs attention.

Here’s a checklist to help you treat your online store as a business.

• Have you prepared a marketing plan? A website needs marketing to gain exposure, will you be buying advertising? Conducting search engine marketing? Or will you be writing articles for online article directories? How about press releases? Are there any complementary businesses that you can engage in cross-promotion with? How will you be analyzing results and targeting your messages? You’ll need answers to all these questions.
• How are you capturing your leads? Customer information such as names, phone numbers and email addresses are extremely valuable. Capturing this information gives you another chance to convert them into a buyer in the future. How are you capturing these details?
• How are you converting visitors? What’s your primary goal for your website? Every website must have a business-oriented goal. Is it a purchase in your online store? Is it filling in a ‘contact us’ form? Signing up to your email newsletter? Your website should be built around driving visitors to your goal.
• Whats your strategy to bring customers back to your store? After a customer purchases from your site, or submits a ‘contact us’ form, you need a strategy to re-engage them with your business. Email marketing is a common way to do this, and is very effective for online stores. You can offer discounts, make product announcements or simply share the latest tips and tricks, the possibilities are wide and varied.

It’s Worth the Effort!

In 2009, more and more business owners will take their sales online – but how many of them will succeed, and how many will be wasting their money in a fruitless exercise? Ultimately, the key to success lie in careful thought, preparation and planning. There are no get-rich-quick schemes – committing to an online business is a significant undertaking that requires on-going effort from its owner.

However, it really is worth the effort. An online store is the most scalable, efficient and effective way to grow your business, and the opportunities, exposure and profits that it can bring to your business are significant. But remember, as with most things, a little effort and preparation goes a long way.

Main photo: The Rocketeer

For the last 11 months my team and I have been working on a new ecommerce site, webtogs.co.uk, selling outdoor and adventure sports gear. Sep ‘06 turned into month 1 for our new start-up.

It starts with a blank screen

How well a site converts its traffic to sales is the most important aspect of a good design and has to be the number one goal in anything we do. The average e-tailer converts traffic at roughly 2%. A cutting edge, best practice design, therefore, should be aiming at converting close to 5% of its traffic. eMarketeer did a study on some US sites that were achieving conversion north of 12%. So the design and usability of a site can make a compelling difference to the profitability of the business, the effectiveness of paid traffic and a host of other juicy things.

Amazon have spent years using every evaluation trick in the book to test new methods on their sites. An insider tells me that, whilst they aren‘t that happy with how some of the site looks, it‘s the best possible design they‘ve found for converting browsing traffic to sales.

’Simple is good‘ is another mantra. When designing any kind of application or site, it‘s easy to get carried away and add every feature under the sun (we did to start with!). The more the design of Webtogs evolved, the more we removed. We also stuck a banner on the office wall, that reads “You can‘t sell an interface…”. If you look at a good product page, all you should see is the product.

One of our large competitors (to be) — Cotswold Outdoor — recently re-launched their website, with a new, flash based, offering. Now, in my mind at least, this is a classic example of form before function, and I‘d take a large bet their conversions will suffer as a result.

So what‘s the eCommerce holy grail? As far as we‘re concerned, a site that coverts 100% of it‘s traffic and gets loads of it. Now it‘s fair to say that a whole host of factors come into play here, not least the perceived brand of the retailer, on and offline marketing strategy, etc. The purpose of this article, however, is to talk about what we did, in terms of the site itself and to try and explain why we did it.

Raising the bar

I came across an interesting article, 17 New Rules for Successful E-Commerce Websites which makes some very valid points on what not to do and how to improve the shopping experience. The interesting thing here, is this is really only a place to start.

The bar for eCommerce sites that really want to stand out is getting ever higher. These days, there are many sites selling the same or similar product. A non-negative user experience, with good customer service and on time delivery of the correct product is no longer enough to ensure repeat business or the kind of stellar growth seen 5 years ago.

Page Design

We started off with a truly bad design. We made several classic mistakes and didn‘t think our market through clearly enough.

Our top 5 mistakes:

• We didn‘t start with a basket of actual, relevant, products, giving little or no consideration to attributes (size, colour, etc) and how these would work within the design.
• We didn‘t consider the gender split, resulting in a very ’male‘ design.
• The interface was far too prominent, and with a boxy 3 column design, very limiting for layout. We constantly ran into problems with product titles, breadcrumb trails, long descriptions, long logos (in fact anything long really!), not fitting the layout.
• We gave far too much real estate over to ads and upsell/cross sell type links. Now this works for some things, but for technical outdoor clothing, footwear and gear it‘s not so practical.
• We completely ignored navigation by brand, a critical aspect of any eCommerce site selling branded items.

The next iterations saw some significant moves in the right direction. By this time, we were getting input from a larger and far more experienced team, had some design expertise on board and had Phil Wilkinson aboard, providing valuable insight into conversions from his Kelkoo days.

The current version of the site is our 4th. We‘ve split the development into multiple phases, with less critical but more interesting features put on hold for a future release.

The top 5 improvements we‘ve made, as at Version 4:

• The site is now centrally constructed around our product set, with real-time stock checks for size and colour combinations, via AJAX. This gives us the ability to filter results by size and colour, leading to more relevant results and (hopefully) greater conversions.
• The design is far more gender neutral, and has gender selection as a global element, switching product views on the fly. The conversion benefits here are obvious, as we‘re not alienating 40% of our market.
• Brand navigation is now core to the site, with an integrated ’by brand‘ menu system and brands tagged into the search system. Using Google to take a look at keyword searches in our sector, shows that over 60% of product related searches, include the brand name. I would imagine this is the same across most market sectors.
• Ads, promos and large header graphics have been dropped in favour of a more sophisticated product matching engine, that pairs products together, recommends similar / complimentary products and generally ’cross-sells‘ in a more intelligent way. It will be interesting to see if we‘re right about this, in terms of conversions. I certainly think the trend is moving away from blatant up-sell and irrelevant adverts.
• The interface is far less prominent, allowing a 500% increase in product per pixel on landing pages, results pages, etc.

Showing lots of products on screen

The more product you can pack per pixel, the better the site will be, right? It‘s certainly one of those unwritten rules that gets banded around these kind of articles. We did quite a bit of work on this. We looked at how the ’majors‘ did things, talked to everyone we could, read a multitude of articles and generally examined how we used ecommerce sites ourselves.

50% of our research supported the ’grid‘ view, 5 or 6 products across by any number of rows deep, as used by Play, Gap, etc.

The other 50% supported a more detailed ’list‘ view, with more information per product, but less product per pixel, as used by Amazon and others.

So, in the end we did both. Each product result page can be viewed either as a 5 across grid, or in list view. The default (at the moment!) is grid as we think this will convert slightly better, but if the user changes view, we remember this and always show the preferred view thereafter (cookies willing).

We also allow the customer to change the colour of a product and see an enlarged view, from the results page, assuming they are in ’list view‘.

An interesting side effect of the grid/list topic, is the ability to buy from a list view, without clicking through to the single product view. Gap does this on their website, I would love to know how or if this increases conversions.

How do we improve things further?

Until our site goes live, we have no traffic to play with. With that in mind, we‘ve set-up a closed test group of about 40 people. We‘ve split the group roughly in half for gender, and tried to get a good mix of technical / non technical and nice spread of ages.

Every couple of weeks we release a new version of the site, and ask the group to test new features. Each page of our ’sandbox‘ version has a text box below the footer for comments and bugs. The users log in and we track where they click, what they look at and, obviously, what comments they give us. I would highly recommend this approach to anyone doing a similar project, it‘s proved hugely valuable on a number of levels.

Top 5 things we‘ve learned from our closed testers:

• You can never make things too obvious. Buttons can never be big enough and contrasting elements are hugely important to draw attention to features. The first few releases we did, we were amazed at the number of features people missed.
• You can‘t ever show too much detail about a product.
• When customers have to fill out forms, give them as much help as you can (checkout for example).
• More experienced users spend a very small amount of time on a page, and you‘re lucky if they read 10% of the content.
• Men are far more likely to shop with a product in mind from the outset. Women tend to browse for things and will visit a disparate set of pages.

So, if we get a chance to write anymore here, we‘ll talk in detail about other areas of the site like the checkout process, our detailed product pages, and how we‘re going to bring community features to the venture. We're happy to be honest, open, and upfront and of course get any feedback we can.

A site’s copy is one of its most important elements — especially in the world of eCommerce. And in eCommerce one of the worst mistakes a copywriter can make when writing is to concentrate only on product descriptions. While product descriptions are important, they’re only the tip of the eCommerce copy iceberg. After all, an eCommerce site is everything at once for an online retailer — simultaneously serving as a catalog, store, marketing tool, and company information source — and the copy responsible for selling both your product and your company in the highly competitive web marketplace is at the center of it all.

There are three basic types of writing that an eCommerce copywriter will use while copywriting for a retail site: informational, marketing and notification. While the details of each type could fill a book, we’re only going to cover the basics of each here — once you understand the fundamentals you’ll be ready to raise your store’s copy to a new level.

Setting Your Tone

Before we begin, here are a couple of concerns you’ll need to address as you sit down with your catalog and bang out brilliant eCommerce copy:

• It’s important to understand your products’ target audience before you begin writing. Who, exactly, are you writing for? Grandmothers? Artists? Technophiles? For example, a store that wants to become the ultimate gear source for teenage snowboarders wouldn’t use the formal writing style of a site that appeals to middle-aged businessmen. You’re always writing for someone else, and you’ll keep your copy focused by not forgetting who they are.
• Once you’ve identified your copy’s target audience, decide how to appeal to that audience. Here’s where your company’s personality has a chance to shine through, setting you apart from your competitors. Remember, even though your competitors sell similar products, they aren’t you.

So decide who you are. Do you want to be considered glamorous? Hip? Maternal? Consider the Mac vs. PC ads that have been wildly successful for Apple over the last couple of years. In just a few seconds, the commercials immediately establish that Apple products are intuitive, user-friendly, and cool. They appeal to a certain audience in a unique way, and immediately set themselves apart from every other computer company on the market.

This is what you’re trying to do with your copy. Decide who you are, and embrace it. Use this identity to establish a tone for all of the copy throughout your site, down to the smallest error message. Each piece of copy is an opportunity to broadcast your brand — don’t waste any of them.

Information, Marketing and Search Engine Optimization

Now that you have established your store’s tone it needs to be applied to the three main styles you’ll use while writing. Informational copy is the copy you’ll often find in a site’s frequently-asked questions section and customer service blurbs. All of these examples share a common thread: The customer is looking for to-the-point information. Concentrate on avoiding flowery language or fluff copy; after all, filler can frustrate potential customers. Focus instead on keeping your writing straight-forward and uncluttered, making sure that the information an average customer would want to know is easily accessible and clearly explained. Remember, “straight-forward” isn’t the same as boring. You’re still writing for the audience that you identified when you sat down to write, and if you target that audience with a consistent tone your informational copy will align itself with your store’s brand and image.

Another type of copy, marketing, is mainly used in promotional materials and product descriptions. While this type of copy is extremely common, it’s also some of the hardest to write. Many eCommerce sites fall into a trap of confusing a barrage of positive adjectives with selling a product. Don’t make this mistake! Relying on clichés will only weaken your copy and, consequently, your brand.

Pause and consider your goals. You identified who your copy is for during the earliest stages of your writing; now you can focus on what you’re trying to achieve with it. Customers are at your store to fill a need, and you must convince them that you’re best able to help them. Enhance your informational writing by highlighting your product’s benefits for potential customers, rather than repeatedly exclaiming to them that you’ve got a great product to offer. You want a customer to take action on your site — convert, sign up for your newsletter, etc. — so tell them exactly why they should take that action, and use effective copy to provide them with the information they need.

Don’t forget to consider search engine optimization when you’re writing both your informational and marketing copy. Search engine optimization is a huge part of writing for eCommerce, and you’ll want to try and familiarize yourself with the basics. Start by doing some keyword research to find out what potential customers are looking for, and what language might attract them. Incorporate these throughout your site’s copy, but don’t forget to keep your tone and audience in mind! The best eCommerce copy has its SEO keywords smoothly integrated so the average customer doesn’t think twice. Don’t bog your copy down by trying to pack keywords where they don’t belong.

Good and Bad eCommerce Copywriting

Here’s an example of both good and bad product descriptions. Each of them is a combination of informational and marketing copy. Imagine that you’re a small business writing this product description for both new and repeat customers, and you want to maintain a polite, welcoming tone:

BAD: This newest model of the Sock-Saver 2007 is better than ever before! If you liked the Sock-Saver, you’ll love the Sock-Saver 2007. For the last year, we’ve been examining your feedback and implementing it into this great product. Now we’ve brought these changes to you in the form of the Sock-Saver 2007! Save more Socks!

Not only is this description fluffy and poorly organized, but it offers no real information to the potential consumer. What are the upgrades? Why would owners of the Sock-Saver want to upgrade to the 2007 model? Also, there’s no clear tone or audience established, which makes the description seem cluttered and ill-placed.

GOOD: We’ve examined vendor and customer feedback for our most popular product during the past year and discovered that buyers wanted more room in the main compartment, larger drainage holes, and a choice of colors to match a home or business. We’re now proud to present the Sock-Saver 2007. The newest Sock-Saver offers all of the missing sock protection of the original, enhanced with the customer-driven features outlined above. Just stuff the Sock-Saver full of socks, toss it into the washer and dryer, and never suffer from one-sock syndrome again!

If you’re a current owner of our original product, send in a photo of you loving your Sock-Saver for a 15% discount on the Sock-Saver 2007.

Notice how the tone of the example above maintains the company’s commitment to its repeat customers, as well as providing plenty of information for new customers. It carefully outlines the improvements that they’ve made to the product, explains how to use it, and offers a number of incentives for all customers to take action and buy the product. The benefits are clearly outlined in a way that is exciting for the customer, and maintains the tone that the writer has selected for the site.

Turning a Dead End Into an Intersection

So now you’ve got some great product descriptions, marketing materials, and a customer service page under your belt. What happens to your customer when they stumble upon a dead link somewhere in your site, need to know a credit card was accepted or make a mistake during checkout? This is where the last style, notification, comes in. Customers will need to be notified when they complete actions and no matter how great your site’s usability is, mistakes will be made, causing your customers to encounter positive and negative notification messages. Make sure that these messages don’t slow customers down, keeping them clear, concise and helpful. In error messages, quickly identify the problem, tell the customer what the error is, and how they can fix it.

Follow these same principles for your 404 page. Explain what the visitor is seeing on the page, taking care to keep your tone consistent with the rest of your store. Outline a list of common mistakes that might have brought them to the page, and offer helpful links to other parts of your store, as well as an e-mail link so that a customer can report a problem. Unhelpful notifications abandon customers at a time when they need help, and they are likely to return the favor by abandoning your site. With both notification messages and 404 pages, keep the personality of your site intact, and focus on the positive — i.e., how you and the customer can work together to accomplish what they need.

Your site’s copy is the key to your brand and company identity. Keeping quality in mind throughout all written aspects of your site will help ensure that you’ll never have to reevaluate whether your customers “get” you and your store. Let them know that you’re more than the sum of your product descriptions!