The Ecommerce Expert

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Top 10 Ecommerce Mistakes

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Top 10 Ecommerce Mistakes

Here is a list of the top 10 mistakes (and myths) I see ecommerce stores fall into:

  1. Thinking that driving more traffic to your website will increase sales. (There are two types of traffic in general. Knowing which one to go after is the key to increased sales. More is not always better — that is, unless the right elements are in place to maximize sales from it.)
  2. Weak site design in relation to your target market. (i.e., Do you design for your market or do you just design a site thinking that alone will sell your product?)
  3. Not marketing enough or properly. (You can’t make sales if nobody knows you exist. Marketing is critical but it must be done correctly to gain the maximum benefit.)
  4. Try to sell the wrong product online. (Think that just because you have a product it’s going to sell? Think again. Unless you’ve done your homework first, you may be surprised to find that there isn’t a market for what you’re trying to sell online.)
  5. Not testing your site to find what really works. (If you ignore your site the results will show.)
  6. Not optimizing your product pages for increased conversion. (Your product page has a single overall objective with sub roles that help meet that objective. If you don’t know what this is, you have no chance of getting users into your checkout process at all.)
  7. Inadequate site usability. (There are a number of things that can help you determine if usability is a problem and then help you improve upon this. Usability is like the Yellow Brick Road to more sales.)
  8. No comprehensive marketing plan in place. (This is one of the number one reasons most ecommerce businesses are destined for failure before they even start.)
  9. Too many obstacles to shopping. (Adhering by the KISS [Keep It Simple Stupid] principle is crucial to helping customers do their job.)
  10. Poor customer service. (Do you answer your customers’ questions before they ask them? Knowing what they expect and at what moment will improve your customer service.)

If you make even just one of these mistakes, you are likely losing sales and hurting your ability to maximize your sales.

And please know, you are not alone in these mistakes. These are the top 10 mistakes I find most often, and I work with a lot of ecommerce entrepreneurs.

This is a perfect outline of the problems Ecommerce Amplifier fixes. The six-step tutorial will solve all of these problems and if you sign up for the Premium level, I’ll even provide you with my expert website review – pointing out exactly what you’re doing right and what you can improve.

The Most Important Pages to Increase Conversion

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The Most Important Pages to Increase Conversion

You can’t expect website traffic conversion to increase without first targeting the most important areas on your website. As the old saying goes, “you must crawl before you walk and walk before you run.”

For example, focusing on the checkout process to increase sales will yield nothing if your website analytics show the majority of your visitors never make it that far. Why? Because if your visitors are not even making it that deep into your site, then checkout is not the problem. The problem occurs on a page (or pages) earlier in the process.

You must use your analytics program to find where your customer is leaving the process, but I can certainly give you a starting point. You see, although each ecommerce business site is unique, the pages visitors encounter that influence them to make a successful purchase remain fairly consistent.

If you are wondering where to focus your improvement efforts, try adding these pages to the top of your list.

Home Page

The home page should, at the very least, give visitors multiple options for accessing the products on your site and should have some room reserved for the latest promotion. If your website has a high bounce rate from the home page, you need to first focus your efforts on that page with the single objective of getting deeper visitor penetration into the site, i.e., increased page views, longer time on site, etc.

Product Pages

Make sure your presentation, placement, wording, descriptions, photos and customer assurances are in the best location to persuade action. The goal of a product page should be to get the user to add the item to their cart. You can’t make a sale if the item is not in the cart!

Checkout Pages

Once an item has been added to a visitor’s cart, the only way they can get out of your store with that product is through the checkout. If your analytics show a high cart abandonment rate, then you must find the stumbling block for visitors.

There are an almost unlimited number of areas on a website which contribute to higher conversion. In reality, the entire customer experience must be considered if a sustainable and profitable ecommerce business is the goal. The list of pages I provided here is just a starting point for organizing your approach.

Although these pages are important (each serving its role in closing the sale) changing just one will not always guarantee increased sales. You will need to interpret what your analytics are telling you in order to determine which page(s) to devote attention to.

 

Know What to Change to Increase Conversion

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houseconstruction

When a user arrives at a website they follow what should be a pre-defined path based on their demographic profile. While traveling the path they go through a series of pages until they reach the end of their journey where they either make a decision to buy, or they leave. The path they travel should be well planted with information that enables them to complete what are called micro actions all leading up to the actual sale or macro action.

In working with store owners/operators, I teach them to think in terms of each page on a website having one primary job, yet multiple sub jobs—these are the micro actions of the page itself. It’s a lot like building a house in that each element has a job to perform which is dependent on another for the completed project to work as it was intended (the macro action is completed).

In other words, you don’t start building a house by working on the roof first. You need supporting structure to hold that roof if it is to perform its job as expected. Likewise you don’t begin building the walls without some type of support to put them on first, i.e., the cement foundation. Each portion of the house has its individual role (job) and they all perform together to accomplish the primary objective. But without these items all performed in the proper order, the entire structure is in jeopardy of failing.

Using the metaphor above, if visitors are not making it beyond your online store’s home page (foundation), then they aren’t even getting to the checkout process (roof), so focusing your efforts there first isn’t going to strengthen the ultimate outcome.

Likewise, making alterations to the product level page without consideration given to the category page will do you no good. You must first concentrate your efforts to those areas of the funnel that are preventing your visitors from completing the micro actions required to ultimately achieve the macro action.

Here is where your analytics are key in determining where to focus efforts at any given moment.

Success does not come from making random changes and taking estimated shots in the dark. Success comes from making incremental changes based on measurable and objective results then having the ability to weight the impact those changes have in reaching your goal.

4 Tips to Ensure Your Site is Customer Focused

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4 Tips to Ensure Your Site is Customer Focused

Website conversion is increased using a variety of strategies all of which play an important role in the ultimate effectiveness.

I seem to constantly mention that one must make sure they pay careful attention to the customer experience their website offers. After hearing this so many times one might ask “Why do you keep saying this? Enough is enough already.”

The reason I continually bring it up is because it is one of the most important factors playing a role in your success, yet is most often overlooked by many store owners. This quite possibly could be because the customer experience is an all-inclusive concept involving many systems working in unison.

The customer experience is not a single tangible element which can be held or altered but rather a series of elements which make up a system upon which the customer relies to get them to their end goal — making a purchase. For it to be effective, each of the elements which make up the system must each be in top shape.

A big part of that customer experience lies in the content (text) your site uses to describe everything from products to the way you use them to your business itself. This is your chance to shine — and many stores fall short.

“Words have the power to influence. Use them carefully but wisely.”

Take the following example from a dealer selling automobiles.

Company Focused: The auto dealer features a particular automobile in its inventory as offering “30 miles per gallon.” Although customers may find this promo informative, they may not see the benefit this statement offers them.

Consider this reworded description.

Customer Focused: The auto dealer lists the car and says “spend less on gas and save more money with this gas-efficient vehicle getting 30 miles to the gallon.” Now this phrase speaks to the customer. It provides them with a specific benefit that buying this car will give them. Everyone wants to “spend less and save more” right?

So after that introduction and example, here are 4 tips you can implement to ensure your site is focused more on your customers and not yourself.

  1. Examine your content “bulk.” Content is what encourages customers to continue through the conversion path toward a completed sale. From product page and shopping cart wording to customer assurance terminology which builds confidence, make sure your site includes plenty textual content aiding users at understanding the purpose of each page, where to go next, and what to expect.
  2. Analyze and assess your content. Who does your content focus on (speak to)? Is it your customer or your company? While content should describe your offers, products, and company (to name a few), it should do so from a customer perspective. Turn any “we” / “our” statements into “you” statements.
  3. Describe product and shopping benefits. Let your customers know more than just about what you offer; tell them how your offers or how shopping with you (instead of competitors) will benefit them. For starters, try to include one benefit for each attribute. Customers who clearly understand the benefits are more likely to turn into sales.
  4. Start from the top and work your way down. Begin updating content on the high-level pages of your site (home page, product pages, shopping cart, etc…) — pages that play the biggest role in moving customers toward conversion. Once the top level pages are out of the way you can focus on the lower level pages of the site. Another good option is to take a close look at your website analytics program to determine which pages have the highest bounce and exit rates. Examine these pages and use them as a starting point for your improvement with the goal of keeping customers from abandoning at those points.

To your success!

Survey Reveals Customer Experience Key to Online Success

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The 11th Annual Mystery Shopping Survey from the e-tailing group is out and it suggests that leading online stores are optimizing their sites features to generate more sales.

If you follow me you’ll know this is one thing I continually say. Your site must provide the visitor with a functional and pleasant customer experience and that often starts with elements relating to design.

The merchants who are seeing the best results are focusing on executing strategies that take the online shopping experience to higher levels. They are increasing efficiency of processes and developing customer retention programs; rethinking promotions, adjusting content, and refining search. These elements along with others combine to create a sense of community that directly speaks to their target.

Lauren Freedman, president of the e-tailing group states that e-commerce stores must consider rethinking promotions and include a variety of creative options if they want to remain competitive in a tough economy. She goes on to say that price is even more likely to be a key factor in consumer purchasing during this difficult time. I touched upon this very concept a bit in one of my recent articles Shoppers are Still Searching but Where They Are Searching has Shifted.

The trend among those successful online merchants is to structure marketing promotions that get the sale immediately. To do so they are often utilizing limited-time-only sales as evidenced by a 24 percent jump in such to 42 percent in 2008; up from 18 percent in 2007.

Here are several key findings of the survey:

  • Free shipping continues to be a promotional standard. Various free shipping models were present including free shipping with conditions. Another past article I wrote titled Shipping Promotions that Drive More Sales elaborates on this finding.
  • Reworking the on-site search to present more reliable results which get the customer to the product they seek faster is a priority. Unreliable search results, or those with products not even closely fitting the search itself can cause a poor customer experience and lead to lower conversion rates.
  • The addition of strategically thought out rich media content such as video to your product descriptions can increase the customer confidence and help make the buying decision easier.
  • Adoption of Social Media tactics to create a community around the business is becoming paramount in developing a loyal following. From blogging to bulletin boards to applications such as Facebook, successful online merchants are finding these “community nurturing” channels an important component in the success of their brand. In fact, 26% of store owners report successfully using blogs as marketing tools which is up from just 10% last year.
  • The consumers desire for unbiased peer-to-peer product insight has elevated the role product ratings and reviews plays in helping them make an informed buying decision.
  • The survey reveals that 81 percent of online store owners are embracing Refer/E-Mail a Friend features compared to 74 percent last year.

What Does it all Mean?

In short, if you are to be successful online you should consider taking a close look at how you get customers involved in your business. It’s the total customer experience from the moment they learn about your business to the moment they make a purchase which will determine if you will win or lose online. You must consider expanding your marketing reach to include Social Media as a way to build community — a vital role in building trust and loyalty.

If you need help implementing a Social Media Marketing campaign I offer a few packages that will help you get that accomplished. Contact me for more information.

From weekly blogging packages to full media utilization of Facebook, Twitter and more, I’m sure there is something for everyone. Likewise, I am available to coach store owners toward developing successful promotional strategies which increase conversion and build business as well. Just drop me a note.

To your success!

About

The Ecommerce Expert offers products and services that help move ecommerce businesses toward growth and success. Our products and services help store owners maximize their ROI, decreasing expenses and increasing revenue. The net result is sustainable growth and stability with above average results.