Spark passion around your brand, then work on all the other requirements
It starts with making customers passionate about your brand, but then online retailers have to roll up their sleeves and deliver a great customer experience in many ways, Lauren Freedman, president of consulting firm The E-Tailing Group Inc., told attendees today at the Internet Retailer Web Design ’08 conference in Miami.
As examples of two web brands that evoke intense loyalty, Freedman pointed to personal technology provider Apple and handbag maker Coach. She noted how Coach conveys the same classy image on its site and in its stores, “which is easy to write on a slide but hard to execute.”
Citing survey data showing that 54% of online shoppers buy via the web to save time, 40% to find items hard to locate in stores and 34% to save money, she underscored the different types of web shoppers.
Some are “surgical,” going online because they don’t have time to shop any other way. As an example of a well executed promotion to that group, she pointed to an e-mail that showed a woman typing on a laptop, with text that says: “Can’t get away? Get your shopping fix online” followed by, in smaller type, “Boss made you work, couldn’t find a parking spot, want to shop 24/7.” “That speaks to the harried shopper,” Freedman said.
But there are other types of online consumers, such as the deal seeker, the gift giver, information seeker and the consumer seeking hard to find products.
Given the variety of consumer motivations, it follows that online merchants would find many features useful. Freedman noted that in a 2007 survey she conducted of online merchants all 50 features they were asked about were viewed as valuable by at least some e-retailers. But keyword search, e-mail marketing and online promotions easily topped the list.
Freedman emphasized the importance of a robust product page that provides as much of the information customers are looking for as possible. She cited a study that found 52% of shoppers spend 6 minutes or more on a product page when making a purchase.
Attractive presentations of items related to the product the consumer is viewing is a key way to increase average order value, Freedman said, pointing to cross-sell offers on the sites of J. Crew and gift basket retailer Harry & David. And she said many retailers overlook the opportunities to promote additional products on one of the most trafficked pages on the sites of multi-channel retailers: the store locator pages. Nordstrom and REI are two retailers that use that page effectively to increase sales, she said.
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