The cataloguers also have decades of experience in mining, segmenting and working mailing lists. It’s interesting to note that here there is variation between those who mail frequently (the cataloguers are broadly better at this) and those who mail frequently and ‘well’. By which I mean those within the sample who mail often but also pre-test their emails and pay more attention to the content. More specifically: pay more attention to the language.

The more I look at the benchmarks, the more I come back to the principles you advocate here. It’s the persuasive content and structure. And in the group in question, the cataloguers have started from a position of having slightly more advanced expertise in this area.

Before you conclude that catalogers have higher conversion rates than non-catalogers please be sure to read my analysis of the top converting websites from January. You may have confused correlation with causation.

Best wishes,
Bryan

http://www.pindar.com/ecommerce/archives/000364.html

I’m hoping that at some point they’re able to make at least some of the figures from that public, as it could well provide some specific information confirming Kurt’s experience.

Maybe it was before Xmas and popcorn and chocolate are must have’s for the festive season.

I did a brief analysis of what might be going on in my own blog, which I’ll summarize here.

1: They have great pictures, I just want to bite into those chocolate pigs.

2: They have great copy. When you have “Lovable, luscious and chocolate” all in in the same breath, how can you go wrong?

3: Good Navigation, based around special occasions, seasonal events and other elements of Americana such as NASCAR and Baseball. In other words, it’s based around what matters to the customer. The “meat” or is it chocolate in this case?

4: Fast loading because it uses Akamai, a Content Distribution Network. The faster a site is, the more sales you’ll make.

5: The Checkout process is simple, although Kevin’s right in that it does have too many steps, but at least it guides the customer through every step of the process.

6: Design. I thought the design was ok. A bit too Americana and apple pie for me, but I’m told you guys go crazy for that sort of thing, No?

I’m still trying to figure out the “hog wild for Valentine’s Day” thing. Some of the things you guys do just don’t translate at all down under.

Anyway, as I said, those were just my initial thoughts.

It will probably be big in February as well.

I suspect this is further evidence of how once someone has made the emotional commitment to buy they may go to extraordinary lengths to do so. Customer loyalty, off-line marketing and indeed on-line persuasion can create a level of commitment which will even overcome a broken checkout.

Or maybe as Robert pointed out, they have done certain things right and therefore that is all you really need to worry about. In which case, has anyone identified any patterns in the top 10? Are there things they are all doing right?

Maybe I should stop asking questions and do my own analysis!

But you’re right, Kevin, it definitely seems there are some uncooked conversion kernels in the popper.

This is a great question and one that I am surprised hasn’t been brought up the previous months when we saw the flower shops at the top of the list. People’s motivations trump any great or poor design. If people have made up their mind (persuaded themselves), that they want to buy flowers or popcorn from the particular retailer then they’ll work through almost any poor shopping process especially if they are comfortable with the brand.

Bryan