1. It’s often where “low-hanging fruit” grows. Conversion obstacles can often be removed quickly, leading to large gains in a short period of time.
2. It’s an area where you’ve already succeeded in persuading the prospect. They are in the Late Stage of their buying process, so a relatively low investment can give you a relatively high return.  In other words, you don’t have to produce pages and pages of persuasive content to move the visitor forward in her buying process.
3. Customer expectations regarding their online shopping experiences are rising every day. If your competitor has a more optimized checkout, they may be taking market share from you.

There’s a very wide spectrum of online selling solutions, from a PayPal button on a single sales page to a highly-customized checkout with a floating/sliding/shining interface and behaviorally-targeted cross-selling.  Still, FutureNow’s clients tend to fall into 1 of 2 camps:  those with a 3rd-party cart and those with a custom-built cart.

There are pros and cons to each, which I’ll touch on briefly, but please don’t consider this brief post the authoritative work on the subject–there’s lots of research and reviews out there on the various shopping cart investment options.

3rd Party Shopping Carts, also known as “canned”: Some of the pros are lower cost, quicker time to market, and the efficiencies/convenience gained when you buy a package that handles payment gateway, fraud protection, SSL encryption, etc.  Some of the cons are lack of control over look and feel, lack of control over the user experience, and more difficulties encountered with testing and optimization.  The tradeoffs seem pretty straightforward, but a lot depends on the IT resources you have at your disposal.

Custom Shopping Carts: Some of the pros are a user experience that’s more tightly integrated with the rest of your site, better tracking for better analytics, easier to make changes and add features, and easier integration with testing tools like Google Website Optimizer.  The obvious cons are higher cost, more operational overhead, and slower time to market.  Again, the tradeoffs are the same, and a lot depends on your company’s resources, budget, and business goals.

Those prospects we speak with who are interested in optimizing for a higher return on their eCommerce investments often ask questions like: Can I optimize my 3rd party shopping cart? The answer is a definitive “Yes!” even on the most restrictive 3rd party carts. One of our clients enjoyed a 38% increase month-over-month in their “funnel conversion rate” just by adding some reassuring copy and links only in the areas of their cart they had access to: the header and the footer!

That’s an extreme example, but with our guidance, clients can make the best of their current platform, whatever it happens to be.  And many clients, after getting a few “wins,” decide they want to upgrade from a 3rd party cart to a partially or fully custom cart.  In that situation, we often work to optimize their checkout before it goes live, saving them time and money, and then continue to refine the customer experience and persuasiveness of the live cart through more formal testing. We also work with several implementation partners who grok Persuasion Architecture and can build custom carts based on OnTarget recommendations.

The point of all of this is that you shouldn’t defer or avoid Optimization based on what type of checkout platform you have.  Persuasion Architecture is “platform-agnostic,” and the best time for Optimization is always “Now.”

Enter the “Product Configurator.” While it sounds a bit like an evil robot out of control, what we’re talking about today is simply an online application to allow prospects to customize a product on their way to buying it. This can be a lot of fun for online shoppers if done well, and lead to increased conversions or it can be a huge waste of money if the user experience isn’t really well thought out. If it’s planned out poorly, it may frustrate visitors and lead to a decrease in performance.

One of the main reasons survey takers give for NOT buying retail items online is the inability to touch/hold/feel the product before buying.  This is a challenge that almost all eRetailers have to work to overcome, and letting them see their customizations in real time as they play around with different configurations and features can be a good tactic to make sure people make it all the way through checkout.  It can also be a way to make gift shopping more fun–seeing the product “come alive” as you customize it for someone special on your shopping list can be very persuasive and exciting.  Finally, product configurators can be a great way to convert Early and Middle Stage buyers; those who aren’t quite ready to pull out their credit card yet.  The ability to save what they’ve configured can be a “hook” to get them back into the buying process, or at least allow you to market to them as time goes on.

When I think of being able to customize a product and buy it, I tend to think of sites like CafePress.com and Zazzle.com who specialize in small items like hats, t-shirts, mugs, stickers, etc.  But I wanted to grab some more interesting examples for you, so let’s look at a couple West Coast companies who let bike riders have a little fun as they create unique products to purchase.

Example #1: Mission Bicycle Company

In the mood to build a custom fixed-gear bicycle?  Probably not, but use your imagination!  This site’s product configurator takes you step-by-step through the process, using clear copy explanations, a progress indicator, and friendly assurances.  They manage to do this using plenty of white space in a clean layout and flow.

In the end, you can see a mockup of your bike’s design, which components you’ve chosen, and an itemized price.  My favorite part is that it doesn’t get too heavy into jargon, which would make the n00b feel intimidated.

Example #2: Timbuk2

Once you’ve designed your fancy bicycle to ride around on the streets of San Francisco, you’ll need a cool bag to haul your laptop and other sundries, right?  This brings us to another West Coast company’s “build your own bag” product app.

Timbuk2’s site does a nice job of using actual photographic images as opposed to illustrative graphics.  It’s impressive that they cover the many permutations (bag types, colors, patterns, add-ons, etc.) with high-quality photos.  The flow through the options is very intuitive, and in the end you definitely feel like you’ve made something that reflects your tastes.  This makes NOT buying it very difficult!

So those are two examples in a very narrow niche.  I ask all Grok readers: Who else is doing a good job with this type of online app?  Who does it well in clothing?  Shoes? (other than Nike, please!)  Laptops?  Leave a comment about whose product configurator you like, why, and what product category it’s in.  Also chime in if you’re building something like this in time for Holidays 2009!

A valid question/concern, to be sure.  Our answer is, of course, “It depends.”  However, here are a few approaches that we’ve seen work:

Extreme Effort Until a Certain Date

Look at your previous year’s analytics and the upward trend of conversions closer to the holidays.  When did it start to trend up in a consistent manner?  Mid-October?  November?  Late-November?  Based on last year’s trend line, pick a date after which you’ll stop optimizing and stabilize your site for the Holiday rush.  Then, free up all the budget and resources you can to work on an optimization to-do list from today until your stop date.  After the Holidays, you can finish everything that didn’t get finished before your stop date.

Optimize the Checkout Process

Another approach is to focus solely on the checkout process from now until the end of the Holidays.  This means leaving the homepage, landing pages, content pages, etc. alone until 2010, and just test and optimize the cart pages to squeeze every last conversion out of those folks you’ve persuaded.

Merchandise for the Holidays (a.k.a. Deck the Halls)

Some clients want a site-wide approach that ties in with Holiday shopping and gift-giving.  This is less about optimization and more about seasonal relevance, but it’s still a valid approach that could lift your Holiday conversions.  Many sites simply throw a Holiday-themed graphic on their homepage and call it “done,” but the world-class sites have little touches throughout the site to put their prospects in a shopping mood.  eBay has done some nice, subtle things to dress their site up around the Holidays, and I’m sure they have something up their sleeve this year.  One of our clients last year used empty real estate throughout the site, including the shopping cart, to display some Holiday messaging and graphics.  They also updated their checkout through the last week of the Rush to indicate how many days were left to have gifts reach recipients by 12/24, creating a nice sense of urgency as well as being informative.

Split Your To-Do List

A fourth approach is to simply brainstorm every optimization you think could impact your conversion rate.  Then, use various criteria to split the list into “pre-Holidays” and “post-Holidays.”  Commit the resources and intensity to get the “pre” list done, then leave the “post” list until everyone is back in the office and the 2010 budget is approved .  This is probably the easiest approach, but carries with it the risk that you’ll implement some low-impact optimizations, when you could have implemented the high-impact items.  In this case, we recommend outside help to prioritize that list!

We hope these ideas help everyone find an approach they’re comfortable with, execute well, and reap the rewards!

The ones who make it through will be those who are passionate about the customer experience, AND who are able to prioritize their work between now and the “Holiday Crunch” so that the hours expended actually impact the number of sales they make.

Where do you start if you want your site to be a stellar performer this Holiday Season?  A great place for most to start is on Shopping Cart Abandonment.  That’s low in your sales funnel, where you’re losing customers who were already acquired via marketing and persuaded to buy from you!

Let’s examine a prioritized list of reasons shoppers listed that caused them to abandon shopping carts.  Then, we’ll offer actionable suggestions corresponding to each concern.  The data comes from the 8th Annual Merchant Survey, conducted by PayPal and comScore in April of this year.

#1 High shipping charges

We’re all aware of this challenge, and it’s somewhat out of your hands, but there are things you can do.  One is to thing is to test different shipping offers in the cart.  Another, if you have a certain order value that qualifies for free shipping, is to display how much more the customer needs to qualify.  For example, “You are $xx.xx away from free shipping!  Continue shopping »”

#2 Wanted to comparison shop

Make sure you’re saving customer carts for at least 30 days, maybe more for the Holidays.  A recent study sponsored by McAfee showed that the average time span between visiting a site and checking out was 34 hours! Acknowledge that this behavior is occurring and plan for it.  If you’re sending “cart recovery” emails inside of 24 hours, you may be really annoying your prospective customers!

#3 Leaving to Google a coupon code

If you have a coupon code capture field on your “View Shopping Cart” page, you may consider moving that capture later in the checkout process, when prospects are more ‘invested’ in the process and less likely to bail and go “coupon Googling.”  Some of our clients offer coupons right on their site as a way to combat this behavior, and it works.

#4 Couldn’t find preferred payment option

Most eStore owners offer a proper assortment of payment options, BUT are your customers seeing them at the point of concern?  We call these Point of Action Assurances.  When the prospect is in your cart, and wondering about their payment options, are you reassuring them at the point of action that you offer BillMeLater, PayPal, etc.?  Test different placements of those assurances.

#5 Item unavailable at checkout

Yikes!  This issue simply needs to be dealt with on your product pages, before the cart.  If an item is out of stock, why not capture an email so you can notify when the item is back in stock?  Zappos.com does a good job of this when a certain size of shoe is out of stock.

#6 Couldn’t find customer support

Similar to #4, most online stores do offer good customer service options, but sometimes your prospects aren’t seeing them at the appropriate point in the cart.  Test those placements.  Also, if you use live chat support, and the chat service is “offline,” what is the customer experience like?

#7 Security concerns

Similar to #1, this is somewhat out of your hands…the Web isn’t 100% safe for shoppers, and they know it.  But, Point of Action Assurances, 3rd party security seals, and credibility of design are key.  Another great opportunity for testing different placements and different seals in the checkout.

Blogger’s Note: Apologies for excluding other winter holidays in the title of this post; I was just going for alliteration

First, there was Jeff Sexton’s post about asking the right Persuasion Architecture questions before redesigning, which was inspired by a Seth Godin post. Then, Jakob Nielson had some good thoughts from the Usability camp about redesigns and how radical they should be.

Mr. Nielson’s thoughts resonated with me given that our OnTarget product is generally focused on incremental improvement of clients’ existing websites. He urges readers to avoid redesigns that involve massive change to a site’s user interface.  Why?  Because users (read: customers and prospects) hate change and love the familiar, even if we as marketers are sick of how our own sites look.  It’s always good advice to “evolve a UI with gentle changes rather than offer a totally fresh design.”  He also recommends “getting the basic design right in the first place, before you launch, so that it can live several years with minor updates.”  I think that’s a key point: a good (re)design is one that can stay fresh and current for several years, and accommodate a process of continuous improvement and incremental change.

I’ve seen many gorgeous site redesigns that didn’t stand up to that criteria–they weren’t well-coded, well-documented, or maintainable.  And when it came time to start optimizing, the marketing team found many unexpected constraints that made incremental changes more expensive than they bargained for.

Another point I’d like to drive home is that redesigns should be done with ROI in mind, not because internal stakeholders are sick of the look and feel.  There should be documented goals that can be measured, for example, increasing pages per visit by 20%, and increasing conversion rate by 5%.  And flexibility should be built in, so that you can always have a “to do list” of small improvements you can implement each month to incrementally build on your successes.

Finally, if you are considering a moderate to major redesign, keep in mind that usability testing can be done on very simple prototypes before you make major investments.  And, we love giving feedback on mockups, wireframes, prototypes, etc. because it allows our clients to launch with the best possible product, after which we start the process of continuous improvement.

If you’re interested in improving your product detail/landing pages and cross-selling, this video (and upcoming Part 2 video) is not to be missed.

1. Schwan’s 35.2
2. Keurig 31.3
3. ProFlowers 26.0
4. Vitacost22.5
5. Blair 22.4
6. DrsFosterSmith.com 22.4
7. Woman Within 21.3
8. Amway Global 20.5
9. Roamans.com 18.7
10. Office Depot 17.9

*Source: Nielsen Online / Marketing Charts

Benchmarks according to the FireClick Index

Increasing your conversion rate requires you to follow a continuous improvement program? If you need help improving your results let us know.

As I relate the following three eCommerce mishaps, be thinking about whether you can eradicate all of them from your business by the time the “Holiday Rush” hits. ALL are preventable, if you start today and take one item at a time.

Let’s start at the “precipitating event;” the spark that lit my desire to shop online…

1. An email with a promo code arrived.  w00t!  They paid attention to past purchases, and sent me a great promotion: 10% off a brand I’ve purchased before, and free shipping if the order exceeds a certain amount.

How They’re Losing Sales: Despite not mentioning an expiration date for the promo code, it was expired by the time I reached checkout.  I’m notoriously slow for opening emails from online retailers, but I bet I’m not alone.  Creating a sense of urgency with an expiration date is fine, but remember that shoppers sometimes go weeks without going through their personal email accounts to read your promo codes.

And now it’s Customer Service’s turn…

2. When the promo code came up as expired, I was understandably disappointed.  I’d just spent a fair amount of my weekend building up enough value in my shopping cart to qualify for the free shipping (Yes, I’m cheap.)  My credit card was out of my wallet.  So, I clicked the live chat in the cart to see if they’d extend the promo code, or give me an equivalent one.

How They’re Losing Sales: The live chat agent, while polite and earnest, was not able to do anything to help me (be a cheapskate).  They weren’t empowered by their employer to get creative and save me from abandoning my cart.  They suggested I call the “real” Customer Service during regular M-F business hours.  So my guess is that the live chat is being outsourced, which is fine, but if they aren’t empowered to save sales, they’re probably not giving good ROI.

Now stepping up to the plate, Technology…

3. I came back the next day with the intention of calling the retailer and trying to get them to extend the promo code or give me the equivalent deal.  So, I returned to the site and clicked “My Cart” to review what I’d put in there, and have it on-screen when I called.

How They’re Losing Sales: They didn’t save my cart! So many sites are saving cart items via cookie that I assumed my items would be there the following day or week.  So now I’m definitely not going to re-build my cart AND call them to try and negotiate the promo code.  I’m going to just repress the whole memory…maybe I’ll even forget the retailer’s brand in the process!

These 3 blunders may seem unconnected from a business perspective, but from a buyer perspective, they were all part of a persuasion scenario that broke down and turned a VERY motivated shopper into a lost sale.

I do like the site, and hope they can address these issues and stay in business.  But they and others will have a very painful holiday sales season if they don’t treat the disparate parts as a unified buying experience that must be nearly flawless to be profitable.

My question to Grok readers is:
Will Amazon’s infamous pressure-cooker culture eventually overtake all the innovations and friendliness of Zappos’s culture? Or, is the alliance a perfect shot-in-the-arm for both groups?  Will Zappos start bundling books with patent leather pumps?

But I just felt I had to call out an example of how poor copywriting and writing for search engine robots can ruin a decent Unique Value Proposition.

I was referred to a site to look at their homepage design (see screenshot, highlighting is mine), and immediately noticed that they had a prominent Unique Value Proposition (UVP) statement, which was promising.

The UVP statement wasn’t the best I’ve read, but at least it was an attempt that could be tested and refined. But the sub-text under the UVP was what irked me enough to write this post.

Someone decided to “we-we” all over the UVP! And it looks like they also tried to write for search engine robots instead of humans with credit cards:

“We specialize in custom ties, custom bow ties, bowtie / cummerbund / handkerchief sets, custom cufflinks, matching gift boxes, women ’s scarves, and much more. We can custom make your neckwear any way you desire. We have both standard ties and clip on ties as well as extra long ties for your custom ties. We even have custom ties for boys as young as 6 months. Our products are great for corporations, organizations, churches, choirs, schools, uniforms, athletic teams, fraternities, formal and special events, and many more.”

Notice that by focusing on SEO only, they end up with copy that will resonate with no one.

Here’s the official tally from our free We We Calculator:

Your Customer Focus Rate: 37.50% (3 customer-focused words)

Your Self Focus Rate: 62.50% (5 self-focused words, and 0 mentions of the Company Name)

You speak about yourself about 2 times as often as you speak about your customers. Might that have an impact on your effectiveness?

I’m not a Search Engine Optimization guru, but I’d wager that any SEO prowess you lost by fixing that kind of copy could be made up by 1 or 2 quality, keyw0rd-rich inbound links from reputable, related sites, don’t you?

Here are 5 key, unanswered questions (beyond shipping costs) of the shopping cart:

1. Do you offer alternate forms of payment (aside from credit card)?
2. Are you safe and secure?
3. Why are you asking for this information?
4. Do I have to set up an account to buy?
5. Do I get to review my order before we transact?

I recently bought a Father’s Day present online from a gift retailer, and their overall shopping cart process was “OK.”  I would give it a “B-” grade; it was good enough to get me through the purchase without bailing, but not nearly good enough to earn brand loyalty.  But, they did a good job of clearly answering the 5 Questions, and it was enough to help them “Get The Cash.”

I captured some elements of their billing page so you could see how their design answers the 5 unanswered customer questions.  When you click on the screenshots, can you pick which design element answers which question?

Are you adequately answering the 5 unanswered questions? Whether your confidence level is low, high, or somewhere in between, we know you could run some interesting tests to validate your assumptions about how well you’re doing, and you might increase your funnel conversion rate in the process!  Want help?  Let us know.

1. Schwan’s 50.5
2. FTD 27.2
3. ProFlowers 24.3
4. Vitacost.com 23.7
5. Woman Within 22.7
6. Roaman’s 21.1
7. ColdWater Creek 20.0
8. Eddie Bauer 19.3
9. Blair.com 20.20
10. QVC 17.30

*Source: Nielsen Online / Marketing Charts

Additional March Retail Benchmarks:

The online retail sector in general registered an encouraging increase in ecommerce activities in March 2009 compared to February 2009 (month over month) but down compared to March 2008 (year over year).

“Consumers who shopped online in March purchased nearly 12.0 percent more items compared to the previous month, while the average dollar value increased by more than 4.0 percent, suggesting that not only were consumers buying more items online, they were actually spending more money on average than they had just the month before.

Unsurprisingly, year-over-year retail metrics for March remain down across the board compared to March 2008. The average number of items per order, average order value and shopping cart conversion all fell significantly—8.1 percent, 6.3 percent and 3.4 percent respectively—compared to March 2008.“

Page Views Per Session 11.39
Average Time on Site (in seconds) 476.13
Average Items/Order 5.82
Average Order Value $143.93
Shopping Cart Conversion Rate 34.52%
Shopping Cart Abandonment 65.48%

* Source: Coremetrics LIVEmark Benchmarks US (PDF) – UK benchmarks PDF available.

Coremetrics LIVEmark leverages aggregate performance data across more than 300 participating brands to deliver over 35 benchmark metrics addressing performance indicators such as campaign and channel effectiveness, site stickiness and conversion rates.

1. Schwan’s 42.10
2. ProFlowers 36.50
3. Quixtar 33.20
4. Vitacost.com 28.90
5. Woman Within 24.20
6. LL Bean.com 20.40
7. Office Depot 20.30
8. Tickets.com 20.20
9. 1800Flowers 17.30
10. QVC 17.10

*Source: Nielsen Online / Marketing Charts

Additional February Retail Benchmarks:

The online retail sector in general registered dramatic drops in ecommerce activities in February 2009 compared to January 2009 (month over month) and February 2008 (year over year).

“Gifts retailers and Jewelers—both traditional winners on Valentine’s Day—reported 23 percent and 15 percent increases in order sessions respectively. However, the average dollar value of those orders did not match these increases, with a modest increase of 4 percent for gifts retailers and a decrease of 14.3 percent for jewelers. These numbers illustrate that even on those occasions when consumers want to spend, they are spending in a more restrained fashion than in the past.”

Page Views Per Session 11.70
Product Page Views Per Session 3.17
Average Time on Site (in seconds) 481.05
Average Items/Order 5.21
Average Order Value $138.27
Shopping Cart Conversion Rate 34.39%
Shopping Cart Abandonment 65.61%
New Visitor Conversion Rate 2.00%
On-site Search Session 17.6%

* Source: Coremetrics LIVEmark Benchmarks US (PDF) – UK benchmarks PDF available.

Coremetrics LIVEmark leverages aggregate performance data across more than 300 participating brands to deliver over 35 benchmark metrics addressing performance indicators such as campaign and channel effectiveness, site stickiness and conversion rates.

Recently, I went to MySpace.com to look up a semi-obscure band.  Why did I go there instead of my usual search engine query?  Because every band is on MySpace.  If you are a band, and live in the Milky Way solar system, you are on MySpace, and everyone knows it.  It’s the kind of reputation you could leverage into ad revenue…you know, relevant banner ads, text ads, promotions, etc.

Midway through my brief listening session, the infamous MySpace music player stopped performing its function and overlayed an ad.  To continue listening, I had to dismiss a very intrusive banner.

I won’t waste anyone’s time with why interrupting my favorite song with a banner ad that has to be actively dismissed is a bad idea.  Instead, let’s follow the experience of that one visitor in a million who wants to stop listening to cool music, go off to another site, and take a completely different action.

So let’s look at the persuasion scenario the advertiser, Dominoes Pizza, has paid to funnel us into.

The Creative: It’s professional-looking, but it could at least try to have something to do with music.  The call to action button doesn’t really stand out or contrast, and it’s asking for a lot (go from listening to music to ordering food online).

The Landing Page: Yikes, that doesn’t look very fun.  Where’s the scent of information for me to follow?  Am I in the right place?  They also get bonus points for giving me a promotional price on 3 medium pizzas instead of sandwiches!

The Rest of the Scenario: I clicked into the scenario a bit deeper out of morbid curiosity.  Once again, nothing makes me more persuaded to order sandwiches online than a big picture of a plain cheese pizza.  The whole experience seems geared towards ordering pizza, which makes sense if I am a direct entry visitor.  Couldn’t they pass a parameter so the page defaults to the Sandwiches tab?

Disruptive advertising is risky. I’ve already started a mental list of brands I now hate because they interrupted my music listening (Blockbuster and Insurance.com joined the list).  So, if you’re going to risk a bad “brand exposure,” and a backlash of negative word of mouth (or worse yet, bloggers ), you’d better have your ducks in a row for those who actually click through into your conversion funnel.

Have you ever received great advice from a consultant but couldn’t implement it?

A recommendation is just advice, no matter how excellent, until you implement.

It’s only when you implement a recommendation that you reap the rewards.

Even when you know the advice is great you can get consulting indigestion.

You, the client, in consuming the advice can be the log jam or the hero of every consulting engagement. It’s rarely the consultant that makes the difference. If you choke or get indigestion then consulting leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Just-In-Time Optimization

We have always tried hard to screen for toxic clients with unrealistic expectations. Our NPS scores are excellent and our client successes speak for themselves.  Nevertheless, the most common lament among our clients isn’t about us it’s about them. They simply don’t have extra resources or time to implement everything we recommend.

We could ask our customers to change or we could change.

We chose to change!

Instead of providing you with a gut busting all-you-can-eat buffet we’ll provide you only the healthiest tastiest morsels of advice that you can actually consume and we’ll do it for much less money.

Think of it as just-in-time optimization. You tell us how much time and resources you can devote and we’ll prioritize our recommendations based on how much impact it will have towards reaching your goal.

You get analysis and recommendations without the considerable expense of having to hire an analyst.

We’re Not Crazy

Well at least we’re not dangerous, except to your competitors.

OnTarget, our new software-as-service model allows us to automate a great deal of otherwise costly consulting tasks that don’t provide as much value to you.

With OnTarget you get:

1. Our expert analysis of your online lead generation and sales efforts;
2. The best recommendations you can actually implement with an estimate of time & resources required;
3. Pricing based on your ability to implement (starts as low as $1,000 a month) so that you achieve the highest return on investment of your time, money & resources.

We are launching the OnTarget program this week. We will be busy revising our website all week but you can preview the OnTarget service description.

If you want to know more or want to inquire about our reseller program please contact us.

We at FutureNow are big proponents of setting up a business culture of testing, optimization, and continuous improvement.  There are lots of advantages like improved conversion rates, bigger bottom lines, surviving tough economic times, getting past draining internal debates, and so much more.

Another advantage that we haven’t talked about as much is that an optimization culture can get you past the dangers of “best practices.” Many of our clients have implemented the “best practices” of other sites (or even other industries) and then wonder why they aren’t seeing big gains.  The main reason is that they’ve merely copied other sites’ ideas, and not tested to validate that those practices will work for their own unique site and business model.

I saw an interesting deviation from an industry “best practice” the other day, and whether it’s true or not, I imagine that testing allowed the site designers to go their own way instead of following the herd.

See the screenshot from Amazon.com’s “submit order” page.  Take a look at how they’ve handled the common issue of getting the purchaser to agree to terms and conditions before purchasing.  Many sites and site designers struggle with their Legal departments on how to secure agreement to terms while not reducing the quality of user experience (and conversion rate).

If you’ve read Always Be Testing, you’ve seen how we reference Amazon.com’s many evolutions of their site designs over time which come out of a very disciplined testing and optimization culture.

The common “best practice” in this scenario is to either:
a) have a checkbox near the call to action button that says something like “You must check the box to agree to terms before you submit your order.”
b) have copy near the call to action button that says something like  “By clicking the button below, you agree to our terms and conditions.”
In either case, the common design pattern is to hyperlink to the terms and conditions (near the call to action) so concerned visitors can read them in full.

Now note the subtle deviation from “best practice” on Amazon.com’s current page:

• They have no checkbox.  One less click between the visitor and Getting the Cash.
• They have the standard legal language at the top of the page in a much less prominent position.  It’s outside of the ‘box’ that contains the order information.
• The hyperlinks to the terms that the visitor is accepting are in the footer of the page; nowhere near the call to action.  You’d really have to be looking for them to find them.

So how did Amazon.com get the gumption to leave “best practice” design in the dust?  Again, I can’t be sure of this, but we wager that testing results and analytics data played a major part in the design.  I highly doubt that their Legal experts are playing fast and loose with legal and financial risk!

So there you have one of the less-thought-about benefits of a testing and optimization culture.  Only through testing can you gather the data you need to safely and comfortably make the decisions that work for your business, not your industry.  Best practices are pretty dangerous when you haven’t tested to validate and re-validate them.

As we’ve said many times, don’t copy Amazon.com’s design just because they’re an industry leader.  Do your own testing to gather insight, then make the design decisions that work for you.  And in the spirit of shameless plugs, we’re here to help if you need us.

Well sports fans, here we go.  Black Friday.  Soon, Cyber Monday.  (Forgive me for the brief digression, but did you know neither Black Friday nor Cyber Monday typically deliver results, in the form of conversions, er, sales, mainly just delivering traffic   Unsurprisingly, retail numbers thus far have been bleak, to say the least.

Retailers are hopeful however, and doing everything they can to jumpstart the economy and try to turn a profit this holiday season.  Amazon got my attention with their personalized email, touting deals exclusively for me, but really failed to deliver on the promise.  Uber-disappointing when you consider how much insight they have into my buying process, not to mention my personal as well as holiday gift time purchase history.  Yes, even the market leaders sometimes miss opportunities. Perhaps they need some help harvesting the insight from their customers’ past purchase behavior?  [*Update* CNBC documents Amazon's strategy.]

Naturally, many retailers are using price cuts to try and attract attention.  Even brands who rarely do so, like Apple for instance, give kickbacks to customers this weekend.  Who says Politicians should be the only ones to prosper?!  [Don't say we're not in the giving back mood either- deal hunters should stop by Gizmodo for a rundown of all the best deals this weekend.  *Update* NY Times has a good rundown too.]

Not every retailer is up to the same old tricks though.  Sears, through a partnership with Yahoo is trying to capture the holiday spirit, and capitalize on the web sense of community to spur sales.  Of course, they promise exclusive deals as part of the promotion .

If history is any indicator, each of these efforts will result in traffic spikes (not only on websites but highways and mall parking lots as well!) of highly motivated would-be customers. These potential prospects certainly have a list of products in mind, or if they’re earlier on in the buying process, an idea of what type of product they’re shopping for.  Everyone hates to be sold, but loves to buy. Buying is about the experience, above and beyond the “right price”.  What will you do to convert those could-be customers into delighted customers?

Plato said, “necessity is the mother of invention.”  If Plato were faced with a marketing budget coming under fire to pare costs and brace for a long dark winter, I respectfully suggest he’d get focused on “inventing” some ideas around Optimization.  Your traffic is coming to your website for a reason, and if your conversion rate is in the single digits, perhaps it’s time to consider what your audience is telling you, and do something about it.  After all, you won’t have the same luxuries to keep spending $$ on driving an overabundance of traffic.  Perhaps now is the time to capitalize on opportunity: the web is your home to listen not to what they say, but rather to what they do! We’re always here to help you listen, and turn your audience feedback into actionable (and continuous) website improvements. 

Tomorrow we’ll start to see a harbinger of things to come.  Will Santa’s little elves be out in full force?  Most definitely.  But the larger question we want answered is, will the experience be enough to overcome the last stage of the buying process- reevaluation. So, in the name of research, go out and enjoy the deals… but let us know about the experience.

Do you see more sites this weekend who deliver on their promises, or are your expectations continuing to outdistance the experience they provide?  We want to know!  Our audience does too, so please sound off in the comments.

As obvious as that statement is, many still seem to deny the equally obvious implication: you won’t keep profit margins healthy unless you actively take business away from someone else – either from direct competitors, or from businesses outside your market/category.  If the pumpkin pie gets smaller, you’ll have to cut a fatter slice in order to get the same amount of holiday pie.

But how can you do that on the short term?  With the holiday season upon us, what can you do right now to ensure window shoppers actually buy from you (instead of someone else)?

Watch this video and take a hard look at how you can improve your websites with holiday focused Point-of-Action assurances.

Then read this article to get 10 outstanding “must do” action items.  Some of them will take longer than others, but many of the earlier recommendations could be executed so as to yield results for the Christmas and holiday seasons.

Plus, don’t forget to register for our upcoming webinar tomorrow so you can leverage Google’s Quality Score – the Secret Factor to PPC Success for your holiday pay per click campaigns.

1. The Homepage Dump: You add an item to your cart and are thrown into the checkout process.  You’ve got another item on your shopping list, so you click the little link that says “Continue Shopping.”  You’re dumped on the homepage.  This is especially bad when you’ve done a lot of searching and results-filtering, and now it’s all gone.  It really does feel like you’ve just been dumped!  I can’t think of any good reason why the homepage is the proper place to land a visitor to continue shopping.
2. The Painful Multi-Item Purchase: Many shopping carts make no distinction between adding to cart and checking out.  As soon as you add to cart, the website assumes that you want to checkout and sends you down that path.  But what if you’re not ready?  We all know from the offline world that putting a bag of chips in a real shopping cart, and standing in the checkout line secretly reading tabloid headlines are two very different things, right? More robust shopping carts allow an item to be added to the cart without interrupting the browsing process.  When visitors are ready to checkout, they intuitively know how to initiate that process from any page with one click.  Threadless.com and Amazon.com both do decent jobs of this in their own unique ways.  A good test for this one is to go through a multi-item purchase on your site without using any of your cross-selling or up-selling elements.  It should still be easy to browse >> add to cart >> browse again >> add to cart again >> check out.

Hopefully, you’ve skimmed these two issues and they don’t apply.  Pat yourself on the back and maybe focus on testing and optimizing your cart instead.

Now can anyone tell what the heck the product is? (I happen to know, since I also remember a late night commercial that explains it.)*

Put yourself in the place of the site visitor who is seeing this for the first time. I mean, thanks for the Freebie and all, and congrats that PC Magazine seems to like it … but what is it?

A product? Perhaps magicJack is a flat tire fixer? Is it an apple-flavored  children’s breakfast cereal with a magic toy inside?

From the picture, I might guess maybe it plugs into a phone jack and does…well… something phone-ish?

Or maybe it’s a service by a local magician? The possibilities are endless.

What isn’t endless is a prospective customer’s attention span, even when a Freebie is involved.The best way to sell something is for the customer to have a recognized need for that something. If I don’t know what you’re selling, it’s unlikely I can recognize that need on my part. It strikes me that an awful amount of marketing dollars are being spent to get a prospect to act on the freebie offer for something which remains indistinct.

Here on the Grok we often talk about the three fundamental questions of Persuasion Architecture(R): “who are you talking to?”, “what action do you want them to take?”, and “what do they need to take that action?” Most of the time our posts touch on how easily companies flub #1 or #2. However, this is an example of a company flubbing #3: What I need to know to take action is “what the product is” !

In your own marketing efforts, do you ever forget what it is not to know about your wonderful company and its product or services? Are you forgetting to say the obvious?

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* For the curious, I’ll save you a google search and tell you that what MagicJack does is plug into your computer’s USB port, and then you plug your traditional landline phone into MagicJack and make phone calls through the internet. Easy enough to understand once you hear it. Now, look at the ad again and see if it makes more (or less) sense.

So as you ramp your sites and marketing up for the Holidays, do you have a few innovations up your sleeve?

Let’s face it. Despite the economic troubles, people are still going to want to give gifts, and find the best gifts they can for their loved ones.  They’re just going to be more cautious and spendthrift.  So empathize with that sentiment as they shop with you.

Encourage them to take their time and find the right deals.  Advise them to buy multiple items to save on their overall shipping spend (Amazon has always ruled this game in my opinion).  Heck, if you’re really bold, cross-sell them with similar items that cost less…it’s sounds crazy, but they might convert instead of abandon.

For a more concrete example, think about gift cards.  A certain percentage of gift shoppers will always end up giving gift cards, and that means a certain percentage of your early-2009 traffic will be gift card redeemers.  The buying path for gift cards is usually OK, but have you optimized it?  Do you plan to test and optimize it in the weeks leading up to the Holidays?

Now think about the card redemption process, which I think has even more room for improvement.  Here’s the experience I’ve always had when redeeming Holiday gift cards online:

1. Receive the card, note how much is on it.
2. Sometime between and 12/26 and 7/4, decide to redeem it (I’m a notoriously bad procrastinator).
3. Look on the back of the card for redemption instructions.
4. Following the instructions, type in the URL and land on the homepage.
5. Now I’m overwhelmed with thousands of products to choose from and no assistance offered.
6. I poke around a bit, maybe try to search by price range, and maybe buy something.

Boring.  Uninspired.  A bit tedious.

Here’s a dream of a better experience:

1. Receive the card, note how much is on it.
2. Sometime between and 12/26 and 1/31, decide to redeem it (Made a New Year’s Resolution about procrastinating less).
3. Look on the back of the card for redemption instructions.
4. Following the instructions, type in the URL and land on a unique landing page or a microsite, 100% dedicated to gift card redemption. No distractions.
5. I can select the value of the gift card and be shown ONLY relevant price range items, or receive a few friendly suggestions of ways to spend the $, or find out how other shoppers have been spending their gift cards.
6. The checkout flow is customized to my unique task of checking out with a gift card.

Those are just a few changes that seem achievable.  Pair those changes with optimization, and you might turn 1-time gift card redeemers into repeat purchasers.
If anyone wants to share their innovative Holiday Season ideas, feel free, but we understand why you wouldn’t necessarily want to give up your competitive advantage .

Can anyone give examples of extraordinary 2007-08 Holiday gift card experiences out there on the Web?

At a time when filling the gas tank can seem like a spending spree for many consumers before they even set foot in a store, the prospect of having an item delivered to their homes free of charge holds considerable sway. Free shipping offers now abound online, and experts forecast that, as the calendar moves closer to the all-important holiday selling season, websites that don’t provide free shipping (even if it comes with a minimum-spend prerequisite) will be at a competitive disadvantage…

…Studying the list of online shoppers’ favorite retailers yields some interesting findings. Four retailers specialize in large-size apparel; considering this is a niche market, that’s an impressive showing. It’s likely that many large-size shoppers – still an underserved group despite growing numbers of people buying apparel in these size ranges – feel more relaxed purchasing online, as it provides anonymity and the chance to try clothing on at home.

I was a bit surprised to find Google on the list of retailers. Why do you think they made it?

Who is your favorite retailer? How come?

If you are a retailer, will you be offering free shipping this holiday season? What is the reasoning behind your decision?

I clicked the nice, big, obvious “Add to Cart” button to dive headlong into the conversion funnel.  ERROR.  Some gobbledegook that only a developer would understand.  No phone number.  I did what anyone in the mood to buy would do – I clicked the back button and tried again.  ERROR.  I clicked back again, and luckily for this eTailer, the toll free number was prominently displayed in the active window, AND I didn’t have any of their competitor sites top-of-mind.

Rep:  Welcome to [store with error-ridden website], how can I help you?

Me: Well, I’m trying to buy [Item X] on your website, but I can’t, so can you start by checking whether it’s in stock.

Rep: OK, I can help you buy [Item X] no problem.

Now, let me imagine that conversation as it should have been…

Rep: Welcome to [store with error-ridden website], how can I help you?

Me: Well, I’m trying to buy [Item X] on your website, but I can’t, so can you start by checking whether it’s in stock.

Rep: Oh no, I’m so sorry to hear that!  What happened?  Can you describe what you were doing when our website failed you?  Did you get an error message?  What browser were you using?

A little empathy would’ve been effective and memorable…maybe even blog-worthy. Don’t sound matter-of-fact that your website blew up, or I’ll never use your online channel again, and your brand has been damaged.

And I’m sure the technical team behind that website would’ve LOVED to get their hands on the error code that I’d written down and done some tinkering.  And they should’ve, because that website was bleeding money yesterday.

1. ProFlowers 28.40%
2. Office Depot 25.60%
3. FTD.com 24.30%
4. 1800flowers.com 20.30%
5. Lane Bryant Catalog 18.7%
6. QVC 17.50%
7. Eddie Bauer 16.8%
8. Roamans 16.1%
9. Vistaprint – 15.2%
10. eBay – 14.9%

*Source: Nielsen Online / Marketing Charts

Just like last month the 3 major florists made the list; did dads get lots of flowers? I didn’t. However, I did get a nice Nikon D60 DSLR camera (thanks to my wonderful kids and wife.) As you look at the additional benchmarks below, there seems to be a negative trend from the previous month. A lot of these benchmarks have trended down. Could it be related to the economy?

Additonal June Retail Benchmarks:

Page Views Per Session 12.72
Product Page Views Per Session 3.42
Average Time on Site (in seconds) 476.59
Average Items/Order 5.90
Average Order Value $120.82
Shopping Cart Conversion Rate 31.74%
Shopping Cart Abandonment 68.26%
New Visitor Conversion Rate 2.02%
On-site Search Session 15.07%
On-site Search Conversion Rate 6.64%
On-site Search Average Order Value $130.41

Marketing Summary Benchmarks:

Direct Load:
Traffic % 48.06%
Sales % 65.61%
Conversion Rate 3.49%

Natural Search:
Traffic % 13.43%
Sales % 8.41%
Conversion Rate 1.92%

Referrals:
Traffic % 7.06%
Sales % 2.40%
Referral Conversion Rate 1.40%

* Source: Coremetrics LIVEmark Benchmarks US (PDF) – UK benchmarks PDF available.

Coremetrics LIVEmark leverages aggregate performance data across more than 300 participating brands to deliver over 35 benchmark metrics addressing performance indicators such as campaign and channel effectiveness, site stickiness and conversion rates.

If you need help increasing your numbers, I know someone reliable and proven who can help you. Just ask me.

I can’t think of many retailers who feel that their category pages are awesome. However, retailers keep copying from each other in the hope that someone knows what they are doing here. Maybe it’s time to admit we need to rethink this issue from scratch and that most category pages are broken because they don’t do their fundamental job well.

The job of the category page is to help the visitor narrow down his selection so they can find the right product to fill their needs. This is something we have been researching with clients extensively and have come to the realization that sometimes you can’t patch up something that is completely broken; sometimes you need to re-invent it.

It’s a fairly simple process when you use Persuasion Architecture. If you want some help with your category pages in order to increase your sales, just let us know.