Checkout Process
Convert More Visitors with Confidence
Recently, while on a Market Motive conference call with Shoplet’s founder and CEO, Tony Ellison (a fan and reader), we noticed an interesting method of presenting Point of Action assurances at the shopping cart page. Visitors simply hover over links to read more purchase assurance and website policies. No click involved, and best yet, it doesn’t remove you from the checkout process.
Shopping Made Easy
Shoplet makes it effortless for visitors to have their questions answered on the spot, when they need it most. It’s a stretch from the all too frequent task of searching for purchase assurance links, such as return policies and shopping guarantees. Although, there are a number of tests I’d like to see on Shoplet’s shopping cart, they’ve done a great job reassuring visitors of their purchase.
Reassuring visitors by answering their questions is not exclusive to e-commerce sites, but for lead generation sign-up forms as well. When was the last time you tested the effectiveness of your Point of Action assurances?
If you want other proven methods of boosting confidence and trust on your landing pages, sign-up for our Always Be Testing webinar on July 9th, FutureNow’s free monthly webinar series with Google. Hosted by Bryan Eisenberg, Co-Founder & EVP at FutureNow, and Tom Leung, Business Product Manager at Google, you’ll receive practical tips and advice on testing the effectiveness of your marketing and usage of Google Website Optimizer.
Editor’s Note: Peter knows quite a bit about the power of Point of Action assurances. One of his clients will be featured during the webinar and they had an increase in conversion of over 100%.
Related Posts:
Written by:Peter Lee
How to Increase Shopping Cart Abandonment
So, it wasn’t exactly Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood (”I’ve abandoned my CAAARRRRRRT!!!”), but when Jeffrey told me today that he still hadn’t bought his nephew the Fisher Price Grow to Pro Basketball hoop after two weeks of putting it off, I assumed he was being dramatic.
Jeffrey claimed to be sticker shocked from shipping cost inflation, a common reaction while shopping online. One minute, you think you know the whole price. Then — bam — you proceed to checkout, only to find that the price has shot up as much as 25%.
Was Jeff being cheap? Probably. But it’s understandable.
The truth is that online shopping has spoiled us. When Amazon ships for free — at least it feels that way if you buy into Amazon Prime — and when Zappos wants you to return those shoes (yes, really), anything less feels like a cheap plastic substitute for the real thing.
ToysRUs.com does so many things right. The product image views are clear and show multiple angles. The customer reviews are helpful and thoroughly integrated. I could go on, but the important thing — the reason they still haven’t sold Jeffrey a Fisher Price Grow to Pro Basketball hoop — is that they set a poor expectation of total cost before checkout.
Here we see Toys ‘R’ Us insisting that their price is $39.99; a price even our CEO can afford. 
Sounds like a great deal!
And look at these reviews:
Wow, that’s a popular basketball hoop! You’d think he were buying an iPhone.
But when Jeffrey proceeds to checkout…
Fifteen dollars isn’t a big deal, but it’s something you’d never be asked to pay in a toy store. It’s not as though Jeff doesn’t have fifty-five dollars to spend on his nephew. [Author’s Note: Jeff has reminded me that he was shown a $22 shipping fee, making the $40 toy cost over $70 after tax. This begs the question as to why we were shown different shipping charges since neither of us was asked to enter a postal code and we visited the website from the same office.] It’s just that, like you, me, and the millions of people who shop online, we’re turned off by hidden fees.
Is it believable that it costs the company $15 to ship this product? Of course. It looks big and bulky, if not heavy. Is it reasonable to expect them to ship it for less than that? No! In fact, it’s very unreasonable. But logic has very little to do with it. This is about setting the right expectation.
People rationalize buying decisions with logic, but we make buying decisions based on feelings.
As Sitebrand’s Carolyn Gardener points out,
. . . when shipping becomes a pain point due to lousy check-out procedures, strict delivery options and exorbitant fees, the odds of cart abandonment increase.
When you consider the abandonment literally squashes someone’s intent to buy, not to mention the e-store’s ability to make money, it’s a very serious issue.
How to Avoid Shipping Shock
Jeffrey insists that he still plans on buying the basketball hoop from toysrus.com — and I’m pretty sure he will — but let’s brainstorm some ways for e-tailers to reduce the emotional impact of shipping cost shock.
- Offer multiple shipping options - Why should the retailer choose the shipping method? By giving the customer their choice of delivery options, the conversation becomes more about how soon they want it and how much the parcel service will charge them, not how much you’re going to charge them. Doing this also makes it easier to provide some level of free shipping. But good luck getting anyone who’s been spoiled by Zappos’ free overnight shipping policy to get excited because you offer complimentary snail mail. Still, as long as you show the costs for each shipping option right there in the shopping cart, you should be fine.
- Include shipping in price - Why not say “all prices include shipping” upfront on the product page? Some sites allow you to enter a postal code on the product page to estimate shipping rates. Others use new e-commerce technologies to show an estimated cost to ship to the visitor’s current location. If you don’t want to do either of those, at least tell the customer that shipping is not included in the price on the product page. This is especially true for larger items that are expensive to ship.
- Offer free shipping - A lot of established retailers may consider this to be a channel conflict. (”Why should we offer free shipping online? It would kill our profit margins.”) Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but if it’s at all a viable option, it will almost certainly lead to increased volume. Jeffrey would have gladly bought the same product on Amazon, but they told him it would take 1 - 3 months to ship. The irony, of course, is that without free shipping, it might take Jeffrey 1 - 3 months to actually buy it!
What other ways are smart e-tailers reducing shipping shock? If you have examples, please do share them in the comments.
. .
Want to reduce cart abandonment without sticker-shocking your CFO? We can help.
Related Posts:
Written by:Robert Gorell
Conversion Rates, Eat Your Heart Out
Quick question for anyone with a lead-generation or e-commerce site…
Which is easier: Getting people to trust your website and complete its web form or checkout process, or getting them to literally donate their hearts and eyeballs?
Take your time.
Apparently, the answer depends on where they live. While 99.98% of Austrians agree to donate their organs upon death, only 12% of Germans do the same. Virtually all French citizens will donate a kidney to save a life, but the Brits? Only 17% of them seem willing. Meanwhile, your chances of having a heart (transplant) are nearly four times better if you’re having a triple bock in Antwerp than they are if you’ve already had a triple bypass in Amsterdam.
Seems odd, doesn’t it? Take a look at this graph from a recent Freakonomics article:
Here’s how Dan Ariely — Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Behavioral Economics at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management, principal investigator of the MIT Media Lab’s eRationality group, and author of Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions — explains this bit of research (from colleagues Eric Johnson and Daniel Goldstein) in the Freakonomics post mentioned above:
…It turns out that it is the design of the form at the D.M.V. In countries where the form is set as “opt-in” (check this box if you want to participate in the organ donation program) people do not check the box and as a consequence they do not become a part of the program. In countries where the form is set as “opt-out” (check this box if you don’t want to participate in the organ donation program) people also do not check the box and are automatically enrolled in the program. In both cases large proportions of people simply adopt the default option.
You might think that people do this because they don’t care — that the decision about donating their organs is so trivial that they can’t be bothered to lift up the pencil and check the box. But in fact the opposite is true.
This is a hard emotional decision about what will happen to our bodies after we die and what effect it will have on those close to us. It is because of the difficulty and the emotionality of these decisions that they just don’t know what to do, so they adopt the default option (by the way this also happens to physicians making medical decisions, and also to people making investment and retirement decisions).
[…] The moment you realize that your intuition about your own behavior might be wrong it is clear that you need another, more objective input.
This is what experiments are all about. We could have never intuited the opt-in, opt-out effect, nor could we have intuited the magnitude of this effect, and this is why empiricism is so important.
If you know anyone who’s skeptical about testing content from the visitor’s perspective, please take a moment to share this with them.
. .
[Image credit: Kistyn E]
Related Posts:
Written by:Robert Gorell
The Fight Against Shopping Cart Abandonment
Liberty Fillmore is a man with a purpose.
He’s no hero. No, sir. Just an ordinary guy placed in extraordinary circumstances.
His mission: End the plight of abandoned shopping carts everywhere.
Fillmore has a natural talent for saving carts. He was born to do it. He is… The Cart Whisperer.
. . . everywhere I go, I see shopping carts tossed aside. Cast off. Abandoned. In super-value-store parking lots. And, more and more, on the interweb which is online. People say, “I’m all gonna fill up my shopping cart with things,” and then before they hit the BUY button, they say, “Oh, I don’t feel secure. I ain’t buying this stuff here.”
Well, boo hoo, cowards. How do you think that cart fills? Left there, full up and then abandoned before she can fulfill her cartly duties? Well, that’s why I rescue abandoned carts. And why I welcome the support of VeriSign and their EV SSL Product Thing. Join our ranks, and put your cart abandonment issues to rest.
How do you think that cart fills, indeed. Won’t somebody please think of the carts!?
Cart Awareness Starts at Home
Now, before you go door-to-door petitioning for cart awareness, you should know that — although we wish he were — The Cart Whisperer ain’t a real guy. No, ma’am. What we have here is a clever viral marketing campaign from VeriSign.
Let’s take a peek at a day in the life of Liberty….
According to VeriSign:
The … campaign is aimed at highlighting the pain companies experience as they try to understand why consumers fill online shopping carts, only to abandon them before buying. In the face of an uncertain economy, online retailers are clamoring to find ways to turn shoppers into buyers. At stake are hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenues lost to abandoned carts.
From a branding perspective, this works — assuming that people actually end up going to NoMoreAbandonedCarts.com (otherwise, they’d have no idea VeriSign was behind it). At the moment, though, over 1 million people have seen “The Cart Whisperer” clip.
Only time will tell whether this campaign boosts VeriSign’s bottom line, but it sure does its part to spread cart awareness.
On our mark. Get set. Trust us!
Trustmark logos are helpful, but they’re not the whole answer. If you think adding a trustmark to your e-commerce shop is enough to “end the plight of cart abandonment,” think again. (Sorry, Liberty, but ya cain’t save ‘em all by yer self.)
Trustmarks can boost conversion rates and lower cart abandonment to a degree, but there are many other ways to build trust. Here are three:
• Simplify your privacy statement Roughly 75% of consumers assume that, as long as a site has a privacy policy, it won’t share data with third parties. Not only should you have a privacy policy, it should be clear and concise (e.g., “We value your privacy,” “We will not share your personal information — ever”). Try putting a clear statement like that next to your “Add to Cart” or “Buy Now” calls to action and test whether it improves conversion.
• Get a decent “About Us” page. It’s amazing how few small e-tailers make the “About Us” page a priority. If your brand’s logo isn’t trustmark enough, customers need to know more about who you are if they’re going to be comfortable giving you money.
• Optimize your shopping cart. Don’t blame Liberty Fillmore for an 80% abandonment rate. It’s possible you’re not giving would-be customers enough information. Do visitors need to click “Add to Cart” to see your pricing and shipping rates? If so, maybe your cart abandonment rate is misleading. Maybe it’s time to learn a few tricks from Amazon.
Godspeed, Liberty Fillmore. Your noble quest is our own.
. .
Shopping cart lonely? Gonna be in New York on June 3rd? Want to become a cart whisperer?
Related Posts:
Written by:Robert Gorell
PayPal Should Go Undercover
PayPal recently announced a streamlining of its payment flow process that doesn’t require a PayPal account to use. In other words, you can “check out” via PayPal, reap the security benefits of the merchant store not knowing your financial details, and pay for your item without having created any long-term relationship with PayPal (although they wouldn’t mind).
Adding PayPal to an e-commerce site can sometimes result in lower conversions — which makes sense because you’re being taken away from the experience you were just having at the merchant site. On the upside, some mid-sized UK merchants using this new process are reporting an increase in their monthly total payment volume, with gains of over 9% on average.
But I’ve got a different request altogether.
I use PayPal. A lot. Probably at least $500 a month of online purchases of various things that, at the time, I’m convinced I really need. It always amazes me how confusing the PayPal part of the checkout process is. First I’m on the merchant site. Then I’m off it — but not so obviously that I notice right away. It’s just a white, empty-feeling page with the merchant logo and a familiar PayPal button. Then the interface changes again to make it obvious that it’s PayPal.
In order to return to the merchant site, I have to click a small-font text link that competes with PayPal-branded buttons for my attention. At this point, I’m still not sure if the purchase “took” — that confidence doesn’t come until I return to the merchant site.
Won’t some of those e-tailers enjoying that volume increase please, please, PLEASE put just a fraction of that revenue toward hiring a bright developer to create a way to do this undercover? Its seems this could be easily resolved with a bit of (*buzzword alert*) AJAX.
Enter your PayPal user name, maybe some kind of modal lightbox pop-up to asks for my password, it goes back behind the scenes to confirm this with PayPal, then seemlessly closes the pop-up and updates my status on the merchant site to say, “Purchase completed via PayPal. Thanks for your business!”
I like using PayPal. I just don’t want to notice it. Kinda like the electricity in my home; I just want it to be there when I plug in my laptop.
What do you think?
Related Posts:
Written by:John Quarto-vonTivadar
Hidden Secrets of the Amazon Shopping Cart
Approximately 76 million people have purchased from Amazon.com.
Chances are, many of you click this “Add to Shopping Cart” button several times throughout the year.
So, why does it always stump audiences of online marketers when I ask them where in the checkout process Amazon has us select a quantity for the item(s) we’re adding-to-cart?
Before you scroll down for the answer, let me give you some popular Add-to-Cart methods to choose from:
#1 — A form field that defaults to “1″ or “0″
#2 — A blank form field to enter the quantity desired
#3 — A drop-down menu (usually from 1 to 9) to select quantity
#4 — A plain Add-to-Cart button that adds a single item to the cart (where you can adjust later)
Did you guess which one yet? Feel good about your choice? Hold that thought.
Amazon’s Add-to-Cart Evolution
I’ll let you know the answer in a moment, and don’t feel bad if you guessed incorrectly. It’s only been a few months since Amazon last changed its checkout process. But that’s not why you haven’t noticed what’s changed. The reason you’re unsure of how Amazon has you Add-to-Cart is because that’s exactly what they’re counting on.
Amazon doesn’t want customers to notice when they’re making changes like these.
Why? Because, for better or for worse, something as simple as an “Add to Cart” button can have a huge impact on the business. Amazon knows this, and they’ve built a culture of website optimization. It’s this foundation that’s made them one of the top-converting websites, month after month.
For Amazon, success comes from a continuous cycle of optimization (measure, refine, test). Compare this rigorous approach to the fact that over 75% of online retailers don’t do any optimization testing, and you’ll begin to see why Amazon remains the envy of e-commerce marketers.
I’ve been snagging images of Amazon’s Ready-to-Buy area (on their product pages) for many years. Let’s look at the evolution of this critical first stage of the checkout process to see what you can learn from it.
PLEASE NOTE: Just because Amazon does it, doesn’t mean you should. They make decisions based on their business needs, not yours.
Point-of-Action Assurances
Here’s an early version of Amazon’s ready-to-buy area:
Their Add-to-Cart button was one of the first to use an irregular shape; a circle with a cart icon on the left, blued to a rectangular button with the “Add to Shopping Cart” message. Notice how many point-of-action assurances there are (”you can always remove it later” on the button, and the lock icon with “Shopping with us is safe. Guaranteed.” right below).
These were the early days of e-commerce, when customers feared that the Earth might implode if they hit the wrong button. Back then, few people felt comfortable putting their credits cards online and Amazon, for the most part, sold books.
The objective: Make people comfortable clicking on the Add-to-Cart button.
“Buy now with 1-Click”
Notice how the wording at the top goes from “Buy from Amazon.com” to the more productive “Ready to Buy?”…
While the Add-to-Cart button stayed the same, with this incarnation, Amazon launched its “1-Click” feature and added it to the “Ready to Buy” area. This design expanded the renamed “Ready to Buy” area to 262 pixels tall.
The objective: Make sure everyone sees the bordered, stand-alone “Ready to Buy” area with the Add-to-Cart and 1-click buttons.
Note how the secondary action (”Add to Wish List”) is roughly the same color as the Add-to-Cart button. That will change.
Removing “you can always remove it later” + Button Shrink
I managed to snag this one while Amazon was running a split test…
Amazon decided to test removing “you can always remove it later” from on the Add-to-Cart button. They replaced it with a similar message (”you can always cancel later”), just below the “Ready to Buy?” header. What’s important here is that the buttons were now condensed, so this cluster of calls to action took up less space.
I think the little notches by the word “or” is a nice touch, don’t you?
The funny thing that happened when Amazon made these changes was that many of our clients at the time decided they should also remove point-of-action assurance from their Add-to-Cart buttons. We told them it would hurt their conversion if they changed it — and, sure enough, against our advice, the clients changed it and conversion dropped. Yet Amazon kept the new buttons. So the question remains…
Why would they switch to buttons that don’t convert as well?
Because conversion isn’t the only metric that matters. If you look closely, you’ll notice they made the “Ready to Buy” area take up about half the space of the previous version. Why? Because they quietly launched a marketplace to resell used goods, deciding it would boost profits if they didn’t have to stock and ship everything themselves — a fundamental shift in their business model.
The objective: Increase profits by showing used books higher up on the page.
(Don’t copy what other people do if you aren’t fully aware of the business issues involved.)
Amazon 2.0
Here we can see that Amazon has gone through a major redesign, and their iconic Add-to-Cart button gets a face-lift:
Notice that it’s the same shape, same colors, but now has a 3D effect. The “Ready to Buy” verbiage is no longer there, and the secondary “Buy with 1-Click” button now requires users to log in if they’re to see it. Also, the used book marketplace gets much more screen real estate. They’re also heavily promoting the A9 Search Engine.
Did you see that they changed the color of the “Add to Wish List” buttons so that only the Add-to-Cart button is the main focus of the page? They’ve even added another secondary action (”Add to Wedding Registry”).
Here’s what it looks like today…
They’re no longer promoting the A9 search engine, the marketplace isn’t taking up as much room, and they’ve added a few more secondary actions (”Add to Shopping List,” “Add to Baby Registry,” and “Tell a Friend”).
As you can see, they’ve added a pull-down menu to adjust quantity, so you don’t have to wait until checkout to change it. So, if you guessed option #3 at the beginning, congratulations, you’re my kind of e-commerce geek. 
The objective: Increase Average Order Value by keeping customers engaged in the buying process. This should also lower shopping cart abandonment by reducing the number of steps in the checkout process.
Big Money. Small Change.
Changing your call to action buttons doesn’t guarantee the highest return on investment from website, but it is an easy and popular test.
Amazon has spent many years testing this area, but they’ve tested countless other variables as well. They’ve tested the size and viewing functionality of product images, putting images on the left vs. the right side, the location of product reviews — you name it, they’ve tested it. Still, they continue to optimize this area (formerly known as “Ready to Buy”), making adjustments based on business cycle and market circumstance.
Amazon Wasn’t Built in a Day
Think your website is beyond repair? Tell it to Jeff Bezos. Once upon a time, his website looked like this:
Soon enough, after significant trial, error, and observation, he turned it into this:
Yes, it’s still ugly, but what Bezos realized early on is that, to be a successful online merchant, you need to get a hypothesis and test it if you want something that works.
Are you this dedicated to website optimization?
Related Posts:
Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
Old Navy’s New (E-commerce) Tricks
Recently, Old Navy redesigned their site, adding a lot of value with a few changes. The new site provides several good examples on how to improve e-commerce usability by focusing on ways to reduce friction in the customer experience.
So, let’s take a look at some of the changes to their product pages and shopping cart to get a better sense of what they’ve done a good job of so far, and share a few ideas for other changes worth testing…
Better Image Views on Product Pages
As you can see, the site allows you to easily zoom into the product you’re looking at by using your mouse as a virtual magnifying glass. This saves the visitor time by not requiring them to open a pop-up window to view the product in detail — although they provide that option as well, it’s not as helpful as this excellent zoom view. By not forcing the customer into an extra step, the zoom feature will likely reduce Bounce Rate. But more importantly, better product views make people more likely to buy.
Easy Size Adjustments + Cart View
When you add items to the cart, you’re not taken directly to the cart and away from the shopping process. Instead, they acknowledge that your items are in the cart with this mini-cart drop-down on the upper-right side of the screen. After you’ve added the item, the mini-cart retreats to a simple checkout summary (# of items in cart and total price). Of course, you still have the option to go to checkout if you’re done shopping, but they’re not in a rush — in fact, they’d like it if you bought more stuff — which should help increase Average Order Value.
Adjust Your Order Without Leaving the Cart
Once again, OldNavy.com is looking out for the customer — right in the shopping cart, this time. They make editing item details as easy as I’ve seen it on any e-commerce site. One click of the “edit” button brings up this slick tool (pictured above), which allows you to change the size and color of your items in case you have a last-minute change of heart. Now that’s a smart way to lower cart abandonment. (Here are a few more.)
Ideas Worth Testing…
• I’m not sure why they’re advertising “free returns on all womens plus styles” when all the items in my cart are menswear; nor does it make sense that they let me know they have the product “Up to XXXL” when I’ve already chosen “Large” as my size; but those are minor details that shouldn’t have much effect on the shopping process. Still, this is prime real estate they’re wasting by delivering me a message that’s meant for someone else. The OldNavy.com team should consider tailoring these messages based on what customers have already added to cart, and testing whether it improves conversion and/or average order value.
• When planning an e-commerce site, ask yourself at least this one question: “What do I hate about shopping online?” I’d be interested to hear your response in the comments section, but in the meantime, I’m sure that if I were to poll everyone at Future Now, most of us would answer, “When sites make me ‘register’ before checking out.” They should test getting rid of that immediately. If you want to a customer’s permission to be contacted when they’re not currently trying to give you money, the least you could do is ask them instead of forcing the issue. If you do ask — and you most definitely should — please do everyone (your customers and your CFO) a favor and only ask people to ‘register’ after you’ve got both their money. You’ll have their email address by then, anyway, so it’s not as big of a deal at that point.
[Editor’s Note: Want more tips on how to optimize your e-commerce site? Read our free white paper on website optimization. Need specific ideas for your checkout process? We can help.]
Related Posts:
Written by:Daniel McGuigan
Online Retailers Fail Customer Experience 101
My Company (Future Now) just released its “2007 Retail Customer Experience Survey,” revealing both good and bad news.
Bad news first. In aggregate, online retailers fall far short of offering good or even adequate customer experiences. A pathetic 4 out of 330 sites would get a passing grade in Customer Experience 101. It’s frightening to consider how much money is being left on the table and how many conversion opportunities are missed.
The good news? Companies show improvement over the last survey, though they’re falling short on many basics. These basics, however, can be relatively easily addressed and fixed. Companies committed to improving their customers’ online experiences can prioritize lower-cost and less-complex changes to improve their customer experience scores.
Improving Customer Experience Basics
While it’s easy to stare at the puddle of spilled milk and fight back the tears, there’s little profit in it. It’s a bit painful to get a less-than-stellar grade, but the smart marketer will look at missed opportunities and be sure not to miss them again. Provide an intense customer focus, and you’ll see more customers vote for you with their wallets.
Here are some actions retailers can take in the four key customer areas:
- In product presentations, provide:
- Better and more enticing product descriptions.
- Better-quality product images.
- Multiple images.
- Customer reviews.
- For fulfillment options, offer:
- Product availability.
- Easily visible return policies, shipping policies, and guarantees.
- Customer-friendly and easy-to-read and -understand return/exchange policies.
- Gift options.
- For checkout options, include:
- Multiple payment options (e.g., by check, PayPal, etc.).
- Estimated delivery times, and show in-stock availability for items.
- In-store pickup where physical stores exist.
- A progress indicator in the checkout process.
- Simpler or fewer steps or both in the checkout process.
- Third-party seals and security assurances.
- For customer service options, implement:
- Faster and more accurate replies to customer e-mail inquiries.
- Chat options.
- A visible phone number for questions and problems.
All these are significant factors that customers have come to expect online. Your customers notice little things that can make a huge difference. Companies that lavish attention on improving customer focus will reap more sales and will experience superior customer-retention rates in the long term.
You can continue reading on my column on ClickZ or read the full study on GrokDotCom.
Related Posts:
Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
Godin Was Right — Threadless is Better than “Seamless”
A few months ago, Seth Godin put the word “seamless” into a better context.
…seams are important.
Try throwing a baseball or a football without seams.
Wear clothes without seams and you look like you’re on Star Trek.
Seams make it possible to get a grip.
The goal, it seems to me, is not to create things that are seamless. It’s to put the seams in places where they are actually useful.
That’s exactly what Threadless.com does for its customers. If you’ve done business with them before and have selected an item that’s running low in their inventory, and you abandon the checkout process before buying, they’ll send you a follow-up email like this:
Their shirts come with seams, as does their marketing. The copy is spot-on without being pushy. They seem to be doing us a favor. Threadless knows that their customers know that the t-shirt designs they print sell out fast. They don’t shout “buy now!” when we’re just browsing the products. Nope. This message is tailored for people who’ve shown genuine interest. And despite the exclamation points, it reads something like this: “Sorry to bother you, but here’s what you should know about our inventory. If you really do want to buy this item, you should probably do it soon-ish.”
(Hat tip to Rishi at the Better Retail blog for the subtle link to this via comment. Great seam!)
Related Posts:
Written by:Robert Gorell
Guarantee Holiday Sales
In cubicles and corner offices around the e-tailing world, eager marketers and merchandisers are cranking up for the 2008 holiday season, with visions of plump virtual shopping carts dancing in their heads.
Meanwhile, shoppers go about their lives. Time ticks. The burden of seasonal shopping grows bigger as the number of shopping days until Christmas gets smaller.
Each year the season seems to start earlier. Shoppers are faced with more choices than ever, and online retailers are getting savvier, offering better wares and new technologies all designed to increase sales, average order values, and conversion rates.
How can you get a leg up on competitors? How can you ensure visitors buy from you and not the guys and gals on the domain just a few clicks away?
One powerful tactic is the return/exchange policy point-of-action (POA) assurance.
With current economy concerns, gift buyers are likely to be more frugal than they were in 2006, and online retailers must address that reality.
Continue reading my column on ClickZ…
Related Posts:
Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
