Boo.com found this out the hard way. They burned through $135 million in just a year and then went bankrupt because their focus was not remotely on what their customers really wanted. Their focus was on what their go-to-the-edge-and-damn-the-bandwidth design team wanted to parade: a high-tech site design that was so slow to download, customers simply left - assuming their browsers didn't crash first.ⁱ They assumed what their customers wanted, and they assumed wrong. And don’t be misled, this isn’t about bandwidth, and more bandwidth would not have saved them - although their incredible blindness to modem reality certainly didn’t help.

What we have here is a Technology Gap between the developers and your customers. Zona Research estimated that U.S. e-tailers lost over $4.35 billion in 1998 due to unacceptably slow download speeds and resulting user bailouts alone.ⁱⁱ And the problem is getting worse, not better. The Marie Antionettes of tech and design, fluent in languages like XML and Cold Fusion, surrounded by 21-inch monitors and coddled by 800 MHz machines interconnected by DSL or T-1 lines, just don’t get the fact that the largest group of Mr. and Ms. Customer still surfs at speeds under 56K, is anxious about going online at all, and is still trying to figure out hyperlinks and menu bars.

On top of this, consider results from studies that prove people out there don't even want fancy graphics when they go shopping, nor do they care about background music, animations, or any other “entertainment.” What they do want is to find the information they need to make their purchase quickly, easily, and safely. Also, the rules of print design do not apply on a website. When shoppers read a printed page, their eyes gravitate toward the pictures. (Yeah, you knew that.) But on a site, your site, their eyes avoid the pictures and search for useful text.ⁱⁱⁱ (Bet you didn’t know that!) And they certainly don't want to wait ages for those unnecessary images to download. Oh, and just how much does it help your shopper to tell them that in order to view your site they have to get a plug-in, wait for it to download, and install it? (Get a what? Do…what? And wait even longer? I’m OUTTA here!!)

You’d think with all this information out there, along with boo.com and lots of other sites like it having gone up in smoke, at least the BIG guys would get it. Uh-uh. I just read that Neiman Marcus (www.neimanmarcus.com) is going to create an online shoe shop (complete with 360 degree views of the interior), entered "from a virtual street, which will be dark or light depending on what time the user logs on," where "shoes will gently rise from racks and pirouette when clicked on, at a speed determined by the user," the goal of which is to bring "a life-like shopping experience to dial-up modem users."^iv

Huh? I guess their designers don’t read about what their sites are really supposed to do - or surf at human speeds. (And how did this monster get approved?) Imagine how long this is going to take to download. Oh, but if you’re real quiet you can hear, as shoppers storm the Bastille, the shrill voice of the designer, “Let them eat faster modems!” But slow or fast, if studies plainly show customers want quick, clear, useful information, why would anyone think a rotating shoe would make them more likely to buy? No one would who was listening to their customers or who understood selling, as opposed to technology or design or marketing.

Don't get me wrong. There's a place out there for adventurous design. Visionaries are tinkering with our future experience, and that's cool!! You want to see sites that "challenge the mind, enrich the soul and push existing web technology to its limits"?^v Try www.thetrade.com, www.volumeone.com, www.photomontage.com or www.eneri.net. "These sites are not accessible to everybody, but they're not trying to be. Their purpose is to inspire a particular audience, and they succeed."

If you want to increase sales, you've got to think like your customers, see the entire process through their eyes, walk a mile in their shoes - or at least surf a mile with their mouse. Folks have known that for a long time (like, a couple thousand years!), and nothing about being online changes that, even if bored designers and programmers wish it could. So, since you can’t expect designers and programmers to be experts in sales, you have to be the one to call the shots, and “just say no” to design fantasies. Yes, you have to be the one to run your store.

i   "But More Online Shopping Sites Are On The Way." Evelyn Nussenbaum, NYPost.com, 5/31/00.
ii  "The Economic Impacts of Web Site Download Speeds." Zona Research with Keynote Systems.
iii "Give Them Words, Not Pictures." Nick Usborne, Clickz Network, 6/5/00.
iv Nussenbaum, NYPost.com, 5/31/00.
v  "HTMHell: Where Have All The Designers Gone?" Jeffrey Zeldman, Adobe Web Columns. Mr. Zeldman draws a vivid picture of the tension between designer, client and consumer

click here for a printable version of this whole article

Hey, It’s Music to MY Ears!
AIDA. Nope, not Verdi's monumental opera. But just as monumental in its own way. A proven formula that guarantees powerful and effective strategies in marketing, advertising and sales. And it’s just at home in cyberspace as it is in real space. That’s music to anyone’s ears.

Of course you want your customers buying, then coming back to buy again and again. Telling their friends about you, too. I mean, you do, don’t you? (Whew, I was starting to wonder!)

So, make sure every single page on your website passes the AIDAS test. Yeah, I snuck an “S” in on you. Our good friend Hal Alpiar made me to do it :-) I’ll explain, I promise.

A Grab your customer's ATTENTION.

Does your page capture them in 10 seconds or less? With something that speaks to their felt need? And, do you sustain that attention by responding to their clicks (their questions) just as well, just as fast?

I Strengthen INTEREST.

Do you show your customers immediately that you can meet their needs? If not, why should they hang around? Do you provide useful information, and do it in a user-friendly format? Do you give your shoppers a reason to stay? Do you make it easy for them to find everything they are looking for? (Or do you make it easier for them to leave than stick around and be frustrated or confused? Your competitors are only a click away. And that’s just your online competitors.)

BIG point: The folks who sell flash will try to sell you that flash is important, that people want to be entertained when they shop, that entertainment is “sticky”. (We’re not talking about useful content that may also be entertaining - shouldn’t it be anyway?) Here’s a little Martian for you: BUH-LOW-NEE! The only time people want to be entertained is when they’re searching for … entertainment (duh!). Study after study proves that when people want to buy, what they want - ALL they want - is to find the info they need and be able to complete the purchase confidently, easily, and quickly. Period. As for “sticky:

Make it easy and safe for them to buy and you won’t need to give them anything else; don’t, and nothing else will matter.

D Instill DESIRE.

Exactly how are you inspiring your customers to stay with you and keep clicking up to and through the purchase? (And remember, dancing bears will not do it - unless, of course, your target demographic is 9-year-olds with borrowed credit cards.)

A Get them to take ACTION.

“Action” may be to buy, or it may simply be to click again on the way to making a purchase. Either way, do you make it logical, easy, obvious (and again, desirable) - even for a newbie? Do you lead your customer through the buying process in a way that makes sense to them? In fact, have you even thought about it as a process? And are you helping them to take action, pushing them to take action, or demanding they take action? Which do you think works best? Which one would you like to experience?

S SATISFY your customer.

Does every click on every page get them more of what they want? Or do some clicks get them what you want to push, or confuse them, or display what one of your programmers or graphic artists wanted to show off? Do some clicks even generate error messages? Yes it happens. All the time. Even on your site. Does the experience of shopping your site delight your customers? Does it make them feel good about buying from you? A satisfied customer comes back, and tells others. A dissatisfied customer doesn’t come back, and tells even more people.

AIDAS. Make it your song. If you don't sing it, someone else most certainly will.

click here for a printable version of this whole article