Call
them the equivalent of urban legends, old wives' tales or
plain-and-simple myths -- the e-waves abound with utterly
erroneous pronouncements on the nature of Internet
commerce. But they’re presented with the voice of
authority and often, mistakenly, are awarded further
credibility by the cold, hard fact that dot-coms are going
belly up at a rapid rate.
The
real truth, when it comes to the problems in e-commerce
these days and the myths that surround them, is that
websites are doing a terrible job of selling. Sure,
they are trying to sell, but they are not
performing the systematic activities an expert human
salesperson would in the real world. To put it bluntly,
most e-commerce sites actually discourage sales.
Unfortunately, instead of solving that real and
fundamental problem, most e-businesses prefer to hide
behind myths. .And those myths get in the way of even
looking for, much less finding, solutions that work even
though there are solutions that work, and work really
well.
I'd
like to encourage you to opt-out on some of these myths.
So let's play True-or-False. If you've been paying
attention to the stuff I’ve been saying lately, I'll bet
you'll get 'em all right!
"We
can't actually sell on our website, we can only hope
customers will buy."
False!
Of course, it is true you can't sell anything if your
website isn't focused on sales. If all you are about is
marketing, it isn't surprising you aren't doing much
selling. But that isn't to say sales can't happen. Amazon
sells like crazy. Build your site to sell, and sales will
come. Don't think that just improving your site's
usability or customer experience is going to take you all
the way. You've got to do that, of course, but to maximize
current as well as repeat sales, you’ve actually got to
employ the art and science of selling.
"If
we increase traffic to our site, we'll increase our
closing ratio."
False!
Increase traffic and you’ll get more visitors … maybe.
If you are driving them to a dead end, consider yourself
lucky if your closing ratio continues to tread water. No
amount of marketing is going to boost your closing ratio
if your site doesn't sell your customers. And the more
people you drive to a bad shopping experience with you,
the more people you lose forever (along with everyone in
their address books).
"People
don't want to be sold."
False!
People love to buy, and they come to your site primed with
a "propensity to buy." They want to be sold.
They just don't want to be pushed. And they don't want to
have to figure out confusing graphical interfaces or cope
with a site that forces them to navigate around forever or
wait ages for pages to load. They don’t want to be
smacked with hidden charges or absurd shipping costs. They
don’t want their private information shared. Is that
complicated? So, wanna disprove this myth? Redesign your
website so it leads your customers through a delightful sales
process just as an expert salesperson would in the
real world, and watch your sales explode.
"Shoppers
want to be entertained, so we need to invest in lots of
fancy design gizmos."
False!
Shoppers want to shop; ultimately they want to buy. Cute
and clever is not on their shopping list. Neither is slow.
That’s not just a Grokian opinion; it is supported by
every single shopper survey ever done. Why website
developers don’t read that essential information is
beyond me, and sales figures suffer as a direct result.
Most shoppers out there do not want to be distracted by
flashing this and pirouetting that, however novel and
inspired you or your developers might find it. When it
comes to sales, it's only designers and programmers who
get excited by this stuff. Customers aren’t even
neutral; they don’t want it. (Can you say Boo.com?)
"A
picture is worth a thousand words."
False!
There is a power in the word to take hold of your
customer's imagination and place him or her firmly into
the ambiance you are trying to create and sell that no
picture can accomplish. When you look at a picture, you
stay outside it; you put yourself right inside the images
created by great words. Words excite the emotions in a
very singular way. And that is one of your biggest sales
tasks: to speak to the needs your customers feel.
And by
the way, a picture that takes forever to download is far
more likely to encourage your customers to bail rather
than buy. In which case, even a thousand great words won't
bring 'em back!
"We
simply gotta have a search engine."
False!
More often than not, an in-site search engine is a bad
idea and a big waste of money. Hard research has proved it
can be twice as bad as not having one at all! Instead of
thinking more technology is going to save you, think how
to shape the design of your site through a well-designed
series of links, so it effectively can lead your customers
to what they are looking for. Improving your Information
Architecture will help your sales much more than a search
tool will.
"Big
name developers, designers, programmers and marketers
understand how the Internet works, so we need to do it
their way."
Super
Falso!!! The big names have taken millions of dollars to
build some of the worst sites. They may look cool, but
they can’t sell to save their lives, literally. Graphic
designers understand graphic design. Programmers
understand programming. Marketers understand marketing.
They do not understand sales! So how can they design,
program or market for sales? They can’t. The only way
you should "do it" is in the way that makes your
customers happy and gets them buying. Only then will you
get the Internet working for you. Remember that other
myth, the one that said the Internet has changed
everything? How much red ink do you need before you toss
that out with the others? Online, just like offline, the
customer is still the same wonderful and quirky human she
always was, and she rules.
Get the
idea? Good. So dump those myths in the trash where they
belong, get out there and start selling!
