101. Keep the date on bottom of
pages set at right year.
100.
Never leave unanswered emails for more than 48 hours, or your customer
is gone.
99. Let the customer see the
shipping charge without registering! Preferably on the basket or
a easy-to-find 'shipping charges' page.
98. Make sure your forms use
common names for fields so that they're recognized by toolbars that
have an autofill function.
97. Sites (mainly US!) that
have address or phone fields that assume only a US citizen is going
to purchase e.g. State fields that only allow a few characters entry.
If you're happy taking money from non-US purchasers, you MUST go
to a tiny bit of effort to accept their address and telephone numbers
painlessly! Got it? It's not rocket science!
96. (following on from 97)
If you've got a country drop-down box, please list it in alphabetical
order, and don't put United States at the top!
Of course you can pre-select United States, but it's kinda annoying
for people in the United Kingdom who expect to find their country
as the next item in the list!
95. Don't just accept payment
through PayPal. Many people have had bad experiences with PayPal
and prefer to use alternative, simpler payment methods.
Matt
94. Make your site incredibly
easy to buy from - no registration if possible, live chat, 800 #
- make it friendly and easy to buy from.
93. Take a picture of your
office and add it to your contact us page with your company FAX
number on it.
92. Don't bury your products in several pages of clickthroughs,
implement a working search mechanism so the user can get to what
they seek in two clicks, three maximum. Insure there are redundant
methods of getting around and no point on your site is more than
two clicks away . . . from ANYWHERE.
91. Keep your initial products
pages light and clean, with links to product details if they actually
want to read.
90. Build your site for the
end user, not the search engines. This means leave off all the serp-y
text on the initial products pages.
89. Give the user a sense of
who you are. The web is a cold, anonymous place. Anything you can
do to bring a sense of personality and assurance to your website
will help.
88 - if you use a site search,
make sure it works better than expected. It should search more than
product names. Make sure it can find products by SKU, Model Number,
and even misspellings if possible.
87 - be sure to include links
to your privacy, shipping, returns & exchange policies right
out where the customer can easily find them. Tell them the truth.
86. Keep the customer informed
about the status of their order before they ask
85. Re: Navigation - Use the
same visual theme for every action required of the customer
84. Re: Product options - Make
them clear and comprehensive. Answer every possible question on
the product detail page
83. Make sure your site search
can also search by size and color. If I'm considering a green skirt
or blue towels, make it easy to find other items that would match.
82: dont use those standard
drop down country forms containing places like North Korea or Bouvet
Island (an inhabited speck in the South Atlantic. For heavens sake,
don't list known scam destinations as a ship-to
81: Don't start huge lists
like this that require people to read every previous post thoroughly
80: If you only ship to USA
(or wherever) say that right off and several times.
79: Drives me crazy when the
"About Us" section says nothing specific about the seller
and just has some obviously canned verbiage.
78: Mission Statements: Yuck!
Luckily they seem to be dying out. No one gives a damn, anyway.
77: Goes without saying that
spelling must be perfect. On slow days, have employees proof read
old pages.
76: Bragging about yourself
is ok if you have something to brag about. But better to not mention
things like "Since 2005" or "here's a picture of
our new puppy."
75: If you're new to ecommerce
NEVER mention that. Invitation to scammers to hit you.
74: Get a real 800# (or 888),
not a 866 or such.
73: Get the most web un-savvy
person you know to test your site.
72: Customize product descriptions.
Eschew text provided by suppliers which everyone else uses.
71: Listen to customers, invite
their comments and criticism and act on what you learn
70: Answer emails in 8 hours
max (certainly not 48)
69: Give street address but
never "we're in Puppyland Center, between Tony's Pizza and
the Shoe repair shop."
68: Show good sharp graphics.
Learn to use basic photo editing software.
67: Worth saying again, and
again. Make everything fast and simple. Do you really need a wish
list or tell-a-friend or even customer registration? Don't just
add to your site. Sometimes remove clutter.
66. (Follow on from 67) remove
all non essential navigation elements from the checkout process.
Have a single page checkout if possible.
65. Calling your customer to
thank them and confirm their order instills immediate trust.
64. Make entering credit card
numbers easy.
• When the customer is looking
at their card and alternately typing on their keyboard, they don't
like to look up and realise that they have only entered the first
four numbers in field one.
• Customers haven't got time
to read explanations about how you would like them to format the
date. Make it easy and obvious.
• If the customer has entered
some incorrect information, please let them know this without them
having to type in all their details again.
63. Install a really good stats
system to track where your visitors bailed out of the purchasing
process.
62. Pay good money for a proper
interactive graphic designer (not a coder, web 'developer', or print
designer doing a bit of moonlighting). If your web site looks professional,
people will trust it and buy stuff.
61. Accessibility and usability
- those 5% of 'non-standard' user groups all add up.
• They may only be 5% of your
customer base, but Mac users also have spending power. Often proportionately
more than your Windows customers. So it may be worth having your
site tested with this in mind.
• Another 5-10% may be blind
or partially sited. Having an accessible web site and checkout process
is good for business.
60. Add your 800# to every
step of the checkout process with something to the tune of "questions
or problems completing your order, call 800#)
59. Have a "best sellers"
or "most popular" listing. The boost from this has been
noticeable.
58. If your site ranks best
in your niche, and If you sell something that is sold on many other
websites (something drop shipped for you, for example), very slightly
change the name -- Tarenta to Tarento, Classica to Classico, for
example. This helps deter people price shopping for the 'product
name' elsewhere and in the shopping engines.
57. List your prices for every
item clearly and upfront. There's no space for a 'price on application'
model online, none at all.
56. When using thumbnails to
link to larger images give your customers larger images.
55. Pick the right product
to sell. Something people actually want to buy. Preferably something
lots of people want to buy.
54. If your target audience
is concentrated in one country, host your website on a server and
ip located in that country.
It not only helps to load it fast for most of your audience, it
also enhances google rankings in that country specific google, and
prevents your site from being filtered out when people use the search
filter for sites only from that country.
53 - Promotional Offers: I
believe offers are v imp. Now they need to be planned for first
timers, repeat buyers and special offers for top customers.
52 - Referral Program: Refer 2 friends and get x% additional/
discount always helps.
51. Actually have contact info
- many sites hide their identity and location.
Try to put the contact number somewhere on every page, it instils
confidence.
50. Keep the 3 P's above the
fold on a product page. Product name, Price and Purchase link should
all be visible without having to scroll.
49. Drop the "Create account"
language. People don't come to our sites to create accounts, they
come there to buy things. I try to make the account creation process
appear like the normal checkout process. If they enter an email
that is already in the system, THEN I ask them to request their
password to login.
48. Know your visitors - if
significantly more people are first-time-buyers, don't hit them
with a login screen with a small link to register to the site -
reverse the process.
47. Keep your cart on your
domain - if for nothing else, it keeps your reporting homogenous.
46. Don't use the "simple"
methods of gateway processing where the visitor is redirected to
the gateway site. It seems that on almost every implementation of
these setups the webmaster fails to bring the most current site
layout over to the gateway site and the visitor gets a whole new
layout for cc errors.
45. Never tell the visitor
to "Hit your 'back' button to correct". I haven't found
a valid reason to do this yet - any issue should be able to be handled
within the system.
44. Have a "Help"
link very prominently displayed so they have somewhere to go if
there is an issue.
43. For telephone purposes
use a short and easy to spell domain name like … dot tld depending
on locations or products use more than one, which redirect to a
product or location page.
Ad to no. 100 , answer your mail within 10 to 30 minutes, they will
always reply like Thanks For Your Quick Answer and will always remember
and talk about your great service.
42. Get the credit card number
first, ask questions latter!
It is better to deny a suspected fraudlent order in post processing,
rather than have the computer automatically deny honest customers
due to AVS or CVV issues.
41. If you show a picture of
the product and next to it a link that says 'enlarge' actually ENLARGE
the photo rather than have it open in a new window exactly the same
size as on the main page!
40. Ship fast. Preferably the
same day and you are sure to get mails for appreciation.
I hold my widgets in stock and try to ship same day. The customer
almost always comes back for more. I get many WOW mails. This is
a sure TIP. ;-)
39. Have points of re-assurance
near the buy/add to cart button (bbb, bizrate, other ratings)
38. use a proper ssl certificate
37. If using paid advertising,
don't send them to your home page; send them to the relevant product
page (or custom landing page) that is tied to the keyword you advertised!
36. If you sell software, allow
immediate access to the full version and allow unlimited upgrades
35. Have a list of "recommended
products" and "other customers also bought" with
each item. This can be simply done in your database where you just
connect products together and base it on what customers have actually
bought.
34. Have a newsletter sign
up and send out newsletters.
33. Don't make the customer
fill in the CC billing & shipping address fields when they're
the same, drives me nuts!
32. Vat number & Company
Registration Number should be visible on the site in the UK to comply
with UK Companies Act (updated Jan 2007).
31. If the product ships via
a carrier, send an email to the customer with the tracking number
with a link to the carrier to check status.
30. Use an XML Sitemap generator
to create a sitemap to get a "big picture" of your site.
Submit it to Google et al. and they'll help you find dead pages,
etc.
29. On category pages don't
just list product names, but include some unique content about the
category for indexing.
28. Use a product rating feed
or create your own system (if you have a sizable user base). A place
for user-generated comments can be great, but it can also be a hassle
(monitoring, lots of fake entries, etc).
27. if you sell the same object
in different colours, offer them pictures of each colour.
telling a customer that you "also do this in blue" isn't
all that helpful because there are about fifty billion shades of
blue.
26. Use a larger font (14+)
for titles and product names to make them stand out and possibly
increase conversions
25. Stay away from dynamic
URLs when possible
24. Sign up for Hackersafe,
verising and your related trade associations and display their logos
to improve credibility
23. Have a person answer the
phone, not a recording.
22. If you cannot exceed the
expectations created by your site-rewrite your copy. Underpromise
and over-deliver.
21. Hang in there with the
difficult customers-they become the most loyal.
20. Know when a customer needs
to be given to your competition.
19. Consistency. Everyone has
a different flavor, color, even brand. Key is to be consistant ---
have 1 text size and color for descriptions, one for links, one
for category headers, perhaps another for main category links. At
least theres a tone or vibe that your site is a statement vs a hodgepodge
of stuff made by someone in their basement Be serious about what
you are doing, and people will be serious about considering buying
from you
18. If you use sessions, store
them in a database, don't append them to the URL, as people like
the look of clean URL's and often snip them to mail to friends to
refer them to a particular product to purchase.
17. On checkout gather a name
and phone number as the first 2 fields, store them before proceeding
and ring all the customers that drop out before completing the checkout.
(This alone turned a $1M business into a $5M business)
16. Make the font on your product
copy readable. 12pt at least. NO funky fonts.
15. Make sure your buy button
pops off the page and is big enough to be seen and clicked on.
14. Make sure the title tag
on each product page is unique and reflects what is on the page.
(It never ceases to amaze me how many companies in this day and
age still have just the company name in the title tag of product
pages). Oh, an product name first in the title tag. Not your company
name.
13. I was waiting for people
to put in something . No one (keeping in mindit will be point #13).
Rule # 13 = Superstition does not work well with Business
What you may feel unlucky may be lucky for customers ranging from
keeping Price Tag, Products, Colors, Day / Time of Shipping etc.
12. Offer a strong guarantee.
Don't jast say this widget is guaranteed x days.
Try for something like this:
Try this widget risk-free for 30 days
-- if you don't see an improvement in widget results -- if this
is not the best widget you have ever owned -- return it to us for
a full refund.
Sure, you'll get a few returns, but
it will be nothing compared to the increase in sales you will get
from a strong guarantee.
11. Add "District of Columbia
-DC" to the list of drop down states, you be suprised how many
sites are missing it...
10. And don't forget PR, GU,
VI and all the other US commonwealth and protectorates, that the
Postal Service can ship to, at cheap postal rates.
9. Don't forget US Servicemen/women
abroad. Include APO/FPO state codes.
8. Play with the wording of
your add-to-cart buttons. "Add to cart" is a nice non-threatening
way to encourage adding items as some feel "order" or
"buy" is too much of a commitment.
7. Be careful making a coupon
field too prominent in checkout, especially in markets that are
based on commodity goods such as electronics. Seeing the field may
convince a shopper that was ready to purchase to exit and spend
more time hunting for coupons. Consider relabeling as promotion
code or something less descriptive (unless you are linking to a
promo page with coupon codes to encourage larger sales).
6. Mine referral data of orders
for search engine keyword queries encoded in the urls and further
optimize for these terms for organic search or consider adding to
your PPC campaigns.
5. Encourage impulse buys says
a tip I read somewhere on the net, people don't mind being asked
"Do you want fries with that?"
4. If you're going to ask customers
to sign up for your newsletter during checkout, do it AFTER the
payment is processed. Before the payment is taken, the customer
is far more interested in ordering your product - but once you've
taken their payment and they're looking at your "Thank you
for your order" screen it's the ideal moment to get them to
sign up...
3. Underpromise and over-deliver.
Amazon does this a lot with free shipping (in the UK anyway) which
is why I love to buy from them (of course their prices are often
great as well).
Yesterday I ordered some books, clicked
the free shipping tab and it said the shipping date was 15th June.
But today, the 13th the postman delivered!
This happens a lot of the time and
really reinforces that Amazon are one hell of an online company
to do business with. Never seem to get the same feeling from any
of the others I order from especially Dell.
2. Don't assume the main goal
of every commerce site is to make a profit. Publicly owned sites
are often more concerned with selling stock and hitting wall street's
quarterly sales goals. That was true in the '90s and somewhat true
even now.
1. Amid all the costly free
shipping gimmicks, 365 day guarantees, free return pickups, insanely
low prices...don't forget to actually turn a profit.
In this regard, understand that some
of your competitors really will be idiots with zero understanding
of retailing. Some still buy into the discredited '90s notion that
losing money for a few years will earn a lifetime of loyalty.
12a Only offer a really strong guarantee
like that on really strong products. I have one company that it
works excellent with (less than 1/10 of a percent returns) and another
company that it did not work well with (5-10% returns). The difference
was that the first company's products could not be misjudged or
misused. The second company's product were much more subjective.
A lot of user error - which we took the blame for.
s
24A. Add as many credibility seals
as you can.
Privacy: TRUSTe Web Privacy Seal
Security: VeriSign Secured Seal
Return Policy: Return Policy Agreement Seal
Reliability: BBBOnline Reliability seal
9) Don't forget US Servicemen/women
abroad. Include APO/FPO state codes.
- You can use this only if you ship
via the Postal Service. Otherwise it would expensive.
9) Don't forget US Servicemen/women
abroad. Include APO/FPO state codes.
- You can use this only if you ship
via the Postal Service. Otherwise it would expensive.
Combining these two into 9A) Include
the U.S. Postal Service (if you are a U.S.-based company) in your
shipping options. Fedex/UPS/etc. can not deliver to APO/FPO addresses.
It's not just U.S. servicemen/women, but also their families, government
workers, and military contractors. It represents a HUGE market,
and it (almost always) costs the exact same amount to mail a package
overseas to an APO/FPO address as it does to mail the same package
across town.
95. Don't just accept payment through
PayPal. Many people have had bad experiences with PayPal and prefer
to use alternative, simpler payment methods.
95a. List the payment methods you
accept somewhere noticeable.
If you have a high rate of shopping
cart abandonment, perhaps it is because the customer had to add
something to their cart and go partway through the checkout process
to find out what payment methods you accept. And then abandoned
your site when they discovered it was not a payment method they
wanted to use.
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