5 Must Read eCommerce Tips

Whether shopping online or on the high street, people don't base buying decisions on price alone. Understanding what drives decisions during key aspects of the sales process is, quite literally, the holy grail of internet marketing.

One of the most important factors for shoppers, which for many will come before seeking out the best deal, is an outstanding buying experience. Taking care of and valuing your customers is a sure fire way to build loyal shoppers, ready to recommend your store to friends and family.

In this article, we'll take a brief look at some indispensable tips for delivering an online sales process that will not only streamline the purchase, but will also provide a great user experience.

1. Navigation
Get your navigation wrong, and you may as well not bother. Easy to navigate menus with clear labelling and sub-category headings are a key element in delivering a seamless buying process. Large 'fly-out' navigation menus are also a great way of enhancing the user experience when looking for products. Including a clear link back to your home page can enhance your navigation too.

2. Breadcrumb Trails
Breadcrumb trails help to engage the user by making it clear what part of the site they are in, facilitating a satisfying browsing experience and well, just making your website more accessible. No one likes the feeling of being lost, think of it as a simple map that intuitively guides your user.

3. Filtered Results
Perhaps more applicable to those offering a larger product range, filtered results help to refine usability further. Look at pretty much any major retail website and you'll find this feature used extensively (price range, product ranges etc.).

4. If Content is King, Then Presentation is the Prince
Presenting your visitor with an uncluttered clean page is essential nowadays. You may have heard of the term 'white space' in relation to page design. The last few years in web design has seen a drive towards both the minimal and high impact – large images, video, concise navigation and a clever use of space.

It's worth remembering that whether they're shopping real world or digitally, consumers still shop very much in the visual sense. Great content is important – but so is the way it gets presented.

5. Have Nothing to Hide
Perhaps surprisingly, research has shown that being transparent about additional charges is one of the most important 'make or break' aspects of the sales process. A common mistake made by internet retailers is not informing customers of delivery costs before they begin the purchase process, causing them to abort the sale at the crucial checkout stage.

You may want to consider offering free delivery for orders over a certain amount to encourage last minute impulse purchases. Either way, publish your shipping terms up front.

Understandably, consumers are tightening their belts and looking for rewarding shopping experience on the web - which provides a great opportunity for online shops. If you would like help improving your ecommerce site, call 01454 261111.

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Facebook Page Changes – A Summary

Earlier this year social media giant Facebook announced a series of changes to their Pages (the Facebook profile for businesses). The move is designed to introduce consistency across all aspects of the Facebook user experience, and in Facebook's own words “help you manage communication, express yourself, and increase engagement”.

In this article we'll take a look at what to expect and what these changes might mean for the average admin user. Please note however, that this article is not intended as a comprehensive guide to the new updates, but rather to highlight the most significant changes.

Improved Functionality
This section definitely comes under 'help you manage communications'. Managing your admin has been made far simpler. Via the 'See all' function, users can now access grouped admin tasks instead of having to use the 'Edit page' link.

• Basic information can now be altered direct from the page title by clicking on 'Edit info'. Change your category via the 'Edit info' link using the drop down menu. This can also be accessed through the 'Edit page' button.
• Fans are now simply shown as a number.
• The 'Information' box has been removed, replaced by the 'Info' link found in the left navigation column.
• With business owners always on the look out for improved efficiency, these changes are a welcome improvement.

Creative Flexibility
Prior to the new update, there was little – if any – room to get creative with the Facebook page. The improved masthead now displays 5 recently added images (known as a 'photostrip') alongside the main image. Whilst this has definitely added visual impact to the page, business users are unfortunately unable to set the order of these images (to create a larger image, for example).

Personal users are still able to, so one is left to assume Facebook wish to retain a primary focus on social use over business. Still, the more inventive user will doubtless find a way to use this to their advantage.

No More Tabs
Sure to provoke a mixed reaction, page tabs have now been replaced by a menu section found in the left hand column, below the profile image. Here are a few tips to ensure your new navigation column is as prominent as possible:

• Make your profile image no larger than 200px in height
• Ensure all options are concisely worded
• Set the order in terms of importance

Business or Pleasure?
You can now switch between your business or personal identity with ease, using the 'Account' link at the top right of the page. No more having to sign in and out of identities.

Featured Like
Users can now specify which of their 'Liked' pages are displayed in the 'Likes' box, simply by selecting them as featured. This presents an ideal opportunity to build partnerships with other businesses for cross-promotion purposes.

Email Notifications
A new and extremely useful feature – email notifications have long been requested by business users. This allows admin users to respond quickly and efficiently to posts and updates from visitors to their page, promoting a more responsive, interactive user experience.

As with any changes within a widely used platform, this latest round of Facebook updates are sure to provoke lively debate. Like it or not, they are here to stay (for the time being anyway), so business users are far better off embracing change than ignoring it. If you would like help improving your Facebook social media marketing activities, call us on 01454 261111.

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Smart Marketing Using Web Analytics

Often ignored by the novice internet marketer, website analytics have a key role to play in any successful marketing strategy. Careful analysis of even the most rudimentary statistics will often highlight areas for improvement that can make or break the average campaign.

In this article we'll take a look at some simple steps to ensure you're getting some sort of tangible return on your marketing efforts, and why using analytics might not be such a scary proposition after all...

Step 1: Define the Sales Process
However you refer to the sales process, the first step is identifying each stage of the journey and understanding what is expected of your customer. Consider the following questions:

• How is the visitor incentivised to engage with your sales process?
• How does each phase of the process relate to your overall sales strategy?
• How is the customer guided through the process?

Step 2: Create a Measure
A marketing strategy means little unless you have something to measure your success against. These parameters should form a natural extension to your sales process – for example conversion rates, new monthly subscriptions, white paper downloads, webcast attendance and so on. Here's a quick look at some key measurements:

• Current opt in rate per website visitor
• Email conversion rate
• Average membership shelf life
• Upsell conversion rate

Step 3: Time to Figure Cost Per Visitor
You are now ready to begin your analysis in order to assess your cost per visitor. Think of it as a funnel effect, with each phase of the sales process channelling your customers to the desired end result.

By working out your conversion rate for each phase of the process and identifying the associated value attached to your average customer, you can calculate your cost per visitor.

Step 4: Set the Right Budget
Now you know your cost per visitor, you are in a position to set an appropriate budget for each of your marketing activities. In simple terms, if you are paying in excess of your cost per visitor, your strategy is not sustainable – unless of course your web analytics are sophisticated enough to identify the source for each online sale you make.

In either case, intelligent use of your website visitor statistics will enable you to set an appropriate budget and – more importantly – stay within it.

Of course every product, service or market fluctuates significantly in terms of customer profile, so try not to focus on what you consider to be 'good' or 'bad' conversion rates, but rather how these compare month on month. By definition a 'good' result will, of course, be growth rather than decline.

If you would like to explore how a better use of your website analytics can help improve your sales process, call us on 01454 261111.

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