| |
Published Article
|
| Developing
a Winning e-Commerce Strategy |
One bright spot on the
economic horizons around the world seems to be continued consumer
spending and e-commerce is clearly a part of this, with sales
estimated to be in excess of $9.9 billion in the next three
months according to ACNielsen. But there is a dark cloud hovering
over this sunny e-commerce landscape called poor web site design.
Let's explore some of the reasons why consumers are not reaching
for their credit cards after perusing an e-commerce web site.
|
|
There
is a huge knowledge gap about how the web is really driving
online and offline commerce. A recent eCommercePulse survey
of more than 33,000 surfers conducted by Nielsen/Net ratings
and Harris Interactive indicates e-commerce sites are
driving more purchases offline (phone, catalogue, retail
store sales) than online. Many consumers are using the
web to effortlessly compare features and pricing, then
calling the company or visiting their local retail store
to make a purchase. Clearly many companies need to factor
this information in when analyzing their online and offline
marketing expenditures and related ROI.
|
|
|
According
to a recent Zona Research and Keynote Systems Report released
earlier this summer, over $25 Billion (USD) was lost in
e-commerce due to users abandoning the web site prior
to a purchase being made or during the process. The users
just gave up because the load times (the amount of time
it takes a page to be displayed in a browser) were painfully
slow. Today's online shoppers aren't a real patient group;
they want information presented in 12-18 seconds or they
are off to another site that works.
|
|
|
Unfortunately,
many firms have allocated a disproportionate amount of
resources for advertising and not enough on good web site
design and back-end infrastructure. It's critical to make
the market aware of a site, but if the potential customers
are not presented with the right navigation and menus
(read information architecture), they will not buy. Case
in point: according to recent Dataquest surveys (and others),
between 20-40% of most users don't purchase because they
can't figure out how to easily move around the web site.
|
|
|
Many firms
fail to properly integrate their e-commerce components
with the overall site design. The in-house developers
or the outside design firm concentrate on the sexy parts
of the web site design process (the graphics, branding,
look and feel) and only focus on the e-commerce process
after the primary web site design is completed, making
e-commerce an afterthought.
|
|
|
A
large number of e-commerce web sites don't even list a
phone number, arbitrarily forcing people to contact the
company electronically, This is a real problem, as many
people don't want to use e-mail or forms as their primary
means of communicating. They want the immediacy of the
telephone.
|
|
|
It's
very surprising, but approximately 30% of e-commerce sites
don't have a search capability that actually works. In
many cases it just returns gobblygook. This is a real
irritant for many online shoppers who want to find goods
and services quickly and efficiently. The need for speed
should be the e-commerce merchant's marketing mantra and
a good search capability gives users a way to quickly
find products.
|
|
|
One of the
most important parts of any web site is the home or index
page, as it aggregates the design elements and information
architecture. So many index pages are cluttered and poorly
designed, loaded with poor graphics, bad menu structures,
oddball words, or my absolute least favorite ... 30-60
second Flash animation sequences which force the user
to sit and stare at a blank screen while the animation
loads.
|
|
|
Privacy statements
are about as exciting as filing taxes (unless you know
you're getting a refund). They are out of necessity filled
with legal terminology that needs to be addressed succinctly
and in a way that makes a consumer feel comfortable about
doing business with an e-commerce web site. Unfortunately,
many e-commerce web site privacy statements look like
an afterthought, or are so "attorney driven"
(three pages - who has time to read this?) that people
are turned off by them. It's very important that a privacy
statement be a compromise document brokered between legal
and marketing.
|
|
|
We are a
full service ad agency so I don't mind shooting arrows
in the direction of my peers. Too much attention is being
placed on web site advertising metrics (clickthrough rates,
certified traffic to substantiate ad rates, etc.) and
not enough on how people find and use an e-commerce web
site. The industry standard web site analysis tool is
Web Trends, but one of the least understood aspects of
this product is tracking how people find and move around
a web site via reports which can be pulled from the server
log files; i.e., where did the visitors come from, what
pages do they visit, how long do they stay, what are their
traffic patterns, etc.? e-Commerce companies should be
analyzing these "digital customer tracks" to
better understand how to improve their front-end marketing
processes and back-end web site design.
|
Lee Traupel has
20 plus years of marketing experience. He is the co-founder
of a Northern California and Brussels Belgium based, privately
held, Marketing Services and Software Company, Intelective
Communications, Inc., http://www.intelective.com.
Intelective focuses exclusively on providing services
to small-to-medium-sized companies that need strategic
and tactical marketing services. He can be reached at
Lee@intelective.com.
|
:: More
Articles :: |
::
Back To Top :: |
| Please click here to Contact us or call toll free 530.432.8764 |
|
|
|
 |
"Working with Intelective Communications
is pure joy and enlightenment. They are so much at the leading
edge that it's inspiring to be connected with them in any way."
-Jay Conrad Levinson, Author of Guerrilla
Marketing book series and Marketing Pioneer |
|
|
