Baby Steps
Few weeks ago I was having an informal chat on online strategy with the owner of Kidbean.com, which is a specialty etailer for organic baby clothes. The site already pulls in thousands of monthly visitors and Melissa (the owner) was not looking for a redesign so we brainstormed on ideas she could implement herself, right now.
As Melissa told me the story of KidBean I got really excited because this completely changed my opinion about the company. Anyone can set up an online store, few have an authentic story. A site visitor could visit “About Us” to hear snippets of her story but we wondered if we could summarize it (elevator pitch style) and place it right on the homepage for everyone to see. The other nugget to jump out was that kidbean.com doesn’t carry brands that fail their fair labor, environmental, veganism, and safety standards. This was a huge ‘aha’ moment because it completely changes the context of kidbean.com. It’s no longer just a store where people add products to a cart but rather a filtering system that hand picks products for a very specific customer profile (Vegans). Kidbean.com helps parents save time by performing the filter function for them. This adds a premium value to the store but a first time visitor has to dig to discover this differentiator. We decided to include this page link (in bold) as part of the homepage elevator pitch content. 10 minutes after our call Melissa had implemented the changes and the test was officially live. In essence, all she did was add a snippet of text to the homepage. One month later I inquired about results and received this email:
PS: I have the store owner’s permission to reproduce this email.
Illinois Residents Pay No Sales Tax
This is a great example of personalization. The first thing I noticed on cableorganizer.com was that I wouldn’t have to pay sales tax with the purchase. Observe the bottom right corner of the screenshot:
Anyone visiting the site (barring Florida, which is where they are based) will see the same message with Illinois replaced by their State name.
Candle Burning Times
Saw a great video interview on Dr. Ralph Wilson’s site with Brad Geddes. Brad talks about using search queries to discern user intent and provides a fantastic example:
A search for “candle burning times” indicates a person who needs more infomation before making a purchase. Instead of sending them to a product page, provide the information they need, then send them to the appropriate product. Take time to provide needed information before asking for the sale.
The specific suggestion not included in this quote is to create a landing page with a table that shows different burn times for different types of candles in your inventory. This content can then be linked to your various product pages.
Maximum Amount
Most retailers offer shipping specials above a minimum order amount. Not GivingGallery.com:
Strength In Numbers
Shoppers like to know other shoppers have purchased from an e-tailer before. This is why customer reviews are so effective. But, as Jared Spool eloquently demonstrated in his Revealing Design Treasures presentation roughly 1,300 purchases generate 1 review, so for many smaller e-tailers product reviews are often empty. But that does not mean we can’t build trust in a visitor. Lewisbamboo.com does something quite impressive. First, if you scroll down on their orders page you’ll find this wonderful snippet:
And then, clicking the 722 cities link takes you to this page:
This is just a snippet, you can see the whole list here.
Do I have proof this strategy improves conversions? No. Is it reassuring to someone about to pull the credit card trigger? I’m pretty sure it is.
PS: I hope they update the date from 2006.
Brick & Mortar eCommerce
Yesterday the eBay Mobile Boutique pulled into Michigan Avenue to give brick and mortar shoppers a taste of eCommerce…
Front of eBay Mobile Boutique. People in green jackets are the friendly staff!
People shopping inside eBay Mobile Boutique
Back of the eBay Mobile Boutique truck
Back front
Capturing Intent
Like most e-tailers overstock.com suffers from the 3% conversion infection. I don’t actually know their conversion rate but let’s just go with the industry standard here.
We know everything about the 3% that transacted but very little about the 97% that didn’t. Yes, we could study their click trails but that’s indirect evidence.
Overstock’s solution- A big, prominent, inviting search box:
Now I don’t have access to their metrics but am willing to bet an impressive number use the search box. This might not improve conversion rates directly but now Overstock knows what a vast majority of visitors came looking for. They’ve extracted intent. Intent is not as valuable as a sale but definitely more valuable than $0.
Related articles: Discovering New Categories, What Do Customers Want?
A Special Retailer
I caught this video via Seth who caught it via David:
As a customer these are the experiences we crave.
Email Practices Top Retailers Shop.Org
Hat tip to Jason Billingsley for sharing and Loren McDonald for creating. Presentation below…
Steal Of The Day
What I like about this execution is that eBags lists how many other people are looking at the 15 remaining bags– 653.
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