Perfect Fit

Retail space is expensive.  At Bon-Ton Stores they stock retail floor with most profitable items and add kiosks so shoppers can purchase their extended inventory online.  Items purchased via the kiosk come with free shipping.  Win win.

Be A Storyteller

Jewelryboxdirect.com sells gold dipped roses.  But they don’t just sell them, they also tell a story.  On every gold dipped rose page is an impossible to miss link–

And when visitors click this (as I’m sure 90% do) they’re told a fantastic story–

1. How did we come about doing this (selling the roses)

We have operated a retail jewelry store, since 1974 in Minneapolis. In 1994, on a tip from another jeweler, we started to market the all gold rose to our customers in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Within two years, we were selling over 1,000 roses per year! We traveled to Thailand on a fact finding trip and added the lacquered rose trimmed in 24k to our inventory & marketing. Upon hearing about our successes, other retail jewelers that we knew nation-wide asked how they could acquire the roses for their stores and we sort of fell into the role of supplying gold and lacquered roses to jewelry stores nation wide. We currently provide gold and gold trimmed roses to over 1500 stores in the US and Canada.

2. Each rose is a one of a kind creation.

Because each rose is made one at a time, each one is an individual creation. They are truly a work of art. You will never find them in a big box store because the production of our gold roses is very time consuming and therefore very limited. Also, demand for our gold roses has always been larger than our ability to make enough of them.

3. Where the roses are made.

The all gold roses are made in California with a specific type of rose that is grown in a special part of the state. In contrast, the lacquered roses trimmed in 24k gold are made in Thailand where the talented Thai artists invented and perfected the process of creating the lacquered rose.

4. Beware of cheaper imitation knock-offs.

Other countries with cheap labor have attempted to copy the process of making the lacquered roses trimmed in 24k gold. Don’t be fooled by price alone!! These knock-offs come from a cookie-cutter type of mold process and the quality is drastically inferior.

As the name implies, jewelryboxdirect.com is a site that sells jewelry display cases, which means most site visitors are taking a detour to see gold dipped rose category, which means this would be an impulse buy.  When shoppers make an impulse buy they are in an emotional state of mind.  And when they are in an emotional state of mind stories have a huge persuasive sway.

And the best part is jewelryboxdirect.com can test multiple versions of this story to discover the one that generates biggest revenue lift.

One on One

Shopping online has many advantages, but it also has one disadvantage.  You can’t develop a personal relationship with a product expert online.  I can have a relationship with amazon.com but not a product expert from amazon.com.  This is where crutchfield.com differentiates itself.  On their site is a page that lists Crutchfield ‘advisors’.  Each advisor has a profile page with their phone number, credentials, bio and customer comments.  Once I find an advisor I like, I can be assigned to him/her.  Here is the profile page for Ethan–

http://www.crutchfield.com/App/Support/Bios/Bio.aspx?bio=22

Search Results

Most sites show small product images in site search to maximize how much they can fit on screen.  This makes logical sense.  Some examples–

Example 1: http://www.campmor.com/outdoor/gear/CAMOmnifindQueryCmd?storeId=226&catalogId=40000000226&langId=-1&searchCategory=&ip_state=&ip_constrain=&ip_navtype=search&pageSize=24&currentPage=&ip_sortBy=&searchKeywords=camping+tent

Example 2: http://www.rei.com/search?query=camping+tent

Example 3: http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Navigation?storeId=10151&catalogId=10051&langId=-1&searchTerm=camping+tent

4 column display is an industry standard.  If everyone is following this convention it must be the best, right?

Backcountry.com has taken a different approach, sacrificing efficiency for user experience …

http://www.backcountry.com/store/search.html?mv_session_id=scSxdXRf&q=camping+tent

… and I think they’ve nailed it.  What’s really clever is that backcountry.com gives visitors the choice to switch to the traditional compact view, thus allowing backcountry.com to study user preference.

Clever URL

The other day I noticed this really clever PPC ad link (red box below)–

The URL nicely complements ad copy.

Credit Card Field

On a credit card digits are shown in this format– XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX

However, when I make a purchase online the credit card field is a simple text box.  Because all 16 digits appear as one block it’s hard to double check digits by looking at the credit card.  I’ve never seen a site that displays digits exactly as they appear on the card.  Then I discovered mcmaster.com–

On mcmaster.com moment you complete entering credit card digits extra spacing is automatically inserted.  This makes it much easier to verify digits with the card.

Pick One

The human brain is pretty bad at choosing between options, especially multi-criteria ones.  I entered dell.com with the idea of buying a desktop computer.  I hadn’t thought much about the anti-virus option, but knew not to be lured by Dell’s cross-sell and up-sell tactics (I know how retailers work, after all).  And yet, the lure overcame me.  Guess which option I picked?

I bet the dell.com team knew my choice long before I reached the page.

Total Savings

I noticed this very clever landing page floating header on sierratradingpost.com–

I love that they use the word ‘today’, which makes the header so much more persuasive.

I also love the 66% savings figure because it reinforces the tag graphic that promises daily savings of 35-70%.  Shoppers assume that when retailers claim savings of 35-70% they really mean most will save 35%.  But the ‘real time’ figure of 66% proves this isn’t the case on sierratradingpost.com.

Coach Needs Training

On coach.com clicking a product image on category page displays product details in a 50% size pop-up window–

It would be nice if this pop-up was optional and visitors who wanted to see a full product page could do so.  But coach.com only shows the pop-up.  Here’s the problem– if the product pop-up is compressed 50% then customer reviews are even more compressed–

Which requires a lot of scrolling to read 5 reviews.  Plus, the font color is so incredibly light.

Broken Chat

On one of the most important shopping days of the year (today) I noticed dell.com’s chat was broken–

Ouch.  Hopefully this is a temporary glitch.

Update: Looks like chat is back online.