Retail, in the eyes of the everyday customer

If there is one unifying message in this blog it is that if you honestly care about your customer they will reward you in kind.

Today I was reading an article on online pricing at furnituretoday.com. The author lists 8 strategies. I am reproducing strategy 2 for ya’ll:

I cannot believe anyone would actually suggest this. Furnituretoday.com is the internetretailer.com for the furniture retail market and their website gets over 50,000 unique monthly hits.

Heather, who is a bare escentuals fan dropped me an email letting me know about her experience at the site. I thought she made a really good point. Is anyone at bareescentuals.com listening?

Fact 1: 40% of all visitors use insite search

Fact 2: Shoppers are concerned about return policy of retailers

Therefore, at least a few shoppers use onsite search to review a retailers return policy.

Lets see how most eTailers performed…….

- Bed Bath and Beyond
- Sears.com
- Backcountry.com
- Dell.com
- BestBuy.com
- Staples.com
- Cafepress.com
- Barnes and Noble
- Shoes.com
- CircuitCity.com

When a customer searches for the term ‘top sellers’ take them to the top seller section, don’t throw a random list, it does not inspire me to buy.

Related example: Top sellers lists, Re-pointing bad results

Matthew Finch has written an excellent post on email marketing at the e-consultancy blog. You can read his article by clicking here.

Background

Wilsons operates about 410 stores in the US. When Wilsons Leather realized after the holidays last year that its old web site lacked the pizazz to attract and keep customers, it decided to outsource its e-commerce platform. Now it serves customers with the latest online features at fractional operating costs and with an internal e-commerce staff of one instead of 8.

Strategy

The fact that Wilsons Leather has chosen to outsource their site might suggest it is a low revenue contributer despite getting over 151,000 monthly visitors. If the channel is not bringing in revenue independently I would focus on using it to leverage Wilsons 410 offline assets.

One simple idea is creating a ‘make list online, select offline’ interface. By moving focus away from buying online and redirecting it to a store visit Wilson might do a better job converting leads. To make this worthwhile (for the customer and business) two things need to happen:

-Value added incentive (for customer): The online store should allow customers to select from a range of designs/products online and then setup store appointments. This way even if a local store does not have a product it can be sourced for the customer to try out.

- Trackability (for business): if any sort of measurement has to be made this visit needs to be tracked. Fortunately just the act of building a list does the trick. Once the browser has built a list and booked a store visit a request is submitted to the store. The online session is now trackable. As a bonus now the sales contact can prepare for the visit.

Interface observations

- The store locator tab at the bottom of the home page only allows for a ‘by State’ selection. Why not allow people to directly enter zip codes?

- As we discussed getting shoppers into the store (in a meaningful way) is a key strategy. This interface does nothing for that:

If someone comes to this page straight from the home page we should inform them about the ‘make list online, select offline’ feature. I would not only measure how many clicked on it but also how many of those clicks converted into store appointments.

- The search result lists a number of Malls. I would link to those Mall websites also. The reason Wilson’s leather has a mall strategy is because they want to leverage on mall shoppers. Giving shoppers more than one reason to visit your retail store could improve ‘actual’ visits.

- I would also use the website to notify the store on other products the browser viewed during the session. This way if I also look at the Business and Travel section on the site when I walk into the store the salesperson could also ask me if I was still interested in leather bound notebooks.

- When I looked for ‘hats’ this is the above-the-fold result:

- The search for the keyword kids (which is a top navigation item) did even worse:

What do you think? I’d love feedback.

The same work colleague I referred to earlier got another email for a return confirmation. We both find this interesting because neither of us ever received a return confirmation before, please leave me a comment and let me know if you ever received such a notification from an eTailer.

Bill had an excellent idea: He believes the retailer could have added a line like “people who returned this ended up buying…”. I agree.

Related article: The difference between good and great

My work colleague shops at threadless.com. This one time he added a couple of tee-shirts to his shopping cart and then, like 33% of online shoppers, decided not to buy. Threadless.com still wanted his business, and so, at the opportune time sent him an email. This, dear marketers, is how it’s done.

One month after buying a book from Amazon, readers (the first 100) are sent an email asking if they have any questions for the author. After the questions have been submitted, they are collected and sorted by the Amazon podcast team who then interviews the author (those that participate). All subsequent shoppers (> shopper No.100) now see a little podcast logo next to the book. Clicking on it plays the author interview. This gives subsequent shoppers (> shopper No.100) another way of evaluating a book (beyond customer reviews, which are great, by the way).

Think of this more as a The Daily Show author interview for all books.

Tiffany has a great website, great product-line and loyal customers. I can’t afford to shop there but was looking at Tiffany Mark Quartz resonator watch which retails for $11,650! Just for fun, I emailed the item to myself. For all their greatness someone in the company needs to update the ‘email this item’ interface. This is the email I received:

It should at least mention the name of the person who mailed this out.