Retail, in the eyes of the everyday customer

Zappos.com loves selling all kinds of heels, and with two way free shipping customers love buying them.  But two way shipping is only free for the customer, for Zappos it means they lose money every time a return is made.  And it hurts.  Somewhere within Zappos’s corporate office there exists a black book and in this book there are two columns.  On the left are customers that actually buy more because of the free shipping carrot.  On the right are the habitual returners.  So far it’s all good because the money making column is significantly longer.  So far.

With the reality of slowing consumer spending it’s obvious the left hand column is shrinking but my hunch is recession has little affect on habitual returners because they have no disincentive.  I would argue the habitual returner list has not contracted much.  This recession is hurting Zappos more than it’s hurting retailers that charge for shipping.  The question is how long can Zappos hold its breath under water.  Zappos is one of the smartest retailers in the world so if anyone can come out of this it’s them.

My Mac, My Kindle and My Moleskine…

Every eCommerce store wants you to join their email list.  But customers hate the idea of getting email blasts and this apprehension can be a negative for companies that actually do send out well crafted, thoughtful emails.  Madeinnapavalley.com solves this by providing an example of their typical email newsletter:

Here is the sample email pop up:

I came across a delightful little store today.  Actually, I know nothing about them but the warmth of their homepage instantly made me feel conformable and built credibility.  See, instead of having boring sectional links zebs.com has used pictures of their employees.  Zebs understands something most retailers don’t, customers prefer shopping with companies that have real people.  Customers today are aware of how easy it is to setup an online store and are quite skeptical about the hundreds of stores that show up when you Google “gourmet barbecue sauce.”  Zebs.com understands that a first time visitor is in a skeptical state of mind and I think they do an excellent job dispelling that thought:

Another etailer that uses this strategy well is pangeaveg.com.  This is their homepage, notice the “Favorites of the Pangea Staff” on the top right:

“Site under construction” is a message I encounter often.  And it always makes me wonder why companies don’t just capture my email address and send an email when the site is live.  Today I came across bassshoes.com and they’ve implemented this strategy:

Company homepage

So I entered my email address and pressed go.  This is their follow up page:

I cannot believe they want me to verify my own email address AND enter some distorted text just to make sure I’m not a computer.  I’m sorry, but unless you manufacture the best shoes in the history of shoe making you’re never going to get away with this strategy.

Free shipping is a big deal; something that shoppers love and retailers hate.  What if we could limit the number of free shipping items and make shopping exciting? A site visitor is browsing your inventory and while on a product page gets a message that says “We give out 5 free shipping coupons every single day and you’ve been randomly selected for free shipping with this item.”  Two things happened here, one the customer got a powerful incentive to buy and two, the site experience suddenly became more memorable, increasing chances that this customer would remember your store url.  Do you think this is a good idea? Or are we changing customer behavior and incentivizing them to not buy until they’ve been randomly selected?

I know Amazon.com owns a patent on “1-Click ordering” but what about their site design itself? Obviously Amazon.com serves as a great design inspiration for any ecommerce site but can I legally rip off their design?

This morning I came across an online store delphiglass.com.  This is not some small under the radar etailer, delphiglass.com is a vastly popular online store and according to Compete their site gets over 89,000 unique monthly visitors.  Here is where the story turns bizarre—

Amazon.com homepage:

Delphiglass.com homepage:

Amazon.com left navigation:

Delphiglass.com left navigation:

Amazon.com home button (mouse over):

Delphiglass.com home button (mouse over):

I tried to do some background work to see if this store is connected with Amazon but found no evidence.

And speaking of copy, check out:

Doesn’t humidi-pak.com look suspiciously similar to Apple’s older homepage? here, refresh your memory:

http://web.archive.org/web/20060106235740/www.apple.com/