Retail, in the eyes of the everyday customer

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.

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.

Most retailers offer shipping specials above a minimum order amount.  Not GivingGallery.com:

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.

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

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?

I caught this video via Seth who caught it via David:

As a customer these are the experiences we crave.

Hat tip to Jason Billingsley for sharing and Loren McDonald for creating.  Presentation below…

What I like about this execution is that eBags lists how many other people are looking at the 15 remaining bags– 653.

Wow, Eddie Bauer really likes Heather, or the current resident…