Management: Increase Sales Online

Good Structure Will Increase Online Sales
Can you imagine going to the local grocery store, filling a basket full of goodies and then not being able to find the checkout ? How long will you walk around the store with that heavy basket under your arm, looking for the cashier ? Not long I'll wager.

What if, when you get there, you find you should have registered when you came into the store ? Now you are really upset aren't you ? Yet they want your name, email address, telephone number, verification ... enough already, you drop the basket and leave.

Don't laugh, this happens millions of times every day online.

Over the years the web has become a complex, multifunctional environment. End-to-end transactions (to use a cliche) are common. But, if your web site is too complex, it will be end-to-end, but not end-to-sale-end.

The shopping experience on your web site must be easy, slick and convenient. A solid understanding of information management, or Information Architecture (i.e what works and what doesn't) is required to develop a functional site that will help you sell.

Begin by defining optimal routes that will take your customer comfortably through the purchase process. After all, this is what happens when they go to the store.

If you are upgrading an ecommerce site you need to identify where users are getting lost before starting to fix the problems. By studying navigation trails provided by web statistical packages you can acquire a good understanding of where things are actually going wrong. Note the entry and exit points and ask yourself these questions:

  • What caused the visitor to leave ?
  • What might be missing from the page (e.g. further instructions) ?
  • What were they expecting that they did not find ?
  • Were they confused and, if so, by what ?

Shopping Cart Design
You must make it easy for customers to order and checkout. Sometimes this means more than once, or even on every page of your web site. Fortunately you don't have to design an ecommerce application. There are a number available, osCommerce is one such open source application.

Consider these points for improving / developing your online shopping experience.

Reduce Abandonment Rates
eMarketer report that over 65% of buyers leave their Shopping Carts in mid-purchase. Here are some strategies to reduce abandonment:

  • Display Shipping Costs — If a prospective customer feels you are hiding costs, they won't complete their purchase. Always be up front about all costs including shipping and handling. If they won't buy when they know the costs up front, they aren't going to buy when you spring additional charges on them at the end either.
  • Build a Clear Interface — Make sure it is easy for your customer to add and remove items. Sometimes they make mistakes, sometimes they change their minds. The easier it is for them to make changes, the more likely they are to complete the whole process.
  • Multiple Windows — Avoid using multiple windows. They clutter the desktop and make a complex process even more difficult to comprehend.
  • Customer Support — Customer support can be crucial sometimes to a successful sale. If possible, provide a live chat box on your shopping site so that a customer can immediately communicate with a sales / support person. There are many nifty little applications that can do this for you. All you have to do is hire the staff, or be available yourself. After all, what can be more important than selling ! Make your telephone number easy to find by placing it on all shopping pages.
  • Refine Shipping and Billing Pages — Design your system to minimize repetitive data entry. Capture and retain data as much as possible — but be aware of the customer's privacy concerns and the security concerns around storing credit card numbers.

Improve the Purchase Process
Simplify, simplify, simplify !

  • Link to the shopping cart from every page — Don't make users struggle to find it and be a straight speaker. Clear communication is always best.
  • Explain the ordering options in simple terms — Many users may be shopping online for the first time.
  • Include all necessary features in the shopping cart process — For example, the ability to modify or delete items from the basket.
  • Let users put items 'on hold' for future purchasing — Think of this as a rain check. It is business that is real, don't let it slip away.
  • Number the pages in the checkout process — This helps users to know where they are in the checkout process. They will be comfortable that they have completed all the necessary steps and won't be confused at the end about whether or not they have paid, paid more than once and will receive what they have ordered.
  • Create concise, usable forms — Don't ask for information you don't need. Nothing annoys people more than entering superfluous information.
  • Guarantee security and privacy — Not everyone wants the world to know their business.

User Testing and Focus Groups
Focus groups are an excellent way of testing your user experience. Ideally this will be an independent group, but as a bare minimum you can use your friends.

Study the Masters
Study the companies that are successful. For example, DELL does a significant portion of its business over the Internet. Figure out what makes their web site so successful. How does their shopping cart work ?

Find a company similar to yours, if you can, and try to determine what makes their web site show up at the top of search engines and what gives them a high online sales completion rate.

If it works, use it.