The
landscape of online shopping is dominated by a handful of huge
companies. Of course, anyone can sell online, but there's no doubt
that names like Amazon, eBay, Zappos, Wal-mart and Alibaba rule the
roost.
Growing
your business to join this kind of elite company seems like a
massive, almost insurmountable challenge. But that doesn't mean you
can't take a few hints from the way they operate. I mean, there are
reasons why these guys are so dominant, right?
In this
article, we want to look at a few things these brands do really,
really well, from which you can learn lessons that are guaranteed to
help you grow your own store.
1.
Loading time
It
may not be the most glamorous facet of selling online, but it's
clearly one of the most important. Amazon carried out their own
research in this area and discovered that, for every 100ms of page
load time, there was a 1% decrease in sales. Put simply, customers
are in a hurry, and aren't likely to hang around too long if your
website under-performs.
WebPageTest
allows you to run a totally free page speed test on your website.
When you're done, if you're dissatisfied, you should check out this
article which gives you 7
tips to make your websites load faster.
Marketing
ingenuity is all well and good – but make sure you don't neglect
the basics. Your store is doomed from the beginning if it isn't
functionally sound.
2. Be
available to your customer
The
biggest retailers are invariably committed to awesome customer
service, and offer a number of different ways for customers to get
the help and advice they need.
Zappos,
for example, very publicly offer 24/7/365 service via a plethora of
channels – phone, email, live chat and more. This stellar
commitment to customer service has earned the company many fans.
Amazon
offer similar channels – but customers are given an insane number
of options to 'help themselves' before they reach this point. A
simple, plain English help manual allows users to, in many cases, get
the information they need without even interacting with another
person – resolving their problems quickly and almost effortlessly.
Be
as available as you possibly can to help your customers. Integrate
Live Chat
with your store – AmeriCommerce is fully integrated with LivePerson ,
BoldChat and Live2Support. Remember the basics, too; list a phone
number, and take enquiries by email. Check them regularly!
But
also invest in the creation of content that lets customers answer
questions for themselves. We love this article by TodayMade which
lists 10
tips for creating a killer FAQ page.
3.
Personalization
Again,
many of the Ecommerce giants absolutely rock at personalization.
Forget about cookie-cutter, 'one size fits all' experiences – user
experience on their site is heavily personalized and tailored towards
user needs and intent.
Again,
we have to give a special shout out to Amazon here. As a retailer
that sells pretty much everything,
they
rely heavily on their personalized home page experience, which
expertly pulls past user experiences and interests into a range of
neatly tailored recommended products. This avoids the feeling of the
user being intimidated by the breadth of purchase options available,
and forms a logical and effective starting point for the shopping
experience.
Once you
hit the product pages, the recommended products continue to come
thick and fast. Items are displayed that are 'frequently bought
together' and occasionally a bulk discount is even offered for buying
them all together.
Find out
how to enable upsells and cross-sells in your AmeriCommerce store right
here...
4.
On-site Search
Again,
with attention spans and patience levels being so low among
consumers, you have to make it easy for them to find what they're
looking for. One thing the top retailers have in common is an
omnipresent on-site search function. This invariably sits at the top
of the window – whether users are on the home, category or product
page.
A
quick and effective keyword search remains probably the best way for
customers to get what they need quickly. And, indeed, customers who
use an onsite search box result in an average conversion rate of 2.4%
as opposed to 1.7%
for those who don't.
Check
out this helpful article by KissMetrics which lists 5
Ways to Make Your E-Commerce Website Search Feature Convert.
5.
Testing
Given
their dominance, you could maybe forgive the Ecommerce giants for
resting on their laurels – but they don't. As Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos
famously said, “If
you double the number of experiments you do per year you’re going
to double your inventiveness.” Pierre
Omidyar, founder of eBay, reflecting on why some businesses fail,
said 'A
lot of people don't just go ahead and try things.'
That
same spirit of restless innovation is intrinsic to many successful
online merchants. They recognize that the perfect Ecommerce
site is never truly finished. You need to test your site regularly,
whether it's usability or performance. Here are 23
tools to test your Ecommerce site.
6.
Transactional Email
Email
marketing is a powerful addition to your toolbox and transactional
tool increases its value even further. It's been reported that
transactional emails get 4
to 8 times
more opens and clicks.
Transactional
email takes many forms, including order confirmations, abandoned
shopping cart reminders and shipping confirmations. Check out these 5
keys to transactional emails.
One
oft-neglected transactional technique is to encourage shoppers to
provide reviews. Amazon do this incredibly well by including many
recent purchases in one email, and giving you the chance to submit a
rating right from the email itself.
7.
Reviews and social proof
While
we're talking about reviews – it's impossible to overstate just
importance these can be. 88%
of consumers
say they trust online reviews as much as they would a personal
recommendation.
And
not only that. Reviews are, essentially, a form of content marketing,
generating unique content for search engines to index.
Check
out Amazon's review page – it's fantastic. Reviews are displayed
according to star ratings. They can be upvoted by other users
according to how helpful they are. They can then be filtered –
users can read 5 star reviews as well as 1 star reviews to get a
nuanced idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the product.
Amazon
also provides a place for customers to ask and answer questions to
help reach informed purchase decisions. Realistic expectations and
educated decisions, hopefully, lead to happier customers and reduced
returns. It's a virtuous cycle.
Don't
forget, you can add Reviews
by Yotpo
to your AmeriCommerce store.
Closing
Thoughts
A
handful of larger companies sit at the top of the Ecommerce tree.
And, when you spend any amount of time exploring how they work, you
realise that this hasn't happened by accident.
Their
success is rooted in a methodical approach to doing the basic things
brilliantly. They put the customer at the heart of every part of
their business model, and use technology to deliver an experience
that wows them.
Sure,
these companies have insane resources that are beyond the reach of
most businesses. But the things that actually put them in this
position
ARE within
reach with smart decision-making, a patient approach and wholehearted
commitment to delivering an amazing Ecommerce experience.
If
you enjoyed this article, check out our free ebook, '13
conversion mistakes smart owners make.'