My Top 5 Must-Haves for Ecommerce Success
A question was raised last week in the E-commerce Network LinkedIn group: “What do you consider to be top 5 must haves for an ecommerce company to be successful?”
I thought I’d share the answer I posted to the group, and I invite you to add your own in the comments of this post.
1. Take a customer centric approach to the website. Design for usability, test, repeat.
2. Provide detailed product information. Not only is this good for attracting search engine traffic, it provides the customer with enough detail to make a purchase decision – addressing the customer’s FUDDs (fears, uncertainties, doubts and dealbreakers) about a product.
3. Have efficient logistics. Customers don’t want to pay shipping and will comparison shop to find the best price – especially in this economy. I’ve seen too many big names (especially in Canada) retract from ecommerce this year. Look under the hood – some are getting killed in warehousing and fulfillment costs.
4. Choose your ecommerce platform wisely. Your ecommerce technology needs to fit your goals and be able to grow with you as the Internet and shopping behavior rapidly changes. Many e-tailers are stuck with platforms that won’t let them do X, Y or Z while their competitors’ can.
5. Hire a good web analyst. Understanding site usage and behavior to make good strategic decisions is crucial. Most retailers aren’t using the tools to their full potential.
Of course there’s no right or wrong answer to this question. Looking forward to your comments.
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You make some good points. I will have to check out that eCom Network on Linkedin. I think a couple must haves for eCom sites are good images and more than 1 image. People need to be able to view the product from all angles since they cannot pick it up and touch it on a website. Also showing the customer that the product is in stock helps a lot.
I think number 2 is crucial in many retail sectors. Newegg has great detail and information accuracy – better than the other consumer electronics sites. And this allows for their power search, a function that is better than any other I’ve found.
But most other sites need that granularity, too. Knowing if a product is manufactured in a plant that produces peanuts is vital knowledge to some consumers. While this is important for the consumer, companies need this to reduce risk.
Best Buy indicates that something like a 1/4″ descrepancy in product deminsion information leads to about a 3% increase in returns for certain products. Both consumer satisfaction and company costs align here in the need for granular, accurate information.
Number 1 is understanding buyer motivations and anxieties. Reducing anxiety goes a long way. A great example is the bra/shirt fit helper images at http://www.HerRoom.com – now, I don’t shop for bras (clearly) and really can’t say how accurate the images are, but when you can have a better online shopping experience than offline, you are doing something right.
Good points there Linda. I think that the ecommerce platform you choose is critical as the right one can help you with points 1, 2 and even parts of 3.
Being customer centric is the most important. It’s not just about what happens ON your site. To sell more than your competitors you must be thinking about how you can deliver a better experience for a customer starting even BEFORE the moment the thought enters their head to start shopping.
The first question should be: How will they know my website even exist?
The last question should be: How will they feel each time they think about their buying experience?
There are about 55 questions in between.
Well my research shows that video is the top priority now. It helps closing the hige gap between the online and offline experience. Check Treepodia – a leading provider of video platform – there are few case studies there. See also Qoof and eyeview.
Number 5: DON’T Hire a good web analyst!
Instead of hiring a web analyst, why not get your customers to tell you what they think? This is what Sony, Philips and others are doing on their e-shops – asking for customer feedback on every transaction, and measuring the results with Net Promoter Score.
Your customers will tell you which areas to improve and invest in (and it costs less than getting a web analyst to do it for you!)
Logistics is so important. You don’t want customers purchasing everything to find out you can’t ship them anything.
nice list, and stuff a bit more complex than oscommerce for wp ;)
Great list, Linda.
I’d add to #1 by saying that it’s critical for the customer service process to be “usable” in addition to the web site. When customers call or e-mail, successful companies realize the need to have customer service reps (or in a small business, the employees working at the shop) who are genuinely interested in helping the customer find a product or solve a problem.