This is a recap of our webinar Multi-Store Retailing: Perks and Pitfalls with Elastic Path’s own VP of Innovation, Jason Billingsley.

You can also catch up on all of our audio/visual webinar replays at ElasticPath.com/Events/ and blog summaries here.

Though our webinars are not product-specific — we put these out there for all online retailers to access and enjoy whether you use our ecommerce software or not, this topic is near and dear to use as our most recent version of Elastic Path is really honed for multi-store retailing. If you’re interested in a product-specific webinar on our product you can view the replay of Technical Introduction to Elastic Path Commerce 6.1.

Multi-Store Retailing: Perks and Pitfalls covered:

• Why Multi-Store is gaining momentum
• Types of stores to consider launching
• When to launch additional stores
• How to avoid critical mistakes

What is Multi-Store Retailing?

The key benefit of running multiple stores is higher specificity and relevance to customer and product segments.

Coca-cola began as a single product and grew to 450 brands, 2800 products and 200 countries. Some of these products are very new or niche, like vitamin flavored water - but the specificity is what builds loyalty and differentiation in a saturated market.

A major factor in the success of more specific stores comes from today’s search behavior:

This eye-tracking map shows search listing attention span was higher 3 years ago. Today that has drastically changed. We have learned to skim and skip over content not relevant to us. The reason is self-centricity. A searcher scans to find what is relevant to him or her. If retailers can capture this scent early in the selling process, they have an advantage.

Types of Stores

Geographic Stores

Many retailers start with a .com domain and focus on the US, and may expand into other markets launching new stores with country-specific “top-level-domains” (site.ca, site.de, site.co.uk for example). But that’s not always necessary. A lot of retailers do well without launching a separate store. You could consider a site that sells internationally from one storefront as “internationalized” and country-specific shops as “localized.”

A recent Get Elastic post described a recent purchase Jason made for his wife’s birthday gift. The site was an “internationalized” niche site owned by CSN Stores, and the site grabbed his attention right from the beginning in the search engine snippet, mentioning it shipped to Canada.

The post also describes how EveryJewelryBox.com addressed his Fears, Uncertainties, Doubts and Dealbreakers in its copy and landing page design:

• Clear messaging “We Now Ship to Canada!” and a Canadian flag icon for quick “scent identification” (reassuring Jason he was in the right place)
• Detailed info on shipping time, taxes & duties, returns, etc. in a pop-up (Very important as you don’t hijack a customer off a product page to show a policy. Use pop-ups or AJAX rollovers!)
• Final price is calculated for the shopper (no charges upon delivery for customs brokerage)

A great example of international selling where multiple stores was not necessary, but Jason noted that a .ca domain may have delivered the “instant gratification” of regional relevance (and assurance it’s the right place to shop) in the search engine. This goes for PPC ads as well. (It may also have ranked higher in Google.ca using location targeting in Google Webmaster Central).

Another thing to consider regarding international usability is currency should reflect the local currency when you land on the site. You can achieve this with IP sniffing tools which may either force-redirect visitors or show messages allowing them to choose their preferred store, storing the preference in a cookie for future visits. (We’re not a fan of portal-like splash pages asking everyone to choose a country. Especially if it’s all in Flash and it plays music by default.)

Fulfillment concerns are also important - some manufacturers restrict where you can ship product. Personally I have shipped products like the Flip camcorder and Dakine luggage to US hotels, crossing my fingers they will arrive on time. Freight transit for large purchases and likelihood of returns are also concerns, as are the extra costs of cross border returns unless you have a mechanism to accept returns in the geographic specific country.

The biggest question is: is the (new) market ready for this? That’s a question we’ll leave you to answer for your own business.

When to use geographic targeted stores:

• When fulfillment is the first decision (medical product example: the CDN retail was $1200, US retail $400).
• Based on product set, ease of shipment, likelihood of returns, if CSRs can handle intricacies of currency, taxation, etc. = good to go if market is there.

Downsides for geographic targeted stores:

• Cultural differences - payment habits are different. Germany not credit card based economy, prefer debit cards. Asian countries pay cash on delivery often. So your multi store structure could change.
• Language - Example: the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Store uses French translation, which was performed by a French speaker from France, not a French Canadian. The dialect has its own nuances which can cause confusion on the site. Even English/English sites can have variants of spellings or even terms people use to describe the same thing (soccer vs. football).
• Technology - EU countries use different electric plugs and adapters than North America.
• Product warranty fulfillment - You must communicate the specifics of your warranty fulfillment process, not all can be fulfilled across borders.
• Duplicate content - If you have 2 English speaking country domains you technically have duplicate content (more details later).

Tips:

• Use a master catalog + sub-catalogs, more efficient

• Don’t worry too much about SEO issues with duplicate content, just make sure you target your site in Google Webmaster Central
• Switch default title tags and meta descriptions to make them country-specific
• Use IP sniffing to redirect or show option to switch stores only to international customers, not all visits
• Don’t be afraid to NOT launch an additional store, but deal with selling restrictions, extra duties/taxes, lead time etc. on your internationalized site clearly.

Brand Specific Stores

ElectricShopping.com and KenwoodMajor.com are an example of a mother site and a sister site that is brand specific for loyal shoppers of Kenwood products.

If a searcher who is loyal to brand can see the brand in the URL: www.kenwoodmajor.com vs. www.appliancesmajor.com, there’s a relevance factor (even higher search rankings) but also a perception of better selection. You can have domain.com/brand or brand.domain.com, but branding in the domain name is far more effective for both organic search and pay per click marketing

When to use brand specific stores:

• If you sell other peoples brands
• If you are a manufacturer with strong brand lines
• Consumer has strong affinity to brand for entire Product line (DeWalt tools)

Downsides for brand specific stores:

• Limiting cross-sell opportunities, if people are highly influenced by cross-selling this may not allow you to do that as well as with a multi-brand options.

Tips:

• If you can’t launch a brand store, consider brand notifications (new items, new reviews, new accessories) on current store (MyBuys - simple notifications service).

Segment Stores

Zappos is a good example of serving customer segments with different shopping experiences.

PRICE SEGMENTS

Based on price segment, a customer sensitive to higher priced market can enjoy shopping without heavy discounted prices or lower prestige brands at Couture.Zappos.com (higher relevance, ease of navigation, perceived value much higher). Some customers are anti-price sensitive and they want a shopping experience that matches that, for which Zappos has 6pm.com. Price-segmented sites may use custom imagery and user interface (no blinking sale prices) or different copy giving the notion of exclusivity for higher end, or sale sale sale messaging for clearance sites. Clearance sites are great for inventory mobility and for more efficient comparison shopping management (certain shopping engines may attract bargain hunters and others luxury shoppers - know your channels).

Jason notes that on Zeta.Zappos.com — Zappos’ test sandbox for user experience — nowhere do you see visibly sale or discount because the mother site is not positioned as a discounter. Their market position is their huge selection and customer service.

LIFESTYLE SEGMENTS

Rideshop.Zappos.com caters to sub-segments by interest like skate, surf, snow and BMX. The lifestyles and activities that occur within those sports are different. Even if they’re not different, the perception is that the products are more relevant to the customer.

You also enjoy better cross selling when you know this person is a skater or a surfer, for example. You won’t be cross-selling cowboy boots here.

These aren’t the only types of segments you can target, just examples.

When to use segmented stores:

• Think Cluetrain Manifesto – Markets are Conversations: Where are your customers having conversations? Address that need
• If you can identify candidates for segmented stores: price, experience level (novice, intermediate, expert), gender, age, activity, ADA compliant, green/eco friendly, local

Downsides for segmented stores:

• Unfortunately most retailers do not segment very well or have segmentation history so it might not be a cultural fit

Niche Product Stores

The key is to have strong, keyword targeted domains (largely generics for quick SEO wins). Major players using this strategy include CSN Stores, Netshops and NicheRetail. Mostly for pure-plays and seems to be very popular for the furniture category.

When to use niche product stores:

• If drop shipping is common across all niche multi-store retailers
• For pure plays

Downsides for niche product stores:

• If drop shipping: Returns to own warehouse = importance of inventory clearance store or channel

Regarding SEO and duplicate content, we ran “some sanity checks” on CSN Stores, and for the most part, Google did not even filter if duplicate content existed across domains (if a long tail term) — meaning all the domains were showing up in Google search results. This is consistent with previous findings we had on SEO modifiers for color links. The SEO filters will impact “head terms” (more competitive, like “body lotion” vs a long tail term like “St. Ives Swiss Formula Vanilla Nut body lotion 200ml.” Chances are your web properties will not dominate the SERPs when so many other sites match the query.

Tips:

• Carry reviews across stores (make sure they are not delivered through iFrame)
• Use a universal template
• Use content templates BUT try to use modification via variable replacement
• Use distinct customer service numbers

Loyalty Stores

Launch a new store based on loyalty programs when you want to offer exclusives for high value customers. It’s not that common but these days, people are more transient in purchase behavior so this is very valuable when done well.

When to use loyalty stores:

• You have a strong loyalty program
• There is a propensity for repeat purchases (replenishment, low ticket value, life staples, natural life stages – marriage, home, kids, etc.)

Downsides for loyalty stores:

• Perceived exclusion (walking past first class on airplane)

Wholesale/B2B Stores

An example is MyWeddingFavors.com which focuses on the consumer but runs a wholesale B2B site KateAspen.com which requires registration as a retail reseller to receive volume discounts.

Why to use wholesale/B2B stores:

• Make procurement more efficient
• Find new retail channel partners

Downside of wholesale/B2B stores:

• Do you want it to be indexed in engines if also selling direct to consumer?
• Not all retailers have products that can follow this model

Tips:

• Hide pricing until customer logged in
• Use price lists based on customer
• Aim for rapid replenishment (customer service is key!)

Campaign Specific Stores

Great for special event marketing like Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, the Super Bowl etc. They will have shorter shelf life but also have more relevance. We did a full webinar on holiday and event marketing in January.

Or you can optimize for holiday gifting terms, a cause (Breast Cancer Awareness pink theme), a single product store or hot product launch (Wii Store) or even current event/trend (plastic bottles vs. metal or products that match Michelle Obama’s style).

When to use campaign specific stores:

• For ongoing prominent causes the company is associated with or supports
• Narrow product lines associated with event (don’t launch entire store with Pink ribbon = shoppers can see through that, unless 5% of all orders go to cause)

Strategic partnerships (partner with media, or joint promotion like Omaha Steakss micro-site from Overstock.com for grilling and cooking products) or the CTV (Canada Television) store that sells Olympic gear mentioned in Olympic segments

Downsides for campaign specific stores:

• Possible limited shelf life
• May be additional costs to design, develop (depending on your platform) and maintain

Sticky Stores

These are deal-of-day sites or any other site that brings customers back daily for a good reason.

Examples:

Backcountry.com
Backcountryoutlet.com
Steepandcheap.com
Chainlove.com
Whiskeymilitia.com
Dogfunk.com (not DotD)
Tramdock.com

Steep and Cheap turns over the offer as it depletes or if the velocity decreases substantially (no interest) to warrant a new deal. It captures excitement and competition, and even offers instant alerts.

When to use sticky stores:

• NOW! Jason is very bullish on this method in this economy

Downsides for sticky stores:

• Some brands are not discounters and have to protect premium positioning
• You may need to cap quantities people can purchase due to Ebay selling or resale

Tips:

• Work with manufacturers on deals.
• Use alerts (email, RSS, SMS, MMS, IM, Twitter, browser plugins, widgets, etc.)
• Pre-announce to list members based on loyalty tiers to acquire sign ups & promote purchasing
• Use creative pricing (price drops, but inventory is invisible – Jellyfish does this with Smack Shopping)
• Create urgency with time countdowns, show inventory that’s left
• Show percentage of savings use red, strike-throughs, promote price and savings right in the titles, try to use percentage off as a faceted navigation method
• Cross-sell into the outlet store on page
• Use post purchase cross-selling / offers from main store
• Many have communities surrounding them, even Deal of Day forums
• Allow people to store account information so they don’t miss a deal due to slow typing speed – seriously
• Consider swapping the items based on velocity of sales
• If you sell to defined segments (men/women), consider separate Deal of Day sites
• Update the site using AJAX in close to real time or small intervals

Questions

Should you no-follow subdomains (or use robots.txt to block search engines from crawling pages) to avoid duplicate content?

We assumed that it would be a problem, but after running our own tests, what we found was that it wasn’t really a problem. All variations of different pages, they’re getting smart on delivering the best page possible. Optimize your Title Tags and target your domains in Google Webmaster Central and you should do fine.

What are your thoughts on the GAP 4 stores 1 checkout strategy?

Good strategy for the Gap but there’s not a lot of crossover. Banana Republic and style is different (but maybe a mom and kids?) Piperlime is interesting, but again not in a position to have 4 strong brands like that. COuld work but there are downsides as well.

Linda’s note: I covered GAP’s talk about its strategy from Shop.org Annual Summit on the Shop.org Blog in September.

Should you market new sites to your current email list?

There’s no reason you can’t market directly, but do it with finesse. We wrote about this recently, and provided some tips:

• Use your regular sender name and sender address
• Clearly reinforce the familiar brand while introducing the new one
• Explain a bit about the new store and shopping experience in the email (set expectations)
• Provide a clear opt-in to the new list, don’t hide it
• A bonus would be a discount or free shipping offer

Contact Jason

Jason Billingsley
VP Innovation, Elastic Path Software
www.ElasticPath.com
www.GetElastic.com
jason.billingsley at elasticpath.com
Twitter: @jbillingsley

Next Webinar

Dangerous Marketing Ahead: How to Break Bad Habits and Survive a Deep Recession

Think you can promote, e-mail or SEO your way out of this recession? Until you stop thinking and functioning tactically you’ll keep failing to earn a proper seat at the management table - if not fail completely. Survival today requires divorcing yourself of the comfortable myths of “branding”, easy answers and digital hocus-pocus that pass for most marketing strategies.

If you sign up, you’ll learn how to:

• Break bad habits and focus on creating measurable actions that deliver sales, repeat business and true customer loyalty
• Get integrated, get authentic, get honest and embrace the science of it all
• Get promoted AND have fun by replacing your wasteful, ineffective marketing that most still cling to

Guest Speakers:

Jeff Molander, CEO, Molander & Associates, Inc.

Jonathan Salem Baskin, Entrepreneur, Consultant and Author of the controversial new book, “Branding Only Works on Cattle”

Thurs. Dec. 11th @ 9am PT Sign up today

This post was originally posted on February 21, 2008. With the holiday season underway, and most of you new readers to Get Elastic, I’ve reposted it today in case you missed it the first time.

We do so much to encourage holiday gift shopping (or birthday, anniversary etc), but do we drop the ball in catering to the special needs of gift givers like gift boxes, gift wrapping, gift announcements / messages and gift receipts?

There are many ways you can accommodate gift givers to improve customer and recipient experience with gift options.

Gift Boxes & Gift Wrap

While it may be fine to ship something in a plastic bag or a brown box or a manila envelope (that’s what they send those MacAir computers in, right?), this doesn’t fly with gifts sent directly to the recipient. It also stinks for gift givers who ship items to themselves to wrap and give personally. The customer now has to find an appropriate box to put that personalized t-shirt in, and all he has kicking around is an empty GAP box from last Christmas. Providing a gift box solves a customer problem.

Then there’s gift wrapping. For some people, it’s a hassle. Gift wrap’s not cheap, and it may require an extra trip to pick it up at the drug store. And for customers who ship items direct to the gift recipient, it’s essential.

A couple examples: GAP offers one complimentary unassembled box for every three paid items ordered (why not one for one)? The other option is premium gift wrap service for $5 per order. Victoria’s Secret will send you a gift wrap kit for $3, or wrap the gift for you for $6.

These add-ons also give you an opportunity to brand yourself to the recipient. If you sell items carried by many other retailers, the recipient has no clue where the gift giver bought the item. Why not put your logo on your gift box, or as a watermark on the white side of the gift wrap?

Whether you include gift wrapping or boxes as upsells or freebies is up to you - one will bring you easy additional revenue, the other a fantastic customer service experience.

Continue Reading:
Giving Gift Givers More Options »

SeenON! is an interactive entertainment-slash-ecommerce site that helps TV buffs buy what they see on their favorite television shows. One feature of the site is called “Shopisodes”, which are short clips from TV programs that link to online retailers that carry the items in the episode. (Click below to play - note, some RSS readers are not displaying the video, you’ll need to click through to the actual post)

Bluefly’s Flypaper blog uses a similar approach in its video podcast. At any point in the vignette, you can click the “Click to Buy” button and it will show a list of items appearing in the video. Click on any thumbnail and you see the product’s description, price and a Buy Now button. Or you can go back to watch the rest of the video. (Don’t click, these are just screenshots)

This is awesome.

Does anyone know of solutions providers for this type of technology? If you do, please let us know in the comments.

If you’re interested in staying in the loop on emerging video trends and retail, there’s the newly launched Video Retailer blog and listserv called Video Commerce Consortium on the topic.

Ed Whiting from Travel Remark put together this eye-opening video about Facebook travel applications. Just for fun, take a guess how many travel-related Facebook applications there are before you click play (the grand total will be revealed at the end).

And this is just one category of commercial applications, folks.

When Facebook applications were launched last year, first movers in ecommerce included Blue Nile’s Wish List and Backcountry’s Steep and Cheap. I give credit to these retailers for giving it a shot. Unfortunately, almost a year later you can count the number of daily users for these apps on one hand.

Other social shopping applications like StyleFeeder and Polyvore get a few thousand daily users - not bad, but they are definitely the exception.

Challenges in Social Shopping Facebook Application Marketing

1. Application Aggro - Requests to add applications from friends are no longer trusted. Much worse, in fact - it has turned friends into perceived spammers and prompted many Facebook statuses along the lines of “stop sending me [radio edit] applications!

2. Saturation - At this stage in the game, there are so many applications that to get popular, you have to be remarkable. You have to provide so much value that people will add your application and risk losing friends to evangelize your app with invites.

3. Commercialization - Judging by daily average users, it’s clear that Facebookers would rather buy and sell each other than buy real products.

4. App ADD - Even if someone adds your application, that person has to be really motivated to use it on a regular basis. Otherwise it will inevitably be removed.

5. Co-dependency - Many apps depend on a sufficient number of your friends’ participation for there to be any practical value (Facebook being a social network, after all). If a user doesn’t have mutual friends with the application, he can get no utility out of it.

Given these conditions, I don’t think there’s a future for e-tailers to win at this game. What do you think?

This month’s webinar with Jason Billingsley covered various areas packed with examples from real online retailers. You can catch the ecommerce innovation webinar on-demand. Or, you can flip through some of the examples, see the live sites and catch up on related blog posts you may have missed.

Next Webinar
3 Things to Die For: Web Analytics Unleashed with Avinash Kaushik
Thursday, July 17th @ 9am PST
Sign up to win one of 5 signed copies of Avinash’s book Web Analytics: An Hour a Day

Purpose of this Webinar

Innovations are not necessarily “sexy” — but they don’t have to be. This webinar is really to get you
thinking about the possibilities, whether you’re a small player or a multi-million dollar e-tailer. Innovation may exist in another segment / industry that can be applied to your business. And it doesn’t have to be a visual innovation - processes like customer service, fulfillment and order management can also have a profitable impact.

Video

Martin + Osa Shop-By-Outfit

• Great to see items in context

• Cross-selling entire outfits
• Works for women who like to see how it looks “on”
• Works for men who want to “get in and get out” and not waste time on browsing and outfit building
• Helps the fashionably clueless
• Blog post: Martin + Osa Launches Shop-By-Outfit + Video

Knicker Picker

• See items “in context” (on humans)

• Select size of model
• See how sports product moves when the model jogs, show how supportive the item is - selling based on the function of a product

Continue Reading:
Webinar Recap: Ecommerce Innovations »

Our VP of Innovation, Jason Billingsley has a key eye for new ecommerce trends and will be presenting a full hour’s worth of innovations in a webinar 9 Ecommerce Innovations: What’s Now & What’s Next. It’s happening June 19th so mark your calendars.

Jason tipped me off about a new website launched in April for Martin + Osa, a spin-off of American Eagle Outfitters, that has built a full-motion video merchandising area called “Shop by Outfit.”

M+O stylists have put outfits together that customers can buy all at once, and the outfits are shown on real models that move around as you view the page. You can zoom in by rolling over an image, and the model does a 360 degree spin so you get a feel for what the outfit looks like (well, on the perfect model anyway).

If you click to refine your outfit results to just “Moonlight,” “Seashore” or “Sunshine,” (which I don’t see serving much purpose), the girls whose outfits don’t fit your criteria gingerly walk out of the scene.

Shopping by outfit can save a shopper time as traditionally, one would need to navigate to different categories and add items individually. And by choosing from pre-selected sets, the fashionably clueless get some ideas of how to dress.

Shoppers can also build their own outfits using “Layer Your Own Look,” which turns traditional site navigation on its head - essentially you can shop multiple categories without leaving a page, and see how items “work” together. Looks can be saved for a future visit or added to the shopping bag for checkout.

More and more fashion retailers are adding some form of “shop by look” merchandising. Other stores include Rampage, Lacoste and Arden B (a quick search for “shop by look” in Google gives you more examples). When you click on a look, you see all the items listed individually on the same page, so you can check off the items you want. The problem with this is you navigate away from the look unless you’re savvy enough to open a new tab or window to hold your place. Martin + Osa smartly uses AJAX to show detail without navigating away from the page:

Product details can be viewed by switching tabs. The tabs may be too subtle here to notice, but it does help pack more information in a smaller space.

M+O also provides detailed product images that show extreme close-up views of fabrics, pockets and other item details.

For most online merchants, this type of rich media investment simply is too expensive to implement. But as more and more large retailers add video and Flash applications to their e-stores, customers are going to become more spoiled and will expect to see 360 degree product views, products in context (clothing on people) and very detailed product images. This is reasonably easy to implement for any retailer using static images. Though this is also not cheap, it’s far less expensive than what M+O has done.

It’s also important for any retailer who does use a “shop by look” approach to allow customers to see cross-sell detail information without clicking away from the look page.

A side note: as I mentioned in my interview with Rich Page, American Eagle has one of my favorite navigation menus in terms of design, placement and usability. I’m happy to see Martin + Osa doing the same.

It was only one year ago my first Get Elastic post went live, how quickly the year has gone! The post was the Social Shopping Roundup and it showcased many social shopping start-ups from social bookmarking or “wishlisting,” to deals and coupon sharing communities and social comparison engines.

According to Hitwise analyst, Heather Dougherty “The Social Shopping category is still small, receiving less than 1% of the total market share of US visits, but there has been significant growth.” (Source)

Scott Hurff of CSE Strategies puts it into perspective - MySpace receives about 2% of Internet traffic. So for every 2 hits on MySpace (or Facebook), someone’s checking out a social shopping site. Of the social shopping sites, Kaboodle appears to be the Google in terms of market share:

• Kaboodle 68%

• Buzzillions 8.23% (Ratings and Reviews, Comparison Shopping)
• ThisNext 7.23%
• ShopWiki 6.89%
• Stylehive 5.18%

With the exception of Buzzillions, the top 5 are “social bookmarking” sites. There are no doubt countless other sites where consumers can bookmark and share products, deals and coupons, read ratings and reviews and find deals - and perhaps as many Facebook applications. We don’t need a comprehensive list of players in this space. Rather, this year’s roundup focuses on social shopping sites that address key trends in ecommerce like video / widget marketing, live chat, email / RSS, user-generated merchandising or offer a twist on traditional comparison shopping.

Video / Widget Marketing

Qoof.com

Qoof provides product video widgets for etailers and content publishers (affiliates) to bring an interactive experience to product descriptions. The Flash-based widget can be embedded on the etailer’s website or on the affiliate site. Transactions can actually be completed through the widget which eliminates the need for a shopping cart, or the customer can be directed to the online store to purchase. You can check out the Widget Showcase with examples from Ice.com, Drugstore.com and more.

What early adopters of this product may enjoy is the ability to stand out from other affiliate offers. Product video is growing in popularity, and it won’t be long before most sites offer some kind of video complement to product images. You may also be more attractive to affiliates who are looking for multi-media content to boost their own conversions.

Whether customers like it or not is a different story. To be honest, there are not a lot of ecommerce widgets out there so I have my fingers crossed that there will be more interesting things being done with portable video content by this time next year, with more data on its effectiveness.

How to get involved: See Qoof.com’s Etailer Page.

Continue Reading:
Social Shopping Reviews Roundup: 2008 Update »

It excites me to know end to praise a usability innovation from an online retailer that is NOT Amazon. Hooray!

I noticed a filtered navigation design on Overstock that is really interesting. It combines search with filtered navigation - here’s what I mean:

Say you’re checking out the “Rings” category. You’re presented with a number of ways to narrow your results: Category, Metal, Size, Price and Stone.

But if you’re looking for say, a cocktail ring - this could include a variety of gemstones and metals, could be at any number of price points and would depend on what size you are looking for. Rather than looking at ALL items in the “Rings” category, you can hone in on just the cocktail rings by searching for “cocktail.”

Continue Reading:
Browsing Usability: Overstock Blows Amazon Away »

Today is Earth Day, and for weeks online retailers have been jumping on the green wagon in their marketing efforts, taking advantage of their eco-friendly and sustainable products and projects.

More than ever, retailers are adopting a Wayne Gretzky “skate to where the puck is” marketing strategy. As consumers become more conscious of environmental issues, more and more marketing messages will contain green references and themes. Many feel that encouraging people to consume more in celebration of Earth Day is a bit ironic and counter-productive. But the shift towards eco-friendliness has encouraged many companies to source and sell green products in response to consumer demand. So getting the word out about the availability of green alternatives is especially fitting for this time of year.

The following is a sampling of Earth Day emails and on-site promotions from some of the top online retailers. You can read more about Earth Day email trends at RetailEmail.Blogspot.com, and more about holiday and event marketing from our Holiday Marketing Webinar.

EvoGear

Continue Reading:
Earth Day Marketing: E-Tailers Seeing Green »

This is a guest post from Justin Palmer of Palmer Web Marketing. We’re really excited to have him share his expertise with us here on Get Elastic, as his tips and tricks are always very valuable to online retailers. You’ll learn a thing or ten from his 25 Ways Series and more. If you subscribe to Get Elastic, you want to subscribe to Justin’s feed too.

Losing Customers at the Register: 12 Checkout Blunders

We’ve all heard the adage, “You’re only as strong as your weakest link.” For many e-tailers, both large and small, the weakest link lies in the checkout process. Mistakes at this critical juncture are costly and unnecessary. Below, I’ve gathered 12 of the most common mistakes I see with checkouts.

1. Unfriendly Credit Card Errors

Getting your credit card declined is always an embarrassing situation, even online. How gracefully does your checkout handle these errors? Unfortunately, website error messages tend to be written by programmers, who don’t always consider the needs of customers.

When handling these errors, suggest a probable solution. If the error is due to an invalid CVV code, show customers a picture of where the code can be found on the card. Is the error due to a billing address mismatch? Suggest having the customer check their credit card statement to ensure their billing address matches. Most importantly, display your customer service contact information where customers can get additional help.

2. Login

Many customers detest the thought of having to remember another username and password. In addition to this concern, you risk returning customers not being able to remember their login information on a subsequent purchase. Sure, you may have a password lookup feature, but what if their email isn’t working or is inaccessible at the moment? For these reasons, offer your customers a guest checkout option that doesn’t require account creation. After the order, you can always ask if they want to create an account for next time.

3. Default Credit Card Type Selected

This is one of my biggest pet peeves. Now I consider myself fairly experienced with placing online orders, since I work in the eCommerce industry. Yet I don’t know how many times I’ve entered my Mastercard number with the default Visa card option pre-selected, causing my card to be declined. In their hurry to complete a task, people tend to skip fields that are already populated with data. For this reason, require your customers to choose their credit card type. Better yet, automatically detect the credit card type based on the number (see Paypal’s checkout for an example of this).

4. Cancel Buttons

I always chuckle when I see a “Cancel” button juxtaposed next to the “Submit Order” button. Don’t make it too easy for your customers to abandon their order. A cancel button is the equivalent to asking “Are you really sure you want to buy it?”

5. Up-selling or Cross-selling

There’s a time and place for cross-selling, but it’s too risky at checkout. Too many options can send a customer into a paradox of choice, leading to an abandoned cart. In general, once someone has moved past the shopping cart, it’s time to stop marketing and close the sale.

6. Disclaimers, Explanations, and Warnings

Recently, I reviewed an eCommerce site for an online gift store. Right before clicking the “Finalize Order” button, I was casually informed my “IP address is being recorded for security purposes.” Now honestly, is that disclaimer really necessary? While it may deter fraudsters, (though I doubt it), such needless information will only raise red flags in minds of privacy conscious customers. Other needless disclaimers include “Clicking order button more than once will result in double charges” (maybe you should fix this issue rather than explain it!) or “Products subject to availability” (maybe you should display accurate inventory online!?) As a general rule, keep disclaimers on a need-to-know basis. If it causes visitors to second guess their purchase decision, remove it.

7. Insecure Page Errors

This is possibly one of the most preventable checkout mistakes that arises due to technical issues with secure pages (https://) containing non-secure elements (http:// images, javascript files, etc.). When this happens, some browsers such as Internet Explorer, love to warn customers that “this page contains insecure elements.” When you’re about to enter your personal payment info, this is not a comforting message. To prevent this, make sure you run through your own checkout frequently, with your browser set to display these warnings.

8. Only One Payment Type

Don’t you hate when you don’t have cash and a store doesn’t take credit cards? Many customers feel a similar frustration when a site only takes credit. Alternative payment forms have become almost an expectation these days, with Paypal, e-Checks, BillMeLater, and Google Checkout leading the way. Adding an additional payment method can go a long way in preventing abandoned shopping carts.

9. Dead End Receipt Pages

It’s a shame so many shopping sessions end on the receipt page. Rather than wasting your order confirmation page with a conclusive “Thanks for ordering!” message, why not continue to engage your customers? Consider adding a tell-a-friend form, displaying customer service FAQs, or asking customers to complete a survey.

10. Hiding Additional Charges

Nobody likes surprise charges at the last minute. Make sure that all shipping related charges and taxes are displayed early and often.

11. No Prominent 1-800 Number

People like buying from people, so customers always like to know someone is immediately reachable if they have a problem. While not every customer who sees your 1-800 number will call, just having one creates a sense of trust.

12. Product Stockouts

Oh by the way, it’s out of stock! Surprisingly, a disturbing amount of online checkouts wait until the customer has initiated the buying process before informing them about stockouts. Product availability should always be visible on the product pages and the shopping cart. Any later than that, you’re going to anger your customers.
Avoiding mistakes on your checkout is eCommerce 101. Don’t just take my word for it though, test these suggestions for yourself. With tools such as Google’s Website Optimizer, performing A/B tests on your checkout are surprisingly easy and inexpensive.

About Justin Palmer

Justin Palmer writes the Palmer Web Marketing blog, which covers topics such as eCommerce, SEO, and website usability. Palmer Web Marketing also offers personalized SEO recommendations and eCommerce Site Review services.