What if 68% of your site visitors only came to research an offline purchase?

According to research by Accenture:

• 68% compare prices online before shopping in a physical store
• 58% locate items online before purchasing offline
• 67% prefer to research online and buy from physical stores

Just for fun, let’s call web shoppers with a high propensity to research online and purchase offline “ROPO” customers (a noun and a verb). Reasons to ROPO include:

• Shopper wants to view the item up close
• Shopper needs the item sooner than it can ship
• Shopper wants to avoid shipping fees
• Shopper might not be comfortable sharing personal information online

Like the 4 buying modalities, a customer may be generally a ROPO (prefers to research online and purchase offline most of the time), or more likely to ROPO based on the purchase situation (e.g. received gift card from Target for Christmas, hate wandering the aisles on a busy Saturday - research online, walk in, walk out).

Improving Search for ROPOs

I spotted Target targeting ROPOs in category and search results the other day:

This offers a higher level of customer service to ROPOs than just providing store lookup on the product page — the ROPO can scan search results and only view details on items they can pick up in-store.

Target shows you locations, hours of operation and a telephone number, sort by distance (not sure how helpful this is if you don’t live at the center-point) and low or normal availability. You can also view a map and print the page in regular or map view.

Move Closer to “Bulls-Eye”

To make this even more helpful, I’d like to see is a zipcode or city-based filter where you could define your location, and see only products available in-store locally.

I’d also like to see a button or icon that differs from the add to cart button (to facilitate scanning if you don’t use a filter) - change the size, color and shape.

Another idea to help ROPO is to use a personalization tool like Sitebrand’s Geo-IP detection to sniff out visitors from areas you have a local presence. Show these visitors custom content throughout the site with a link to your store locator or inventory lookup.

Have you seen any other e-tailer examples of how to aid ROPOs?

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 »

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.

American Eagle Outfitters recently AJAX-ed up its web design including its navigation menu. What’s different about AE’s flyout menu that’s different from Office Max’ and Eddie Bauer’s navigation redesign is that it actually merchandises within the flyout. Here’s what I mean:

When you roll over a section in the horizontal menu, a sub-menu appears with some featured items. In the example above, you see one featured Clearance item from each category: men’s, women’s and aerie.

This technique allows you to show more content without a click. Clicking away from a page means another click if you want to go back. But flyouts give the user a faster peek at what’s behind the menu buttons. And if you accidentally roll over a menu item, you may be enticed by that 50% off offer you otherwise would not be aware of.

The downsides of AJAX-y menus are they cover up content, can be finicky and require steady mouse control to operate properly. Or worse, they can appear when you don’t expect them too when you mouse a bit too close to the hot-spot. Not everyone will find this a usability improvement.

I noticed when you click on the Clearance button you get different featured items. I think it would be better to keep the same items as in the flyout, because a customer may click out of habit, and wonder where that green camisole disappeared to. You want to minimize the “whoa, what happened?” factor, especially when you’re introducing Web 2.0 coolness that may involve a learning curve. (Even for technosavvy Millennials like the AE customer. It just might be mom or grandma picking out a gift).

Text in the red box doesn’t need to change after you click on Clearance. If a customer clicks on Clearance, he/she understands it’s the clearance section, you don’t have to restate the obvious. When it comes to online copy - less is more.

All-in-all, it’s a pretty neat idea. What do you think about merchandising within navigation? Love it? Hate it?

PS: If you’re interested in merchandising tips and trends, be sure to sign up today for our upcoming webinar: Effective Online Merchandising: What Sells?

Yesterday we talked about OfficeMax’ viral campaign and its goal to brand itself as “human friendly.” OfficeMax has recently redesigned its website, and you’ll notice right away its clean look and innovative approach to navigation.

Now customers can hone in on specific products with one click:

Which you have to admit is more user-friendly than Staples’ or Office Depot’s methods, where you have to first locate the correct category, then forage from there:

Continue Reading:
OfficeMax Reinvents Navigation »

Post-Christmas clearance sales are still enticing shoppers, yet stock of this bargain basement booty is dwindling day-by-day. What a great customer service and usability idea to show available sizes from the clearance page so customers don’t get excited at a fabulous deal only to discover it’s only available in extra-extra-jumbo or super-teenie-weenie. Here’s an example from C28.com:

C28 shows sizes in stock for all products, not just sale items, but it’s especially useful for the clearance section. It gives customers a better user experience, and customers can scan the entire page of bargains, honing in on the items that are available in their size. C28 also provides drop-down menus where customers can narrow clearance items to just their size.

Fabulous!

Amazon is often touted as the usability darling of e-commerce. Number one on Internet Retailer’s Top 500 List last year, the mega-store is usually way ahead of other retailers in so many ways. That’s why my experience on Amazon this weekend was so surprising. Shopping on Amazon.ca, I experienced search failure more than once — and also discovered that my problems wouldn’t have happened on Amazon.com.

Exhibit A - Can’t Handle A Typo

This is what happened when I made a spelling error for “Web Analytics: An Hour A Day” on Amazon.ca:

And this is the same search on Amazon.com:

Continue Reading:
Amazon.ca Fails at Basic Usability - Amazon.com Passes »

Future Now, Inc. recently conducted a study of 300 top online retailers on 69 different usability and customer experience factors. The results suggest that eTailers have plenty of room for improvement — with the top scoring website SmartBargains.com earning only 67 out of a possible 100 points. The average score was 43.

A few of the study’s findings:

• Enlarge Image Feature - used by 76% of sites

• Estimated Delivery - 74% of sites
• Gift Cards - used by 58%
• Timely and Accurate E-Mail Support - 58% responded correctly within 24 hours
• Free Shipping - 43%
• Pre-Checkout Shipping Calculation - found on 42% of sites
• In Stock Availability - used by 39% (Especially important over the holidays)
• Poor Fonts - 38% had fonts that are difficult to read - either too small or not web-friendly
• Multiple Image Views - 38% offered this feature
• More Than 4 Steps in Checkout - 35% of sites
• Customer Reviews - 33% of sites
• In-Store Pick Up - 10% of sites that have local stores
• Mulitple Payment Options - 10-20% offer one or more options like PayPal, Google Checkout, pay by check or Bill Me Later

Continue Reading:
Ecommerce Usability Study Shows Etailers Can Improve »

Hats off to Matt at Ecommerce Optimization for posting a thorough list of ecommerce usability, design and checkout best practices complete with screenshots:

If you’re looking for more excellent reading this weekend, you can also check out One Up Web’s “Secrets of Social Marketing Success” study that discusses the forays into social marketing by online retailers like Coach.com, Sephora and Target.

Following up on previous posts about permission marketing and welcome emails for ecommerce websites, I’d like to share my personal experience registering for 87 accounts with the top online retailers and offer some tips for registration form design.

Your site may have several forms that ask for personal information - for email subscriptions, creating an account, entering billing information, requesting help, general contact, creating a wishlist or order tracking. It’s important to note that in my test I was taking initiative to sign up for an account by clicking “Register” or “My Account”. I did not reach these forms in the middle of a checkout process (required registration).

Popular Form Fields and Frequency

1. Password - 100%

Obviously this is a requirement for all sites, but 100% required users to invent their own passwords rather than sending computer-generated temporary passwords (which are terribly annoying). But Dell and Nieman Marcus failed to mention clearly that their passwords require at least one number until you fail at your first password attempt.

2. Repeat Password Field - 89%

Though it takes a small amount of extra time, this is recommended because it’s easy to make errors when you only see **** as you type. How frustrating for customers when they cannot log in because the password they *thought* they entered is wrong.

Continue Reading:
Registration Usability - 87 Registration Forms Tested »