Black Friday typically kicks off the Christmas shopping season in stores. Retailers open extra early and shoppers are lined up at 3:00 AM waiting to score those early bird specials. However, this has become a less frequent occurrence since the Internet began to cut into traditional Christmas … [Read more...]
A Strategy for Removing Distractions from Your Customer’s Purchase Decisions
Removing distractions from your customer's path is key to closing the sale. Let's look at an example from Dell.com. They segment their customers into several types. As the visitor to the website navigates down one of those paths, the website organizes the products and eliminates irrelevant … [Read more...]
Give Your Website Superpowers: How to Use Defaults
We take recommendations all the time in our daily lives. You take the concierge's recommendation when you go to the restaurant he mentions. You take your server's recommendation at the restaurant when you order her suggested meal. Likewise we take a website's recommendation when we accept the … [Read more...]
Using Psychology to Increase eCommerce Conversion at SXSW
I've put together a proposal for the upcoming South by Southwest Interactive 2012 Conference titled "Using Psychology to Increase e-Commerce Conversion". I'll be talking about how you can get inside your customer's head and actually close the sale online. How You Can Help... I'm competing … [Read more...]
Your Copywriter Needs to Write Your Error Messages
This error message appeared on saveology.com: "Object reference not set to an instance of an object" This message was clearly written by a programmer and should never be seen by a customer or end-user of a website. To the average customer, this message is pure nonsense. Don't write … [Read more...]
Why Your Website Needs to Indicate Real-Time Inventory
Customers shopping online expect to immediately know if the product they want is available. When real-time inventory information is missing or inaccurate, customers will get frustrated. I recently purchased a generator from electricgeneratorsdirect.com. The individual product pages clearly … [Read more...]
Be Careful with Automated Personalized Greetings
I got an email from my bank the other day that started "DEAR NONE". The last time I checked, that wasn't my name. If my bank doesn't know my name, I start to get a little worried. After all, my name is tied to my money at that same institution. Your online marketing and efforts will have many … [Read more...]
Why e-Commerce Sites Must Send Immediate Email Confirmations
If customers purchase from you online, you need to send immediate order confirmations via email. Think about when you go to the grocery store. You hand over your cash or credit card and immediately are given your products and a receipt. These are physical reassurances that your transaction is … [Read more...]
Keeping Internet Customers Happy
This is a guest post from Keith Barrett at Offer UK If you sell your products and services online then you may feel somewhat distant from your customers. To some extent, that’s a natural by-product of the way in which online selling often works. It’s not like having your own physical … [Read more...]
3 Big Changes Santa Would Make to Your Online Store
If your company has a website (which it should), it would be run a little differently if Santa was in charge. What do you think would happen if jolly old Saint Nick ran your website and was in charge of your e-commerce efforts? Perfect Product Recommendations Since Santa already knows what … [Read more...]
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