/Opinion/ Embracing ecommerce
11/09/2008 | Filed under Discover > Opinion
Many online retailers aren’t making the most of their websites’ sales potential. A few simple changes could raise their profits, says Fadi Shuman
Over the past five years we’ve seen a dramatic increase in the acceptance of online shopping. But this shift in purchasing culture has brought with it a need for the online shopping experience to develop. Sadly, not all retailers have kept pace with this change.
While the successful ones have now generally completed, or are about to complete, their second phase of ecommerce development, many are still running on first generation sites that do little to enhance the consumer experience. These sites aren’t designed around an engaging interface that’s targeted at how customers behave online. Today this can be a major barrier to purchase.
The next generation
Second generation ecommerce sites are much more design-led, with a focus on how the user interacts with the site and their journey to purchase. People are now demanding as much from their online shopping experience as they do from their offline experience. A pleasurable user interface is, therefore, essential. The questions retailers need to be addressing are as follows:
Is the imagery suitable? As customers aren’t able to touch, feel or try on products online, the website’s imagery needs to get as close as possible to the real-world store experience. If you can see the stitching in the picture of a garment, for example, you’ve achieved this goal.
Is enough of the range online? Retailers often don’t put enough of their stock onto their ecommerce sites. Yet for the online experience to be close to the offline one, people want to see as much as possible.
Does the design of the site reflect the brand? While this may seem obvious, a lot of ecommerce sites fail on this score. And finally, is the checkout process as simple as it could be?
Our research found the checkout process has the most direct effect on a site’s success. Up to 50 per cent of people drop out during checkout. Admittedly, this is sometimes because they don’t have the correct details to hand, but by keeping distractions to a minimum and making the checkout journey as user-friendly as possible, retailers can dramatically increase conversion rates. The more clicks consumers have to make, the
more likely they are to drop out of a purchase. In response to this we pioneered a single page, express checkout, which strips out all navigation and distractions from the process. This means the consumer can see, at every point, exactly what they’re buying and for how much – including all delivery charges, taxes and sundry charges.
Go to buy from some sites and you’re hit with a barrage of questions, from usernames and passwords to personal details and questionnaires, before you’ve actually bought anything. While it’s important to find out information about your customers, why do it before they’ve made their payment? The reality is, all retailers actually need from a customer when they’re making a purchase online is an email address and billing details.
As people become more familiar with websites, they’re more interested in having a fast solution to their problems. Multi-page checkout solutions make the customer think this is something that’s going to take a long time. If they can see a button at the end of the page that says ‘final payment’, they’re much more likely to complete the process.
Safe feeling
There are three basic guidelines to designing a successful single-page checkout system. Firstly, get your warranty and returns information upfront and correct. Doing something as simple as prominently displaying your returns and customer services contact number can make people feel safer. Secondly, display your delivery information clearly from the start, and thirdly, ensure the customer knows exactly what they’re paying right at the beginning of the process.
While the single-page checkout is a powerful way to convert visitors into paying customers, it’s only one part of the process. Differentiating one site from another is about designing an appealing and engaging interface. Web creatives and retailers need to design websites to draw people in, understand how people behave online and have a thorough knowledge of the mechanics of ecommerce. If they can do this, they will maximise their chances of having a successful venture.
Fadi Shuman is founder of digital creative agency Pod1, which specialises in ecommerce. Clients include Uniqlo, Matches.com, Links of London, Kurt Geiger, Anya Hindmarch, Kenwood and Aspinal of London.
Comments
Joshua Watts / 13/09/2008 / 03:26 / http://greenexperience.net
I think another HUGE aspect of the internet in general, but especially with ecommerce site, is user interaction. If you can see that the product you're looking at only got 2 or 3 stars, when there's a similar product being offered that got 4 or 5 stars, you'll feel more confident about purchasing the 4-5 star item....
Getting your customers to rate products is huge.... Amazon has been doing for a long while ,and i think it's paid off well for them. Crowdsourcing sites (Digg, YouTube, etc...) are here to stay, and incorporating crowdsourcing (through the use of products reviews) is a great way to bring an ecommerce site to the next level.
