Tools to Enrich the Online Shopping Experience
May 27, 2009 By Joe Boland, Assistant Editor, Target Marketing
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In today’s online shopping world, consumers look for the most simple and efficient sites to purchase from. No one likes to waste time on a site that makes products difficult to find or checkout too tedious a task.
With that in mind, Larry Kavanagh, CEO and founder of Covington, Ky.-based e-commerce solutions provider DMinSite, says the most important question to ask is, “What really helps the shopper?” Simply put, the most helpful thing for a shopper is being able to find the products he wants as quickly as possible, stresses Kavanagh.
Here, Kavanagh and John Deneen, president of Chicago-based e-commerce solutions company SiteForm, offer tools to optimize the online shopping experience for both consumers and your company.
Personalized navigation. Put products in front of shoppers that they are interested in, Kavanagh suggests, to increase the likelihood of purchases. Kavanagh provides two ways to do this:
• Highlight products previously viewed. Use cookies to keep track of products that each customer has viewed before, and prominently display them on every page—every visit.
• Provide a recommendation engine. Sometimes online shoppers need to be pushed in the right direction. A good way to do that is with a recommendation engine. Kavanagh stresses it’s important to go beyond simply saying, “People who bought this also bought that.” Look at what you know about each individual shopper (where he has been on the site, what he’s purchased, etc.) to present relevant products. Display several blocks of products based on recommendations on a page, particularly the product page and in the cart, Kavanagh suggests. He recommends exploring this option, citing Rich Relevance and Certano as two companies that offer personalized recommendation engine services. It’s a win-win for marketers and buyers, giving companies the opportunity to cross-sell and shoppers more targeted offers.
Trigger-based e-mails. The online shopping experience doesn’t only take place on your site; e-mails are just as vital. Give shoppers unique messages based on what they’ve done on the site or what you know about them, such as a three e-mail abandoned cart series; a welcome series for first-time buyers; or a series based on products they’ve purchased before (replenishables or a reminder of gifts they sent last year).
Ratings and reviews/testimonials. Shoppers trust ratings provided by other shoppers, so make this part of your online shopping experience. Kavanagh has found that top-rated products convert about 40 percent more than average products. Consumers want the best quality. Put your ratings and reviews to use by:
• allowing shoppers to sort category and search results by ratings;
• featuring top-rated products in e-mails, with the ratings and reviews; and
• featuring top-rated products in other channels, such as a traditional catalog, so shoppers can easily find them online.
Video. The widespread popularity of YouTube and the like has made online video viewing commonplace and expected with consumers on Web sites, and retailers are increasingly following this trend, notes Deneen. It’s not just using the technology, however, he stresses. Branding and product videos need to be produced and displayed to help shoppers engage and understand the product and the brand.
Deneen offers Eileen Fisher and Cloudveil as two sites that use video effectively to enhance the shopper’s online experience. For instance, Eileen Fisher, a women’s clothing retailer, enforces its brand with a video on its homepage and shows off its “linen jersey.” It also provides a “view our videos” tab at the top right of the homepage, taking the customer to more videos to view certain products and get a feel for the brand.
Mountain apparel retailer Cloudveil takes video a step further, giving shoppers the choice to “watch the video review” for a large number of its products, denoting which have video reviews with an icon of a movie camera next to the product image. The videos show real people using the products in their lives, providing testimonials and descriptions. Again, this builds trust with shoppers and allows them to see the practical uses of the products.
Product imaging. More and more, consumers expect to find exactly what they’re looking for online, so online retailers can no longer just provide one shot of a product. Instead, Deneen says, they must show products with different colors, zoom and alternative views so shoppers have an easier time deciding what to buy. According to Deneen, clothing retailers Anthropologie and Lands’ End are two good cutting-edge examples.
Anthropologie offers "swatch" boxes below each product with the different colors it offers, and with a simple click, a shopper can see the Fine Line Blouse in white, then beige and then brown. And once customers get to a product page, a zoom feature shows up on the right when you scroll over the product image.
Lands’ End also uses a similar color options feature as Anthropologie, and it allows shoppers to zoom in and out on products, as well as move the view around by clicking and dragging images. These technologies allow the shopper to get a full view of the products and, thus, make their experience all that more enjoyable.
With that in mind, Larry Kavanagh, CEO and founder of Covington, Ky.-based e-commerce solutions provider DMinSite, says the most important question to ask is, “What really helps the shopper?” Simply put, the most helpful thing for a shopper is being able to find the products he wants as quickly as possible, stresses Kavanagh.
Here, Kavanagh and John Deneen, president of Chicago-based e-commerce solutions company SiteForm, offer tools to optimize the online shopping experience for both consumers and your company.
Personalized navigation. Put products in front of shoppers that they are interested in, Kavanagh suggests, to increase the likelihood of purchases. Kavanagh provides two ways to do this:
• Highlight products previously viewed. Use cookies to keep track of products that each customer has viewed before, and prominently display them on every page—every visit.
• Provide a recommendation engine. Sometimes online shoppers need to be pushed in the right direction. A good way to do that is with a recommendation engine. Kavanagh stresses it’s important to go beyond simply saying, “People who bought this also bought that.” Look at what you know about each individual shopper (where he has been on the site, what he’s purchased, etc.) to present relevant products. Display several blocks of products based on recommendations on a page, particularly the product page and in the cart, Kavanagh suggests. He recommends exploring this option, citing Rich Relevance and Certano as two companies that offer personalized recommendation engine services. It’s a win-win for marketers and buyers, giving companies the opportunity to cross-sell and shoppers more targeted offers.
Trigger-based e-mails. The online shopping experience doesn’t only take place on your site; e-mails are just as vital. Give shoppers unique messages based on what they’ve done on the site or what you know about them, such as a three e-mail abandoned cart series; a welcome series for first-time buyers; or a series based on products they’ve purchased before (replenishables or a reminder of gifts they sent last year).
Ratings and reviews/testimonials. Shoppers trust ratings provided by other shoppers, so make this part of your online shopping experience. Kavanagh has found that top-rated products convert about 40 percent more than average products. Consumers want the best quality. Put your ratings and reviews to use by:
• allowing shoppers to sort category and search results by ratings;
• featuring top-rated products in e-mails, with the ratings and reviews; and
• featuring top-rated products in other channels, such as a traditional catalog, so shoppers can easily find them online.
Video. The widespread popularity of YouTube and the like has made online video viewing commonplace and expected with consumers on Web sites, and retailers are increasingly following this trend, notes Deneen. It’s not just using the technology, however, he stresses. Branding and product videos need to be produced and displayed to help shoppers engage and understand the product and the brand.
Deneen offers Eileen Fisher and Cloudveil as two sites that use video effectively to enhance the shopper’s online experience. For instance, Eileen Fisher, a women’s clothing retailer, enforces its brand with a video on its homepage and shows off its “linen jersey.” It also provides a “view our videos” tab at the top right of the homepage, taking the customer to more videos to view certain products and get a feel for the brand.
Mountain apparel retailer Cloudveil takes video a step further, giving shoppers the choice to “watch the video review” for a large number of its products, denoting which have video reviews with an icon of a movie camera next to the product image. The videos show real people using the products in their lives, providing testimonials and descriptions. Again, this builds trust with shoppers and allows them to see the practical uses of the products.
Product imaging. More and more, consumers expect to find exactly what they’re looking for online, so online retailers can no longer just provide one shot of a product. Instead, Deneen says, they must show products with different colors, zoom and alternative views so shoppers have an easier time deciding what to buy. According to Deneen, clothing retailers Anthropologie and Lands’ End are two good cutting-edge examples.
Anthropologie offers "swatch" boxes below each product with the different colors it offers, and with a simple click, a shopper can see the Fine Line Blouse in white, then beige and then brown. And once customers get to a product page, a zoom feature shows up on the right when you scroll over the product image.
Lands’ End also uses a similar color options feature as Anthropologie, and it allows shoppers to zoom in and out on products, as well as move the view around by clicking and dragging images. These technologies allow the shopper to get a full view of the products and, thus, make their experience all that more enjoyable.
With shoppers already responding to the convenience of online browsing and buying, e-tailers can offer the best of both worlds by infusing their sites with tools that bring the benefits of the retail store to virtual life.
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