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Marketing Sherpa in May released a survey, New eCommerce Research: Website Tactics that Boost Conversion. Optimizing internal search results was the second top strategy cited by store owners, topped only by a perpetual shopping cart. 60% of respondents said customizing their search was a priority.
One of the most sought after features within an advanced search tool is the ability to modify search results. There are many reasons you may want to do this. Marketing Sherpa suggests a “last-in-first-out” strategy to move older inventory out first. Another strategy to consider is setting any particular product or brand that has gotten some recent press coverage or is being discussed in social media. For example, the movie Toy Story is out in the theaters. You could make Mr. Potato Head rank higher for “toys for children three and up” or “kid gift ideas.”
Here are some other reasons you may want to adjust your internal search results:
1. Top sellers within a specific category
2. Top rated items based on your product reviews
3. Products with higher margins
4. Products which have upsell opportunities
5. Items you want to clear out of inventory
6. Hot items based on current events and trends
These are just a few opportunities to consider when adjusting your relevancy results either by product or product attribute. When you have power over your search results, imagine what you can do.
Senior Account Mananger at Solid Cactus
Instant lottery tickets. Publisher’s Clearing House mailings. Direct mail pieces from a car dealership. What is under that surface? Where’s that dime so I can find out?
There’s just something exciting about the unknown. Scratch & Save from Solid Cactus, allows you to capitalize on that consumer curiosity. Scratch & Save is an online version of a scratch-card and can be installed on Yahoo! Store item pages. Customers click and drag a dime across a virtual surface to reveal a coupon code that can be applied upon check-out.
Heather Dominello of Doggie-Depot.com purchased Scratch & Save because she wanted to add something unique to her site that “would catch the eye of visitors and not cost a fortune.”
“My ultimate desire was to increase my conversion rate. It certainly did just what I had hoped. In the first week and the weeks that have followed my conversion rate has nearly doubled. The Scratch & Save paid for itself in no time at all,” she said.
Some store owners, like Dominello and Vance Selin from HomeandOutdoorDecor.com, leave Scratch & Save active at all times, while others activate it for special promotions. Either way, there are some clever ways to use Scratch & Save to capture more sales. Here’s a few:
• Seasonal Numbers for Percentage Saved Numbers in themselves may be boring, but here’s a way to get creative and have fun with holiday sales numbers. Think about what numbers are associated with a particular season or holiday and use those for what percentage savings are available.
For example, you may want to have a St. Patrick’s Day sale. Use 3% (for March) and 17% (for the date) as some ideas. For Halloween, the number 13 rings a bell. For Christmas, there are 12 days of Christmas. There are eight reindeer. There are three kings. For the new year this year, it’s ‘10. Have some fun with it! You get the idea. Of course, you will still want to have several numerical values available because that’s the fun in Scratch & Save.
• Cyber Monday Sale (or any other one-day sale) Use e-mail marketing and other promotional efforts to promote a one-day sale ahead of time, such as Cyber Monday. Build excitement for a special sale leading up to the sale date when the Scratch & Save is activated. You can use this in conjunction with other Yahoo! Store features like Solid Cactus’ Holiday Countdown to show how many days are left before the big sale.
• Treasure Hunt – Find the Sale Items While Scratch & Save ultimately takes a percentage off the entire order and not a single item, you can still have some fun with the feature by hiding it on certain items. This way, your customers will visit more pages. By browsing more they may find something they may not have otherwise seen.
Promoting the Savings – How to Promote Scratch & Save
Scratch & Save is an item page feature so many clients using this feature have started to get clever with promoting the savings through various marketing and on-site efforts.
Here is a look at how Scratch & Save can be promoted:
• Call-Out On Site
Create a banner to promote the feature and place it in your shell or homepage. The example shown here is from HomeandOutdoorDecor.com.
This banner appears below the header within all of the interior sections with the message, “Scratch & Save! Visit any item page to reveal additional savings when you order today!”
• E-Mail Marketing
If you regularly send e-mail marketing broadcasts to your customer base, be sure to tell them about Scratch & Save. Include a screen shot of an item page highlighting the feature to familiarize customers with it. If you only use Scratch & Save at certain times, be sure to let people know when it’s back, too. On the flip side, if you are doing an e-mail marketing campaign for store savings and do not wish to use the Scratch & Save feature along with that sale, you can do like Pam Macharola from BlairCandy.com and temporarily disable Scratch & Save during other store promotions. That’s the great thing about this feature. It can work in tandem with other store promotions or it can be turned off if you want to do another sale or promotion.
• Social Media
There are many ways to use social media to promote your Scratch & Save promotions. Place a note on your Facebook page about the feature and explain how to use it. Also, use Facebook to post a link to an item page with the feature being used. On Twitter, you can post links to the item pages as well or just a general tweet to show that you are having a sale. You can use YouTube to show a demo of the feature being used on your site.
• Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Use your PPC ads to promote the Scratch & Save feature. Capitalize on that mystery savings within your ad copy, maybe highlighting the highest amount customers can save such as, “Save up to 17%…”
• Press Release and Informational Page
When Solid Cactus released SnapShop in 2007, one of our clients sent out a press release about the new feature. Several clients also created how-to pages about the new feature. The same can be done for Scratch & Save. Send a press release about the new store feature and how it’s saving customers money. Then, use that press release or a version of it as an informational page on your site to talk about the feature and how it works.
• Blog About It
If you have a blog that goes along with your eCommerce store, be sure to write a blog post about Scratch & Save. Include screen shots and even a demo video. Then, continue to blog about Scratch & Save in the future when you do something else fun with it.
Scratch & Save is an interactive feature that gives store owners a lot of control and customization opportunities. Use that control to your advantage with some of our suggestions mixed with your own creativity to capture more sales.
Senior Account Mananger at Solid Cactus
Is your site finished? Really? When your newly designed store is turned over from your designer or developer, there is no doubt that you are excited to go live with it. The design is hot. The navigation is great. Overall, the site is amazing. But not so fast. Don’t hit publish yet. Why, you ask?
Not too long ago I was going through a bunch of newly-launched eCommerce stores and was astonished at the amount of incomplete pages and information. Before you go live with your new site, here are some areas which you should pay close attention:
1. Privacy Policy Page
I saw many sites that still had the default Yahoo! privacy policy being used. While the default Yahoo! privacy policy gives you a good guideline, every business is different. Be sure that your privacy policy page reflects your actual policies.
2. About Us Page
The amount of About Us pages that simply had ‘coming soon’ alarmed me. Don’t publish your site without some content here. Sure, you can always come back later to add more content or images. However, you are somebody! Let the world know who you are, even if it’s a few sentences. It doesn’t take that much time to create a little tidbit about your store. Take some pride in what you do and tell your story. If you are already an established merchant, whether on or offline, there should be no excuse to leave this page blank — chances are you have something readily available such as a mission statement, copy from your previous online store (if this is a redesign), a business profile or something else. If you are a new business opening a store for the first time, it’s almost even more important to show us who you are. So, before you publish your store for the first time, add something about your store or your company in there. A ‘coming soon’ blurb looks unprofessional and looks like you really don’t care to tell your story.
Also, one of my pet peeves is an About Us page that is nothing more than customer service information. That’s ‘About Your Services and Policies’ not about your business. Try to keep these separate by creating a customer service page that contains information about returns, shipping, and more while the About Us page focuses on your company bio.
3. Phone Number
You’d be surprised how many sites I saw that still have the 555-555-5555 as the contact number in the footer or contact us page. This fictional number is just a placeholder meant to be replaced by the store owner with a real phone number. Be sure you fill it in so customers can reach you. Chances are your correct phone number is in your header design and having a placeholder number in other spots on your site can confuse people.
4. Sections Not Populated
I’ve seen several instances where sites had a section in the left navigation for a category, but when clicked, there were no items in the category. This makes the site look incomplete. Be sure to populate all categories that have navigation pointing to them; otherwise, remove the main category navigation. When items become available to you or you get to the point of finishing uploading products to your store, add in the menu categories then.
5. Informational Pages & Other Content Areas
“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.”
“Put your FAQ here.”
“This is where you will put some information about your section page.”
Like the About Us page and phone number, these are some additional examples of placeholder text a developer may place on an informational page as a guide to what you can add, before publishing, go through and replace this placeholder text with relevant content. Not only does this help with your SEO long-term, but it makes you look polished and professional from the start.
6. Image Coming Soon image
I noticed on a few sites many items had an “image coming soon” image on the section and item pages. The case here was that all the item information was available, but the merchant was probably waiting on the product images from a supplier. Everyone knows that having images is crucial to conversions. Be sure all item information is complete before listing them. If you are still awaiting images on certain items, save those items for later inclusion.
Remember that little details can make a huge difference. You’ve waited for your new store or redesigned store to be complete for weeks, maybe months. You’ve invested good money into the redesign. Don’t let the excitement cause you to publish too soon. Use the checklist above to be sure all the little things are covered.
Senior Account Mananger at Solid Cactus
Most eCommerce store owners look at their websites all day, every day. When something is so familiar, it’s very easy to overlook potential problems. That’s the power of a fresh set of eyes.
As of press time, Solid Cactus had just wrapped up its seventh eCommerce Boot Camp. Day two of the semi-annual event kicked off with the ever-popular, interactive site deconstruction session, moderated by John Tomkoski, manager of sales engineering. Rounding out the panel was designer Marc Manfre, marketing analyst Kurt Illian, and senior director of account management, Lou Pagnotti.
Several clients had ahead of time volunteered their sites for a live deconstruction. One of these good sports was Terry Fluke, owner of NaturePavilion.com, an online store focusing on nature-themed educational toys and games.
“I knew it wouldn’t be just Solid Cactus employees evaluating it; it would be website owners like me, who have tried different things with their websites and have learned through trial and error what works,” she said on why she volunteered.
Tomkoski, who has been a driving force in this particular session at each Boot Camp, says the high level of interaction makes the session a hit.
“I like to keep the session like a town hall meeting, where everyone can chime in with their thoughts and suggestions. I have always felt when people are involved, they take more away from it,” he said. “We will usually work with three volunteer sites, but while we are reviewing one site, a member of our audience will be sitting there going, ‘Wow, I never thought about that. How could I implement something like that?’ It helps everyone spark some thoughts about their own sites.”
Fluke’s and two other eCommerce stores were reviewed during the 90-minute session. Here, we’ll share some key findings.
Design and Branding
Capturing a potential customer’s attention right away is crucial. All three sites did a nice job matching branding and design with their respective target audience. The audio book site was slick, clean, and simple. The site with gifts for horse lovers had a rustic, classy feel with a parchment paper background. NaturePavilion.com, which is geared toward kids (but also the grown-ups doing the buying), had a fitting design with fun images and inviting colors.
“You have awesome branding. That boy with the magnifying glass is great; this can be used in business cards and all your marketing. The vines, and the flowers…” said Manfre to Fluke during the session. “To this day when we have a client who wants a site with an illustrated feel, we always go back to yours for inspiration.”
That said, if a store has a fun logo or header design, think how you can take that further, incorporating those elements in add-to-cart buttons, section headers, and other on-site graphics. (See Page 22 for a related article on the design process.)
Homepage: Specials of the Day
One site used a larger area on the homepage to feature a daily special. Pagnotti asked the store owners if they actually changed the specials daily. With a chuckle, they responded, “no”. In the rush of eCommerce, it’s not always easy to change things daily; so, he suggested they use that same area, but split it into two halves.
“That’s prime real estate there. Use some of that area for text, as well as to promote specials. Better yet, a sequence banner would be perfect. Keep your site fresh all year round,” said Pagnotti.
Navigation: Getting there in less clicks
Several volunteer sites had lengthy navigation or section pages. NaturePavilion.com had this issue on one section page in particular: Toy Snakes & Lizards. Tomkoski clicked through to that section page and began to scroll, joking that he ran out of room on the podium to scroll further. While this prompted a chuckle from the crowd, it illustrated how scroll becomes an issue when there are hundreds of items on one section page. The solution? Adding dynamic paging. This hit home for Fluke. She explained to panelists and attendees that over the years her product line grew from 12 items to over 2,000,
“[Toy snakes] are our number one seller. We sell the most toy snakes on the Internet,” said Fluke during the session. “We’re at a point now where we do need paging.”
Tomkoski pointed out that items on the very bottom of the lengthy section page may not be seen unless searched for. Illian suggested splitting up the toy snakes into subcategories, such as length, color, or type.
Lengthy left-hand navigation was also an issue. Getting users to the right section page with less clicks often means restructuring the navigation to include subcategory headings or utilizing cascading or expanding navigation. For example, the site selling wildlife gifts uses a simple segmented navigation with just a few main categories, such as “Shop by Animal” or “Shop by Product.” Then, that works in tandem with the new Solid Cactus Mega Drop Down, which displays the deeper levels.
On-Site SEO
Illian spent some time showing store owners how some product names were using pretty broad search terms, for example, “bears.” A more specific product title, such as “grizzly bear gifts”, would help customers find items both on the internal site search and in search engines. Otherwise, bears could mean Chicago Bears or information on bears for a school science project. He encouraged store owners to keep SEO in mind when naming items and writing descriptions.
Beefing Up Product Reviews
Illian pointed out that one of the sites offered product reviews, but had many products without reviews. He suggested offering a contest or promotion to solicit reviews via e-mail marketing. An example would be everyone who submits a review gets a coupon or entered to win a shopping spree.
Professional E-mail Address & Phone Number and Offering Live Chat
It was suggested the displayed contact e-mail address matches the domain name of the eCommerce site instead of using an e-mail from a local ISP or web-based provider. Also, panelists encouraged store owners to use a toll-free rather than local number. (Related article by Greg Kosicki on page 18) Finally, when utilizing a live chat service this should not just be featured in the shell, but should also appear upon check out.
Highlighting Best Sellers or Top Categories
Going back to Fluke’s toy snakes, it was suggested if any particular item or product is something a store is known for, it should be promoted. This could also be temporary; for instance, if something you sell is being advertised, whether by you or the manufacturer. Make these stand out on your homepage and easier to find rather than being buried within navigation. Use graphics, banners, or a sequence banner.
Putting it Together
Tomkoski and the other panelists agree the site deconstruction session is very rewarding.
“I come away from this session feeling accomplished because I was able to help our visitors find areas to improve their websites on all fronts,” said Tomkoski.
Clients also leave inspired. The Monday morning following Boot Camp, we contacted Fluke for this article. When asked what she had learned and what she was planning to implement, she laughed and said, “Oh. You mean the stuff I am working on this morning?”
Fluke immediately jumped on making changes to her site by purchasing several features from Solid Cactus while at Boot Camp. Dynamic Paging was a no-brainer. She’s also updating Mini-Cart to add Free Shipping Countdown, moving Holiday Countdown into her shell rather than her homepage, and is adding drop down menus to her left navigation so customers can shop by deeper categories, such as by price. And there’s more.
“Solid Cactus is also designing us a blog with Nature Pavilion’s branding and links to our soon-to-be Twitter and Facebook pages,” she explained. “We also are adding Scratch & Save and having a shipping policy pop-up feature added so our customers don’t have to leave the shopping cart to search for that info.”
Fluke is also making improvements on her own including consolidating her left navigation and adding more text to her homepage.
Since not every website owner has the chance to get a live site evaluation from such a large panel of experts, including a room full of eCommerce store owners, it’s always beneficial to have a professional site evaluation performed as well as ask for feedback from colleagues whether it be in an industry forum or just asking a peer for help. Fluke agrees wholeheartedly.
“Every website should have a professional evaluation. You need to know what is good and what is bad about the back end of your website,” she said. “But, I also think asking other website owners to take a look at your website design, layout, and what features you are using is important too. You then have information from two different perspectives.”
Solid Cactus offers professional site evaluations. Tomkoski, explains his evals are a comprehensive comparison of an eCommerce site against two to three competing websites. (See ad on this page)
“[The deliverable] is a summary of recommendations on what they are doing well and what they can improve upon,”
he said.
NaturePavilion.com has been online since 2001, but in 2007, Fluke moved onto the Yahoo! Store platform and hired Solid Cactus for the new store design.
“That truly was the best decision for my company that I have made. We became a more professional site that has much better ranking. This was my first Boot Camp. But, I will be back,” she said.
With instant, professional feedback from eCommerce professionals – Solid Cactus staff and store owners- it’s no doubt why the Site Deconstruction session is always a hit– and a wonderful learning experience for everyone.
Senior Account Mananger at Solid Cactus
There is something special about the sights and sounds of holiday shopping. Garland and lights are hung, seasonal music is pumping, maybe the smell of pine is in the air; but most importantly, careful merchandising by retailers is a call-to-action to entice customers to buy. Online retailers can also make seasonal changes to put more emphasis on what’s hot for the season, beef up holiday sales numbers, and even get a little festive.
Here are five must-have five features for Yahoo! Stores to woo holiday shoppers:
1. Give Holiday Shoppers a Peek Inside with Flash Sequence Banner
There’s something nostalgic about walking down the sidewalks of a festive, decorated, snowy Main Street during the holidays, with all the store fronts giving shoppers a glimpse at what’s featured and on sale inside. Flash sequence banners can be your virtual window display case. While useful year-round, the holiday season is a prime time to consider adding flash sequence banners to your homepage. Boost sales by rotating through promotional messages for sales, special shipping and gift wrap offers, featured products/sections and then, after-holiday clearance sales! Aside from increasing conversions, flash sequence banners keep your homepage fresh.
2. Attract Bargain Shoppers with Dynamic Sales Page
Ever walk right toward the clearance rack or value bins at your local department store? Bargain shoppers sure do, especially around the holidays. Dynamic Sales Page, one of Solid Cactus’ newest features, makes deals and steals easier to find. Working in tandem with Dynamic Paging, the new Dynamic Sales Page feature automatically populates with all items listed ‘on sale’ in your store. Not only will customers easily find your best deals of the season, but this feature also saves valuable time for store owners like you because no longer will you have to manually create and reorganize pages each time items go on or off sale.
3. Increase Order Size with Multiple-Add-to-Cart
It’s all about the accessories and coordinating items when it comes to gift-giving. Video game systems need controllers and games. Necklaces need matching earrings. Baseball bats need balls and balls need gloves. You get the idea. No matter what products you offer, chances are other items in your store are a perfect complement. Item Page Multiple Add-to-Cart puts coordinating items smack dab in the forefront, thus suggesting add-ons the user may not have initially thought of purchasing. Plus, customers can effortlessly add those multiple items to the cart with just one click. Multiple-Add-to-Cart can eliminate the need for users to search for accessories, and more importantly, increase order size by prompting customers to buy more with that one click.
4. Build Exciting Promos with Scratch and Save
Holiday shopping can be exciting; you never know what bargain you may find or when you will come across an unexpected slashed price on the shelf. Entice your e-commerce shoppers with a secret savings with Solid Cactus’ newest feature, Scratch and Save. This fun, interactive feature gives your customers the chance to scratch off a virtual coupon, revealing a mystery discount code that can be used upon checkout. There are endless promotion ideas for this feature, but to get you started for the holidays, why not call it a “Secret Santa Sale” and couple it with an e-mail marketing blast and featured graphic on your homepage?
5. Build Urgency with Holiday Countdown
How many shopping days are left? Solid Cactus’ Holiday Countdown is a perfect way to build urgency with your online shoppers. Think of it as an Advent calendar for your store– without the chocolate, of course (although we’d offer that if we could). The feature provides a countdown in hours, days, minutes, and seconds to the end of the holiday shopping season, a special sale, a free shipping offer, or other time-sensitive promotion. This feature isn’t just for Christmas, either. Change the graphic and promotional message throughout the year for other seasons or holidays like back to school, Halloween or a general annual sale.
The trees may be green now, but summer is the time to get in holiday mode and make preparations for the busiest shopping season of the year.
Senior Account Mananger at Solid Cactus
