Who Just Ordered Feature

We all know testimonials are a proven way to boost confidence in your products. Email marketing company Aweber has found another way to leverage the well-known social proof buying trigger. Aweber’s Who Just Ordered feature shows, in-real time, the first name, city, and state of customers who have just signed up for their service.

This innovative feature counters one of the major draw-backs of online shopping, the lack of a shared shopping experience with other customers. For example, if I’m in a department store, I can easily see where people are going, and what they’re buying. On the web, I cannot. We all want to know we’re not the only one buying something. (I’m not the only one who sneaks a peak in other people’s shopping carts, right?)

Showing Press Recognition & Awards

While many online stores have a press page buried deep within the site, few retailers actually brag prominently about recognition they’ve received. Romanicos Chocolate, on the other hand, highlights awards they’ve received on their homepage. This is a great tactic to raise the value of the brand in the eyes of a first time visitor. Even if a visitor has never had an interaction with your company before, seeing other well known brands or people endorsing your products helps your website’s credibility.

Shipping Assurances

Questions regarding shipping and fulfillment can cloud a customer’s mind and become an obstacle for ordering. “Where does it ship from?”, “How long will it take?”, “What method will it ship?” are just a few of the common questions. For me, there’s nothing worse than placing an order, and having the retailer sit on it for days before they ship it. Kids Bargains assures customers with an ad on their homepage that orders ship quickly. Such a reminder is perfect for deadline sensitive customers who need their order by a certain date.

Seen any other tactics used by online retailers to boost confidence? Please share them in the comment section below.

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For this 3 Things entry, let’s take examine creative sales boosting tips retailers are using on their product pages to squeak out more conversions.

Multiple Add to Cart Buttons

If there’s one thing I learned as a salesperson after working 5 years in retail, it’s that you should ask for the sale early and often. On a product page, I suppose the Add to Cart button would be roughly equivalent to asking for the sale. Most product pages contain an add to cart button in a prominent location at the top right corner of the page.

However, what happens if a visitor scrolls down to read a product description, view more images, or to read customer reviews? There is now no longer a call to action in sight. Lately, I ‘ve been seeing quite a few product pages with multiple Add to Cart buttons. Checkout TigerDirect’s product page for an example of multiple add buttons.

Low-Stock Indicators

In a retail environment, it’s not difficult to ascertain how many of a given item is in-stock, you simply look on the shelf or ask a sales associate. But how many eCommerce stores take advantage of consumers fear of stockouts? In other words, if there’s only a few left in stock, why doesn’t the site encourage you to order NOW!?

T-shirt seller Glarkware drives urgency with their Stock Level indicator available on every product page. After the customer clicks their size, they are shown an estimate of how many are available in that size. I don’t know for certain, but I’m guessing that a low stock indicator discourages customers from abandoning that item in the shopping cart.

Future Gift Reminders

The next best thing to selling a product today is selling it tomorrow. Delightful Deliveries, an online gift oriented store, boasts an innovative Gift Reminder tool on every product page, allowing customers to setup email notifications reminding them to purchase an item on a future date. Customers can choose the occasion (birthday, anniversary, etc), the date, and how many days in advance to be notified.

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Solution Oriented Navigation

Traditionally, both retailers and e-tailers have organized their stores based on product categories. There’s nothing wrong with this, in fact it’s very effective. However, what happens when your site or in-store visitor doesn’t have a product in mind, but rather a problem? For example:

• “I don’t know what I’m looking for, I just need a gift for mom!”
• “I’m sick, and I need something to sooth a sore throat”
• “I’m disorganized, I need something to get me on track”

In addition to offering product based navigation, Seabear, a seller of fine seafood, offers a solution oriented navigation offering three choices: Give a Gift, Entertain Family & Friends, and Healthy Dining. For customers unfamiliar with fine seafood (like me), this is a great starting point that helps visitors select a product that meets their needs.

Filter Based Navigation

Many customers are accustomed to navigating to a product category page, then filtering down or sorting by various criteria. Some retailers are shortcutting this process by allowing customers to navigate directly to a product category with pre-filtered criteria.

For example, makeup retailer Lancome allows customers to browse by the color of the product.

Shoeline.com allows visitors to view pre-filtered product listings, narrowing down the selection by color or size. This greatly eliminates the frustration of having to sift through endless product listing pages of irrelevant merchandise.

Image Based Navigation

I hadn’t visited Overstock.com lately, and was surprised to see their untraditional homepage. In addition to placing a heavy emphasis on search, your eyes are effectively drawn to the image based categories. For department style stores with a wide variety of products such as Overstock, the pictures serve well to help visitors quickly scan and make a selection.

What do these 3 strategies have in common? Nothing, except these companies all sought to understand how their customers want to shop, and fulfilled these needs. Sometimes, going back to the basics of navigation can pay huge dividends.

What 3 Things does your site need? Get 3 recommendations from Palmer Web Marketing.