Finding the Pot of Gold on Your Web Site

Make it easy for customers to shop by making it easy for them to pay.

By Sally Falkow. Web Content Strategist in the Wells Fargo Newsletter

What makes an e-commerce site successful? Usually, they are the same things that make a retail store successful: the right merchandise, the right price and a stress-free shopping experience. "The fundamentals of business apply more than ever on the Net," says Dr. Flint McGlaughlin of Marketing Experiments Journal. “You must have a value proposition – why should this customer buy this product from me?” says McGlaughlin. “You have just five seconds to capture their attention.” A Marketing Experiments test using several sites showed that most visitors "peeked through the window", but never went inside and the conversion ratio from visitors to buyers was very low.

In addition to a clear value proposition, you must also make the shopping experience as easy as possible by omitting any obstacles that would allow a customer to change his mind at the last minute. The checkout process—after a customer has added items to his cart, but before he’s entered payment information—can make or break the sale. If your site doesn’t accept credit cards or electronic checks, you run the risk of alienating people who might be big spenders and repeat customers

"A smooth shopping cart process is a key factor in achieving customer conversion," says Jeffrey Kretz, senior systems developer at Airespring, a full service communications company that sells telecommunications products and services online. "Thirty percent of all shopping carts are abandoned-companies spend a lot of effort and money getting people to their site yet [customers] leave without completing the sale."

According to a 2001 study by Vividence Corporation, the primary reason potential customers abandon a cart is high shipping costs. Another is having no mention of prices and shipping charges until the payment process. Other reasons include:

• 61% were only comparison shopping

• 56% changed their minds

• 41% quit because the checkout process is too long

• 35% quit because the checkout process requires too much personal information

• 27% quit because the checkout process was confusing

Get Ready to Sell Online

Accepting credit cards online can make a Web presence pay off. Monthly reports from the National Retail Federation/Forrester Online Retail Index show that about 15.5 million households shop online every month, spending an average of $272 per person. Finding the right financial institution that understands your needs and works with you to get the best possible result – satisfied customers and secure payment options that are not a headache for you to manage – is one of the most important factors for success online.

Best Practices

When you’re starting out:

• Refine your offering

• Make your home page is user friendly and enticing

• Find the right payment processing partner – one who will grow with you

• Install a tracking program on your site

Already Trading

• Invest in usability to improve the ROI from your site

• Simplify the ordering process

• Track shopping cart abandonment figures

• Improve your checkout page

• Improve your customer service

If you’re well established

• Make the most of your brand awareness

• Do a home page usability analysis

• Implement a user feedback option

• Implement good measurement and tracking software

• Have a back up plan for payment processing should you need to change

Sally Falkow is a Web Content Strategist based in Pasadena CA. She is the author of Web Sense – Effective website strategies for entrepreneurs. For a free evaluation of your homepage visit http://www.falkoweb.com Web Metrics and Usability.
[email protected]

Reprinted from the June 2003 issue of the Wells Fargo Newsletter

http://www.socal.com/artman/publish/article_1016.shtml