Monday, March 30, 2009

SEO for Ecommerce

Matt Cutts from Google giving tips on SEO for ecommerce sites - the answers keep coming back to differentiation.



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Monday, March 23, 2009

Drag and drop carts - musings

I sent out a tweet recently saying I think drag and drop carts are a bad idea. This thought came from the idea that someone dragging a product from where it's listed into a box just to add it to the cart is just a waste of time and plain bad UI practice. Bad practice as it now requires the user not to just click once, but to
  • click,
  • find where the cart area is,
  • drag item to the cart box (assuming it's highly visible and has a nice chunky landing area),
  • release the mouse button.
I can see Jakob Nielson having a fit right now! If the interface is javascript (as opposed to flash), development could be a nightmare as well to match all the new browsers as they update their engines. While I still hold the belief drag and drop is counterproductive in this scenario, I've now come across sites (thanks @pipitpuch in response to my tweet) that use drag and drop not to add to a cart necessarily, but to further engage the user into designing an outfit. Some great examples - http://www.pipit.com and https://www.kikonashi-hoop.net

In such instances I think it's excellent, and if I was a clothes retailer I would be very tempted by these solutions. It would be even better if I could take a head shot of myself to load on top of the clothes dummy to get a better idea of the outfit I was designing - because I hate the thought of ordering clothes online only to try them on after delivery and not like the look.

But I can't help but think it'd be useless for any other type of retailer that's not in the clothing business? I can't imagine buying shrink wrapped box of software from citysoftware would benefit from a drag and drop site. Same for a remote controlled toy on a hobbies site. Good reviews, high quality product presentation, videos and comprehensive specifications get my attention when I'm buying such things.

My prediction - drag and drop carts have got nothing over "social" carts (the prediction - facebook is going to turn into a kind of social cart, I agree with scobleizer on that one) other than a little wow factor, unless it's engaging the customer into an activity such as "trying on clothes".
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Monday, March 2, 2009

Customer experience ecommerce style gets return business

Using the online ordering system of Dominos last night got me thinking about the customer experience. It was really cool how I could waltz in past the peak hour queues and pick up my pizza straight away, attracting dirty looks from the resenting line up. Greater Union Cinemas are doing the same for the movies. For big businesses where queues are inevitable, it's a logical choice to go the online path. I'd rather buy my ticket to the Foo Fighters over ticketek.com.au any day over lining up in queue at the box office.

But while smaller businesses may not have the problems of big queues, they still have to deal with one of the biggest challenges of online ecommerce: the lack of instant gratification. When buying a product, you can't touch, feel, or smell it. Once you pay for a product - you have to wait until it's delivered.

So what can help make a good customer experience when using an ecommerce system? There's plenty of room for innovation, but it ultimately comes down to the personal touches - and making the customer feel good about what you're delivering.

  1. Choice, Product Presentation, and Research: Show a product in it's best light. Show reviews, extended information (good for the Google juice goodness of keywords and content), let customers spin the product around 360 degrees, demo it in videos, and let them compare similar choices.
  2. Acknowledgement: Matt Freedman touched on it with the first point in his article about improving conversion rates, which is to acknowledge leads immediately.
  3. Order fulfilment: Ship quick! Keep updating your customer how it's going. Have an order status indicator in the customers account screen. Get the product to the customer as quickly as possible, in the best possible condition. Is there option for the customer to pick up? Can you deliver yourself if they're just across town? Amazon has their "milk run" where they use their own trucks to pick up stock if they know it'll be quicker than the postage service. Zappos is getting legendary status on it's delivery times (shipped in 5 hours from an order placed on a Sunday night?!?)
  4. Avoid any form of disappointment: Don't give the customer any reason to let off bad word of mouth. If mistakes happen - fix it! Give over the top service, complimentary coupons / vouchers. Bad vibes are just a twitter or blog post away.
  5. Ease of use: Let the customer order the product again (useful if the product is a consumable) from their past orders in their account screen.
  6. Consistency: Give good service all the time, and understand what it takes to deliver this. Amazon employees, from the CEO down, are all required to spend a few days a year on the customer service desk. Initiatives such as this will help spread the experience your company delivers organisation wide. Develop some rules for consistency, and make sure everyone implements them and gets a chance to improve them.
  7. Encourage return business: Give them a reason to come back. Can you give loyal customers a freebie every now and then? I always go back to Gloria Jeans because of this. If you can't do freebies, can you do 10% off?
  8. Measure, Test, Review and Improve: Identify KPI's (bestsellers, out of stock orders, dispatch time, negative reviews, charge backs), conduct secret shopper tests, get feedback, and improve.
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