Get a web worker

In my experience, too many people have got the mindset of "set and forget" when it comes to maintaining an online shop. The thing is - can you afford to do this for your "bricks" store front?

In your store - of course you make sure all the products are on display appropriately, that your staff are there to help with queries in a friendly and personal manner, that the music sets the mood of the store, that the floor gets vacuumed, and that products are placed strategically through the store to catch that impulse purchase.

So why is it so hard to apply these principles in the online version of your store? The answer - it's not hard, it's just a slight change of mindset.

Get a dedicated web worker - they're no different than the checkout chick who also makes sure the shelves are packed right, except they're taking care of the online specials, the content, the emailed queries and a variation of order fulfilment. The skill set required is minimum - you're not hiring programmers here, you just need someone who can use a website with an admin system.

Your online store may be a small percentage of your bricks store - but if it's got customers and pulling in dollars it deserves ongoing attention.

Ship with gifts – online shopping with personality

I ordered a gizmo from an online shopping site a month or two ago – and what sticks in mind the most is not the product I ordered (I haven’t even used it yet), but the stuff that got shipped with it that I didn’t ask for.

1. A hand written note in big black texta saying thanks
2. A lanyard

I didn’t really care about the lanyard, but the note was a different story. On closer inspection of the note with a magnifying glass revealed of course it was a printout, but it was done so well, in a friendly and easy going manner that it compelled me to take a closer look. The details were immaculate - no standard computer fonts or fudging, not even standard A4 paper. It was even slightly scrunched up then unfurled and folded in half - just giving that human touch. It just shows that impersonal nature of online shopping can be made personal if done right.

It didn’t cost them any money – just a simple process to say “make sure this gets packed for first time customers”.

I’m sure I’ll buy from that shopping site again because it felt so good to get that first order. This time round I’ll try to make sure my hard earned cash goes to something I’ll actually use!

PCI Compliance

The deadline for PCI compliance has now passed in the US. For Australia - people have begun to raise their awareness of the issue, but the urgency simply doesn't seem to be there.

Why is PCI compliance so important? Because it's secure.

Many shop keepers still have the opinion that they have a right to store credit card data. The bottom line is though - THERE IS NO NEED.

The main excuse is "how do I know how much to charge for shipping?", but I say - put a pricing system in for shipping so you can automate! Wouldn't you rather set it and leave it, rather than stress over the price of postage? Sure every now and then you might need to take a small loss on postage, but set it so that 95% of the time you always come off better for it. The time you save putting a proper system in will more than pay for a few discrepancies.

Essentials of every shopping cart

If your shopping cart doesn't have the following, put them on! If it's beyond your ability - go back to your web developer and get them installed NOW.

• Category list. On every page.
• Search. On every page. With relevant results.
• Cart summary. On every page.
• Call to action incentives. Specials and Features and Freebies! oh my!
• Detail pages for products. Customer research - let them do it.
• SEO tailored to detail pages. Page titles should be: product name - category - store name. that way, the product name is the first thing that shows in search engine listings. Product name should always be the only thing in H1 tags. Why? deep linking is fast becoming the way to get listed on search engines - it's not just about the home page.
• High quality photos. Obvious - but so many people get it wrong.
• More photos. Multi product views
• Info Sheets. Exploded parts diagrams. Videos. Research. Research. Research.
• Reviews. Testimonials. Recommendations. Shortcomings.
• Cross sell. Up sell. Bundles.
• Security. This deserves another blog post.
• Privacy.
• Up front terms.
• A real phone number.
• Easy checkout.
• Real time credit card processing. If it's not real time, it's not PCI compliant, which means it's not as secure as it could be.
• Upfront shipping costs.

Inversely, if your site has the following, get rid of them NOW.

• "Click here to shop". The whole point of an online store is for people to shop - they don't want to click to shop, they should already be doing it!
• Pop ups for larger image views of a product. Everyone has blockers these days. Use a modal pop up or mouse over enlargement instead.
• Non optimised thumbnails.
• Search with irrelevant results.
• Slow loading page elements.

There's much more to add here. This is just a start.

Drag and drop carts a good idea?

While it's a cool GUI feature - I fail to see the merits in employing drag and drop for shopping cart systems. A simple click of the "Add to cart" button is much more simple than the click, drag, and release to do exactly the same thing. You can see an example of a drag and drop GUI facility here:

http://www.telerik.com/demos/aspnet/Dock/Examples/ShoppingCart/DefaultCS.aspx

Everyone knows what the "Add to cart" button does - why complicate it?

Introduction

Thanks for stopping by! Over the coming posts I'll be discussing all things to do with quality online shopping systems. What to do, what not to do, new trends, new standards, good (and bad) examples, and everything in between.

I'm your host - Bill Thomas. I've been building web sites for a living - and have been in the web development game for over 10 years. I've learnt a thing or two about what works, what doesn't and what's just plain wrong. My interest in online shopping systems comes from many experiences across a wide variety of retail and wholesale systems. From that experience - I've found shop keepers to be a challenging customer type, many of whom cut corners whereever possible. When it comes to security or any other pressing technical issues though, the customer is not always right.

I hope you find it informative, don't hesitate to give me feedback!