This is one that I think CSEs should want to embrace because it is all about communication between the merchants and the consumer.
More/better ways to demonstrate value proposition.
There are already elements in existence that help merchants communicate their value proposition, such as promo text, ratings, logos, and obviously the price of the offer itself. However, many possibilities for improvement remain. These are the ones at the top of my mind:
Real time promotion messaging: The timing around the display of promotional text is painful. Short promos such as one-day sales are pretty much impossible to get right through the feed. Entering such information through the merchant UI with controls over timing, or timing controls in the feed, would allow merchants to be more confident in presenting short term promotions on CSEs.
Real time price changes: Same as above for pricing. Some merchants have one hour or two hour price drops […]
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The final variable in the Marketing Experiments conversion sequence is “a” for anxiety about following through with a purchase.
Some of this anxiety is about the product, some is about you as a retailer. You must address both. And unlike friction (resistance) which must be minimized and balanced with an attractive incentive, anxiety needs aggressive overcorrection on your website.
Ecommerce anxiety comes in a number of flavors, including fears about:
Quality of the product
Quality and reliability of your customer service
Will the item arrive on time?
Will the product be as described or as appears on screen? Is it the right color or size?
Will it fit? Is this item true to size?
What if the product needs to be returned?
Is this site secure (privacy, credit card information)?
Is this really the best price?
Today’s post will focus on anxiety on the product page specifically.
Addressing Anxiety About the Product on Product Pages
The e-tailing group conducted […]
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As I mentioned in my last post, a major theme in this series is that of control for the merchants. Here is another CSE wishlist item in that vein:
More insight and control over affiliate partner sites.
For those who don’t know, some CSEs get a LOT of the traffic for which they charge merchants from affiliate partner sites. For example, PriceGrabber’s comparison shopping data is used on CNET and AOL Shopping. Shopping.com has hundreds of partners, and offers both a full API or widgets for the less savvy. There are many more examples, enough to make one’s head spin, but that is not the focus here.
As a merchant, it is difficult to know what percent of traffic is coming from these partner sites and whether that traffic is converting. The traffic spikes I mentioned in my last post sometimes blindside not only the merchant but the CSEs themselves because they are […]
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If you’re new here, welcome! And thanks for subscribing to Get Elastic. Friday is Blogger Digest day where we highlight posts from other blogs that are of value and interest to online retailers and Internet marketers.
Rand Fishkin’s 10 Irrational Human Behaviors and How to Leverage Them to Improve Web Marketing is a phenomenal post based on Chris Yeh’s Outline of Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions. It’s full of interesting facts and take-aways - very relevant to ecommerce. Example:
III: The Cost of Zero Cost
In the real world, this effect was demonstrated by Amazon’s free shipping. After Super Saver shipping was introduced, Amazon saw sales increases everywhere except for France. It turned out that the French division offered 1 franc ($0.20) pricing instead of free pricing. When this was changed to free, France saw the same sales increases as elsewhere. Another real-world example: People will wait […]
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Since it’s a new year (almost), I thought it might be a good time to discuss some new features from which merchants would greatly benefit. So to all you CSE product managers out there, tune in over the next week or two. Here is the first request:
More budgeting options.
Most CSEs only offer monthly budget caps, but there is no way to control the rate at which that is spent. Much like AdWords, one or both of the following is needed:
A function that attempts to balance the spend across the month.
A daily cap that ensures a set amount is not exceeded for any day.
This would be especially valuable for small/medium-sized merchants who want to test the waters but may have trouble keeping their account active because they can’t afford to let it run free. There is no reliable way to forecast what traffic levels will be, even for merchants already live […]
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It’s the end of an exciting year for Get Elastic. Thank you to all our readers who have subscribed, forwarded, Tweeted posts and voted for Get Elastic in various contests. Happy New Year to you all, and if you’re a new reader, here’s a recap of the best of Get Elastic, 2008!
January
Webinar:
12 Things Retailers Must Learn from Christmas ‘07 with Linda Bustos of Elastic Path Software + companion blog post
3 posts to check out:
Cross-Selling Tips for eCommerce
Hack Week Part 2 - Using Google Trends for International Search Marketing
Using Geo-IP to Tailor Content Delivery
February
Webinar:
Love Your Landing Pages with Ayat Shukairy of Invesp Consulting + blog recap
3 posts to check out:
Continue Shopping Means What?
Make Email Look Good In Gmail - 8 Design Tips for Images-Off
Social Media With a Side of SEO: Hold the Spam
March
Webinars:
Jon Stewart or Oprah: What’s Your Website Personality? with Carolyn Gardner of Sitebrand + blog […]
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Get Elastic reader and ecommerce blogger Scott Wilson (aka That Software Guy, The Cart Blog and @thatsoftwareguy) informed me today of a new merchandising tactic on Amazon. It appears Amazon has replaced its “Better Together” cross-sells with bundling. Of course, this could be a split test, but Scott and I both can see this technique in action when we visit Amazon.
Before - Better Together
Screenshot credit: Register Hardware
After - Frequently Bought Together
The customer now has the option to add all 3 to the cart, or pick of the 3. Giving the customer some choice but not too much choice is key here. I imagine the uptake would be far lower if the customer was presented 5 or more choices, simply because it requires too much thinking and could cause a “paradox of choice.”
Word choice: Frequently Bought Together vs. Better Together
Though Better Together sounds more smooth, it could […]
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A couple weeks ago I posted a Frictionary — a collection of design elements that cause resistance with customers on ecommerce sites (and may cause the customer to abandon the sales process). As mentioned in the post, friction exists in the mind of the customer and, while you can’t eliminate friction completely, you can take steps to minimize it (one way is to adjust your site design and usability).
You also want to “balance” friction with incentives to stick around and actually buy something — from you.
Incentives include dollar discounts, % discounts, free shipping, free gift with purchase, no tax, buy one get one free and so on. While at the Marketing Experiments Landing Page Optimization workshop last month, we spent a good hour and a half discussing incentives, during which I “Tweeted” (sent out a short message over the social network Twitter) a quote from Dr. Flint McGlaughlin:
“Worst […]
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If you’re new here, welcome! And thanks for subscribing to Get Elastic. Friday is Blogger Digest day where we highlight posts from other blogs that are of value and interest to online retailers and Internet marketers.
Did you woo customers with generous return policies this holiday? Maxim Mironov illustrates how every 1% of sales returned requires an additional 10% sales to offset.
Scott Roon and Jascon Carncross from eBags.com share their ecommerce video production tips at VideoRetailer.org.
Avinash Kaushik shares strategies for multichannel analytics to track sales driven by offline channels.
If you’re itching for some audio-visual learning, check out Marketing Experiments’ year-end webinar Lessons Learned: Our analysts reveal the top takeaways from our 2008 optimization research and the companion research brief covering case study results from research partners.
What does 2009 and the future hold for CRM? Could it be emotional targeting? Evan Schuman discusses the ethical ramifications of marketing software […]
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Get Elastic is taking a little holiday and will return on Friday with our regularly scheduled link-love programming.
All the best to you and yours!
Next Free Ecommerce Webinar…
Selecting the Right Ecommerce Software in Six Weeks or Less
When: January 21st, 2009 @ 9am PT/12pm ET
Panelists:
Bill Mirabito, Founder and Principal Analyst, B2C Partners
Jason Billingsley, VP Innovation, Elastic Path Software
Register to Attend…
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Free Holiday Email Marketing Resources
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