eCommerce Success

My 5 Golden Rules for E-Commerce Perfection.

These rules are deceptively simple but absolutely vital to success. (Don't forget that they apply to many non-e-commerce websites as well.)

#1 Three Clicks Please. The most important part of your e-commerce site is your products. Yet (with a baffling regularity) many sites bury their products so deeply you'll get repetitive strain injury clicking to find them. Keep your products at the ‘surface' and no more than 3 clicks from your home page. Organise your navigation to get people to the point where they can buy as quickly as possible and cut out any unnecessary clicks on route. You should always use your homepage to showcase your top selling products giving your visitor the fastest route to buy.

#2 Price. In a recent survey price was identified as the most important information visitors looked for. So, don't hide your price - be proud of it! Tell them how much they'll get for their money, why it's worth every penny and, if you can, offer a guarantee. Don't forget you can use ‘strike-through' prices to show how much cheaper your price is against RRP. If you do use this method always show the amount you have discounted in pounds and pence .

#3 Delivery. Guess what came second in the survey as the next most important piece of information? The cost of delivery! I can't count how many times I've had to add something to a shopping basket to find out how hideous the delivery charge is. This is not good practice. A better approach is to show the P&P on the product page or at least show the range of delivery prices. If that's not possible have a dedicated page accessible from the main navigation clearly explaining your charges.

#4 Don't Be Amazon. Most of our customers (at some point) want to add features to their site like, "people who bought this also bought..." or customer reviews, wish lists or star ratings systems. This largely happens because people see this functionality on Amazon and believe that replicating those features will result in more sales. Honestly, it won't. There's nothing more of a turn-off for a consumer than to see ‘no review', or ‘no rating' because the traffic isn't there to create it. It's best focus on creating an easy-to-buy interface which gives great information and compels the user to act through sincere, focused marketing. Avoiding these complexities will cost you less and get your website completed earlier.

#5 Up-Sell. Here's an example of an up-sell - McDonald's staff asked EVERY customer if they wanted to ‘SuperSize' their meal for an additional cost. As a result they increased their profits by 25% in the first week. In fact, it became a statistical probability that 11% of customers would say "yes" to the question that cost McDonalds nothing to ask!

An up-sell is the fastest way to instantly increase your profits. Simply, find something that sits with your customer's purchase and, at the point they buy, offer them an up-sell. Here are a few examples...

• Camera Equipment... Up-sell; Memory Cards, Batteries, Lens Cloths, etc.
• Software... Up-sell; 1 Year's Upgrades, Maintenance, Related Products, etc
• Baby Pushchair... Up-sell;
• Baby Car Seat Any product that needs batteries...Up-sell; Batteries!

My profit guarantee to you is that a percentage will respond to your up-sell giving your website an instant pay rise!