E-commerce Blog

5 Things to Compete on Besides Price

Published on August 31st, 2009 by Mitchell Harper

running-trackWhen you’re selling the same products as everyone else online (such as t-shirts, DVDs or computers) it might seem the best way to compete is on price and price alone. When all you focus on is having the lowest price, however, you tend to attract a certain type of customer (known in some circles as “bottom feeders”) and find yourself in a race to the bottom, serving fickle, price-sensitive customers who are here today, gone tomorrow (if your competitor is cheaper).

The typical online retailer will focus on price as the #1 motivator for their customers, and while price is important it’s not the only factor in the buying decision. In this post I want to share 5 things you can compete on besides price. Maybe I can give you some ideas so you don’t get caught in a low price war with your competitors.

#1 – A wider range of products/varieties/custom make/models

If you sell the same blue t-shirts as everyone else and that’s all you sell then your value proposition to shoppers isn’t all that great. What if instead of selling just blue t-shirts for example, you started selling blue t-shirts with different styles (v-neck and collar for example) or blue t-shirts with matching jeans? If you can offer a wider range than your competitors then you’re less dependent on a low price being the primary/only motivator for people visiting your store.

#2 – A well known company/organization that’s a customer

If you sell, say, computers and you’ve got a well known company or organization on board as a paying customer, you should use that credibility to your advantage (with permission, of course). Put up a “Featured Customers” page and even post a case study or testimonial video from your marquee customer talking about how great your products/service/support/shipping is. Potential customers in similar industries will see the testimonial, which helps build instant trust and rapport, especially if you sell high ticket items.

#3 – A personal approach to customer service

If your competitors are playing the low price but faceless company game then you should play the moderate prices but small team willing to help game. If you sell to small companies or consumers then the large majority will prefer to buy from a small team who are passionate about what they sell rather than a big no-name corporate. Your About Us page can help here, so make it personal with lots of photos and a compelling “how we came about” story.

#4 – A reward points program

If you can’t compete on price then why not award customers with points for every dollar they spend? They could then “trade in” these points against future purchases in your online store. It’s a great way to build loyalty. You could take it one step further and even send a VIP card in the mail to make your customers feel extra special.

#5 – Constant, informative communication

Using postal mail or email marketing, you should send regular, useful information to your email list (you do have an email list, right?) and customer list (yes, they should be two separate lists) every month. You can talk about new products, link to “how to” videos or reviews for products you sell or even have a customer-of-the-month newsletter. The more you keep in touch with your customers, the better their top of mind awareness will be – i.e. when they’re in the market to buy the products you sell, you’ll pop into their mind first (at the top, ahead of your competitors).

These five strategies are just the tip of the ice berg. If you’re finding that price is the most influential part of your customer’s purchasing decision (if you’re not sure, survey them) then you have three options:

  1. Deal with it and try to lower your prices
  2. Reposition your company/website and/or target a different type of customer
  3. Implement one of the five things I’ve discussed in this article

Which boat are you in?

How to Write a Profitable Returns Policy

Published on August 21st, 2009 by Mitchell Harper

profitable_returns_policyReturns policies are extremely important when selling online. If you sell expensive products or if you’re a new store looking to build up your customer base quickly, the best thing you can offer new customers is a lenient returns policy.

In this post we’ll look at a few things which should be included in your returns policy. If you’re using shopping cart software that doesn’t let you create or display a returns policy, give BigCommerce a try – it has a built-in returns policy which can be customized as required.

Anyway, on to the list:

  1. The longer the returns period, the greater your sales. Most online stores have a returns policy that expires after 30 or 60 days, but what if your returns policy lasted for 90 days, 120 days, 365 days or even for a lifetime? Buying online is all about risk for most people. They’re thinking to themselves “If I buy from this website and things don’t work out, will I lose my money or can I trust them to honor their returns policy?”. Extending your returns policy for as long as you can will make more than it will cost you, because the overwhelming majority of your customers will NOT act on your returns policy – they just want to know it’s there for peace of mind before they place their order.
  2. List all conditions and be up front about them. If you’ll only accept returns to a certain address or when the box is marked with particular details about the item being returned then mention that up front and provide examples to help your customers out should they ever need to return something to you. Ideally, however, your returns policy will have few (if any) conditions attached to it.
  3. Include testimonials from refunded (happy) customers. If customers do return an item and there’s really no other way around it then be cheerful and friendly about it. Process the return immediately and ask for a testimonial about their experience. Take their testimonial (and name+photo if you can) and add it to your returns policy page. When shoppers see the testimonials they’ll be even more likely to whip out their credit cards and buy from you.
  4. Offer store credit instead of a cash refund. Depending on what you sell, a lot of returns can be because the customer simply chose the wrong model number or product size. Because of this you should include two options in your returns policy: a) a cash refund or b) the issue of store credit. If the customer wants a cash refund then of course you should give it to them, but a surprising number of customers will be just fine with a store credit.
  5. Find any problems and fix them. This might sound obvious, but you should always ask the customer why they’re returning an item they bought from you. Keep a list of reasons and if you spot any trends then try to stop the problem in its tracks.
  6. Promote your returns policy like crazy. Most of your competitors wont even publish a returns policy, but if you’ve listened to the tips above and you sell good quality products then you should promote your returns policy everywhere you can: on your home page, on your shopping cart and checkout pages and even in your newsletters and promotions. Remember, winning your shopper’s trust can send your conversion rate soaring through the roof!

Hopefully these six tips can help you craft a compelling returns policy for your online store. Take a look at the Zappos returns policy for an excellent example of how it should be done – and for some ideas of your own!

Selling Without Selling – The Art of the Anti-Sell

Published on August 4th, 2009 by Mitchell Harper

anti_sellWhen it comes to software it’s amazing how many companies try to take the typical 1990′s enterprise approach to sales – you know, 12 month contracts and overly pushy sales reps who amazingly promise the world just to close a deal. I personally believe that selling is about relationships more than the actual product being sold. Case in point: Google Apps.

We switched our team of 40+ from a mish mash of Outlook, Thunderbird and GMail to Google Apps about 6 months ago. Yes, Google Apps is excellent, but it was the relationship we had with Google that pushed us over the line. Now when I say we had a relationship with Google, I’m not talking about our AdWords account manager. I’m talking about our relationship with Google’s business model, in this case specifically their freemium approach.

For example, I’ve been using Gmail for about 2 years now. It’s free, always has been and probably always will be. Along with Google revolutionizing my inbox, their free offerings in calendar, docs (I no longer use Office) and search have allowed me to build up my own relationship with Google the brand as time has gone by. Now that we’re of a sufficient size to need a company-wide communications platform, Google’s paid offering was our first choice because they’d already earned my trust with their free offerings.

So how did they sell me on Google Apps without an army of sales reps cold calling and emailing me 24/7? Well, their Google Apps website has a tonne of product-specific videos which sold me on the featureset, ease-of-use and fast migration time.

If you look at our website, specifically our support page you’ll see that we’re massive fans of video – especially for how to videos. Apple’s website also does an excellent job of selling without selling. Just look at their iPhone 3GS video tour and how they never once tell you why you should buy it. The idea is that the video will have such an effect on you that you will essentially convince yourself that you deserve an iPhone.

Getting back to the Google Apps website, they also have dozens of case studies, video testimonials, a boat load of technical documentation and migration tools for our system administrators.

They also took a very public stance against Microsoft Exchange, positioning Google Apps as new and cool, and Microsoft Exchange as dated and bloated. Being that we develop software in the browser too, Google’s bashing of desktop and client/server software resonated with me quite deeply.

So in this case there were no sales reps. Their self-service website had everything I needed to convince myself that Google Apps was the right choice for us:

  • The video tours showed me how the apps work together
  • The case studies showed me that similar companies were using Google Apps successfully
  • The migration tools showed me that it would be easy to get our team using Google Apps quickly
  • Google’s track record of reliable, secure servers put any worries about downtime to rest
  • The (now removed) free version allowed us to get everything up and running before spending a cent
  • The positive feedback from team members then lead to us switching the entire company over to Google Apps

If you’re selling anything online then you really do need more than just product descriptions and images, because the decision to purchase something involves more than just a product or a price. Specifically, I would recommend you:

  • Have a detailed About Us page with photos (see ours here). Tell your story and explain why you’re different. For example, if you sell trucker hats online then why would I buy from you when there are thousands of other online stores to choose from, probably with better pricing? You should tell shoppers whose behind the website. Your About Us page should include phone numbers, email addresses, twitter accounts, photos (maybe a link to a company Flickr account?), a link to your FaceBook fan page and the story of how and why your online store was started.
  • Publish both the good and bad product reviews. Amazon’s #1 asset is its unbiased product reviews. Most people know they can go to Amazon.com and read both the good and the bad reviews about a product before making a purchase. You might think that leaving bad reviews on your website will deter shoppers, but in most cases it will do the exact opposite because they will realize you’re honest enough to publish both the positive and negative feedback from your customers. They might not buy that exact product, but they will buy something.
  • Inform, don’t sell. More than posting new products in your store, you need to provide value beyond just price discounts. For example, if you sell expensive shoes then you might start a blog where you discuss and post photos of celebrities wearing the shoes you sell. Under each photo you might include a “Learn more about these shoes” link which takes the reader to the product page for those shoes in your online store.
  • Be a part of the conversation. Jump on Twitter and search for your company name, website name or the products you sell. See what people are saying about you and respond. If someone’s asking about a product then send them a tweet with a link back to your online store where they can learn more (preferably to a blog post instead of your Buy Now page). Remember, your competition probably aren’t using Twitter yet, so take full advantage of it.
  • Answer common questions about your products. If you’re always getting asked the same questions about your products then it’s time to publish a list of frequently asked questions. Depending on what you sell you might have a site-wide FAQ or a per-product FAQ. Address common concerns and how to questions. A good example of this would be discussing your returns/exchange policy if you sell shoes or t-shirts, because your shoppers don’t want to be stuck with something that doesn’t fit. Can they return it? Will you give them store credit?
  • Make it easy to speak with someone. Don’t fall into the trap of removing the phone number from your online store. Being able to pick up the phone and speak with someone will always trump getting a reply by email. The phone is more personable and allows you or your team to make a positive impression which people will remember.
  • Make your brand memorable. If you sell everyday items such as shoes, computers or clothing then your brand is what will set you apart from the competition. Look at Zappos.com and their Powered by Service tag line. Find one thing your company does better than anyone else and become known for that. It could be customer service, variety, exclusivity, a liberal returns policy, a weekly video blog (WineLibrary.tv takes the cake here) or really anything you do better than your competitors.

Keyword Density and SEO

Published on August 3rd, 2009 by Mitchell Harper

google_logoIt still surprises me how so many people see SEO (or Search Engine Optimization) as some sort of mystical witchcraft which they feel is best left to be managed by an in-house SEO super-guru or outsourced to an SEO company. To be honest SEO isn’t really that complex.

Like most things it’s actually fairly easy to implement – it just takes a bit of knowledge, patience and the willingness to get dirty with HTML. When it comes to getting started, there’s the basics like making proper use of heading tags, giving images alt tags, making sure your keywords come up near the top of the page, etc. All of these contribute and warrant their own posts, but today I want to talk about keyword density.

Keyword density is a fancy way to measure the number of times the keyword/keywords you’re trying to rank for in the search engines appears as part of the content of a web page. For example, if I was trying to rank for pizza and the entire contents of my web page was I like pizza because pizza tastes good, then my keyword density would be 28% (pizza appears twice in a total of seven words and 2 divided by 7 multiplied by 100 is 28.57%)

Using a tool such as Aaron Wall’s excellent (and free) keyword density analyzer, you can type in the location of a page on your website and see how you’re currently doing in terms of keyword optimization. Let’s take a look at the keyword density of Zappos.com and see if we can find some relationship between keyword density and SEO rank:

zappos_keywords

We can see that their first 3 keywords are:

  • shoe (4.17%)
  • shoes (3.23%)
  • zappos (2.56%)

… and if we do a search on Google for any of these 3 keywords, of course Zappos.com is the first result. Now keyword density isn’t the only factor at work here – it’s just one of many. Zappos.com are extremely well known and have built up a lot of good will with customers, but keyword density helped them rank well in the early days. Zappos’s top 3 keywords have a density rank from 2.56% up to 4.17%, so what should you aim for?

2.5% – 5% is a good rule of thumb. If you’d like to see the keyword density of your competitors, then just use the keyword density analyzer and type in the location of their website. Generally you should focus on the home page if they sell one product/product category, or on the particular product’s page if they’re an eCommerce retailer with different products like Amazon.

Determining which actual keywords you want to rank for is also important. Generally if you’re just starting out in an extremely competitive space (such as selling shoes online or even ecommerce software 8-) ) then you’ll want to move further down the longtail of search. This means that instead of focusing on the #1 keyword which will drive 1 million visitors to your site, instead focus on the #20 keyword which will drive 5,000 – and then work your way up one at a time.

Google’s keyword tool is a great place to start. Just type in the most popular keywords relating to what you’re trying to rank for, and then sort the list by local search volume. Sticking with the Zappos.com example, here’s what I get when I type in shoes:

zappos_keyword_list

You can see that shoes gets searched for over 100 million times in a month, which would be incredibly difficult (if not impossible) to rank for. Instead, cast your eyes all the way to the bottom of the list:

zappos_shoes_bottom

The phrase expensive shoes gets 27,100 searches per month and is a lot more targeted than the generic shoes keyword. If you look at the SERPs for expensive shoes, you’ll notice that none are explicitly targeting the term in their page titles or descriptions:

expensive_shoes_serps

Most results are also more editorially focused, meaning they are once-off posts which are generally easy to displace in the SERPs because:

  • No one is making sure they stay in the top of the SERPs
  • Their website’s aren’t explicitly focused on expensive shoes

So in this brief example, I would start out trying to rank on the front page of Google for expensive shoes. If I did this research before I bought my domain name, I might even register expensive-shoes-new-york.com or something similar to further boost my chances.

When it comes to building keywords into your page content, the #1 rule is to not sacrafice the readability of your content. Going back to our expensive shoes example, instead of using

We make it easy to buy expensive shoes online because when you buy expensive shoes online you should choose Acme

… as our META description, we’d use something like

Expensive shoes don’t have to cost the world! Get all of your favorite expensive shoe brands including DKNY, Versace and Armani at up to 50% off!

This sentence has context and the supporting keywords tell the search engines more about our website (in this case, the brands we sell).

For a more general overview of keyword placement, you’ll want to include your keywords in these parts of your document:

  • The title tag of the page
  • META description (this is used by Google to show a summary of your website in the SERPs)
  • META keywords (arguable as they’re generally no longer used/factored in by all of the major search engines)
  • Header tags, especially the <h1> tag which should be as close to the top of the document as possible
  • Alt tags for images, such as <img src=”image.jpg” alt=”Your keywords here” />
  • Any text that has a style emphasis, such as a <strong> (bold) or <em> (italic tag)

When you’re adding keywords to your web page’s title tag, keep keyword proximity in mind as it seems to play a big role in Google determining which positions your website should rank for. I say seems to, because no one really knows exactly how Google calculates relevance – we can only speculate, test and re-test.

Anyway, that’s just a quick look at one of many strategies you can use to outrank your competition in the search results. I’ll discuss other techniques in future blog posts, but if you have any questions please feel free to leave them as a comment.

Customer Service Tips for the New Online Store Owner

Published on August 1st, 2009 by Mitchell Harper

customer_service_bannerHaving the faith to spend a little more time with your current customers and a little less time getting business can be hard, but it’s the right thing to do.  If you take care of your customers, they will be more inclined to both come back and send you referrals when you ask them to. Here are some ways to make sure you can always do a good job so your customers will always stay loyal to you:

  1. Offer live chat on your site. People are going to have questions about your products.  If you offer live chat on your site, you can answer these questions for these customers.  If many customers have the same question, you can include this information on your site so as to help others coming in.
  2. Be clear on your return policy and/or terms and conditions, and make these clearly visible on your site.  Misunderstandings happen.  You might think these will scare away, but they will prevent situations that could cause serious issues that take up both your and your customer’s time.
  3. Use surveys.  A lot of the time, your customers will voice their opinion if you just ask them to.  Email surveys and including a link to a survey on emails or receipts may offer the feedback you need to really impress current and future customers.  You could even include a “comment box” on your website with a contact form the same way brick-and-mortar merchants do.
  4. Use personal touches.  Sign emails with your name.  Include a hand-written note with every order.  Customers should know that you aren’t just a shop looking for a cheap buck.  Let them know you care about their satisfaction with your products.
  5. Take your complaints seriously.  A lot of companies dismiss complaints and figure they’ll make it up by getting new customers.  Guess what?  Word-of-mouth can be very powerful, so choose your words wisely.  What could be an opportunity for you to step up and make someone very satisfied can just as easily turn into hateful reviews across the web.
  6. Be accessible.  Have your phone number on your site as well as a contact form.

It can be hard to keep a customer’s best interest in mind when they are mad, but doing so can turn enemies into advocates.  Using these tips can ensure your customers always stay loyal to you and tell their friends that you can be trusted.

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