From landing page to shopping cart. Enhancing your website for stellar e-commerce

Transcription

1 From landing page to shopping cart Enhancing your website for stellar e-commerce

2 Contents Online retailers: Are the rich just getting richer? 3 Your virtural storefront needs to invite shoppers to come in 4 Make your products irresistible 5 Give shoppers what they re looking for 6 Me-Commerce is all about personalization 7 Help your happy customers spread the word 8 Everywhere commerce go mobile 9 Make checkout a breeze 10 Take action 11 About Sitecore 12 Copyright 2014 Sitecore. All Rights Reserved. This document may not, in whole or in part, be photocopied, reproduced, translated, or reduced to any electronic medium or machine readable form without prior consent, in writing, from Sitecore. Information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Sitecore. Sitecore is a registered trademark of Sitecore. All other company and product names are trademarks of their respective owners. ebook // From landing page to shopping cart: Enhancing your website for stellar e-commerce 2

3 Online retailers // Are the rich just getting richer? Nearly all consumers are familiar with and often prefer online shopping. Seventy percent of US Internet users made at least one online purchase during the second quarter of 2011, 1 and Forrester projects that US e-retail sales will grow by 10% each year, reaching $279 billion by As online sales grow, the biggest names in retail are taking a bigger piece of the pie. Amazon alone accounted for more than 10% of online retail sales in North America in 2010, 3 and the 25 largest e-retailers were responsible for almost all of the sales growth during the 2010 holiday season. 4 Clearly, the online retail landscape offers incredible opportunity, but also greater competition and increasing clout among the top retailers. How can you distinguish yourself from the pack? Consumers want Me-Commerce Top retailers like Walmart will almost always be able to win the price game. That s because they benefit from unprecedented economies of scale an advantage that many smaller retailers simply can t duplicate. Fortunately, gaining a competitive edge isn t always about offering the lowest price. Sales in billions $100B $125B $150B $175B $200B $225B $250B $275B $300B E-retail sales projected to grow from $176.2 billion in 2010 to $279 billion in Source: Forrester Research. November 2009 November 2010 Shoppers expect more and more from their online retail experiences. They want a deeper, more personal interaction. They want to feel as if retailers know and remember them. From their perspective, they re not engaging in e-commerce. They re engaging in me-commerce. In this ebook, you ll discover how to take a customer s-eye view of your website. You ll learn how to enhance the online shopping experience so that visitors get the richly interactive online experience that they crave. And with those enhancements in place, you ll be in an excellent position to take full advantage of the online retail revolution. 1. Comscore.com, ComScore Reports $37.5 Billion in Q U.S. Retail E-Commerce Spending, Up 14 Percent vs. Year Ago, August Forrester Research, U.S. Online Retail Forecast, 2010 to 2015, February DealNews.com, Amazon Takes Over 10 Percent of Online Market Share, February Internet Retailer, The Biggest Online Retailers Make the Big Gains in Market Share, December % 32.2% 1. Comscore.com, ComScore Reports $37.5 Billion in Q U.S. Retail E-Commerce Spending, Up 14 Percent vs. Year Ago, August Forrester Research, U.S. Online Retail Forecast, 2010 to 2015, February DealNews.com, Amazon Takes Over 10 Percent of Online Market Share, February Dollar share of all e-retail sales, November 2009 to November The top 4. Internet Retailer, The Biggest Online Retailers Make the Big Gains in Market Share, December online retailers increased their dollar share from 63.6% to 67.8%, while small and mid-size e-retailers decreased dollar share from 36.4% to 32.2%. Source: Internet Retailer. 63.6% Small and mid-sized retailers 67.8% Top 25 online retailers ebook // From landing page to shopping cart: Enhancing your website for stellar e-commerce 3

4 Your virtual storefront needs to entice shoppers to come in. Your homepage and campaign landing pages are your virtual storefront. Mystery is not your objective here. Visitors should be able to tell what you re selling right away. A few guidelines to keep in mind Your homepage plays a key role in establishing your brand identity. It should be memorable, yes. But more importantly, it should be consistent with your product offering and with the rest of your site. Don t overload your homepage/landing pages with text. Note how Stokke, a Sitecore customer, wisely chooses to leave plenty of white space, letting product images do most of the talking. If customers want a more thorough explanation of what you have to offer, they can always choose to take a deeper dive. Usability drives conversions. A well-designed site isn t simply about making things pretty. It s about making things usable, and greater usability leads to more conversions. If you make it easier for customers to find what they want and proceed to checkout, you re more likely to close sales. Some traits of successful sites Simple and intuitive navigation An accurate sitemap that s easy to follow And of course, always think like a customer After a usability redesign, businessmetrics improve by an average of 83% Nielsen Norman Group, Usability Return on Investment, January ebook // From landing page to shopping cart: Enhancing your website for stellar e-commerce 4

5 Make your products irresistible. When featuring product information, keep two things in mind 1 2 one Consumers want to get a close look at merchandise, just as they would in a brick-and-mortar store. If you don t offer a close enough look, consumers will likely find elsewhere. Thule, a Sitecore customer, offers a great deal of well-organized information on its product pages. A few things to note: Images // Don t make them too small. Enable shoppers to zoom or enlarge so that they can get a good look at the details. Text // Descriptions should be as thorough and accurate as possible. Include measurements. Quick View // A Quick View capability enables shoppers to get the basic details on a product without leaving their current page. [Example: when you hover over a product on the Thule page, a text box gives you a bit more detail about it.] Reviews // Shoppers want to know what their peers think about a product. Make sure to offer easy access to consumer ratings and reviews. ebook // From landing page to shopping cart: Enhancing your website for stellar e-commerce 5

6 Give shoppers what they re looking for. As long as your product information is clear and well-organized, most customers won t complain about having too many details at their disposal. Preview video A product video can be more engaging than static imagery. Videos have even been shown to increase click-through rates for retailers. 6 Popularity For many customers, popular items will generate instant interest. If one of your products is a top seller, make sure to point that out, as in this example from the jewelers at Pandora (a Sitecore customer). Availability Let shoppers know how many items remain in stock. If the stock is running low, that can serve as an extra inducement to buy immediately. 6. retailtouchpoints.com/in-store-insights/1166-video-increases-click-through-rates-while-engaging-shoppers ebook // From landing page to shopping cart: Enhancing your website for stellar e-commerce 6

7 Me-Commerce // it s all about personalization. Personalization drives sales. Personalized e-commerce sites can increase conversions by 70% while reducing ad campaign costs by as much as 50%. 7 It should be no surprise, then, that 61% of retailers say that personalization is among the most important merchandising tactics in web retailing. 8 Better yet, customers like it. According to Forrester, 62% of consumers find personalization useful while shopping online. 9 Everything you need to know in order to personalize your site can be found in the actions a customer performs, both past and present. What have they purchased? How frequently have they visited? What sales or offers have they responded to? Do they share traits with other customers? If so, what potential purchases might those customers have in common? Once you tap into that data, don t keep it a secret let your customers know you ve personalized their experience. More and more, that s simply what shoppers expect. How useful do you find personalized retail websites when shopping online? Related resource Access this starter guide to creating website personalization. Click here to download the white paper: Personalization? It s Easy! Download Personalization Guide 62% 32% Useful Neutral 7. Search Engine Watch, Personalized e-commerce Sites Can Increase Conversions by 70%, June The E-Tailing Group, 10th Annual Merchant Survey, April Internet Retailer, Personalization, % Not useful ebook // From landing page to shopping cart: Enhancing your website for stellar e-commerce 7

8 Help your happy customers spread the word. These days, everything is social, and everything is shared. Social networking isn t simply a buzzword or a fad it s how more and more consumers do research, make purchasing decisions, and share experiences. The Facebook page for Thomas Cook (a Sitecore customer) is an especially compelling example of a well-executed social media presence. Facebook has more than 800 million active users. More than 50% of those active users log onto Facebook on any given day, and the average user has 130 friends. 34% of Americans use social media as an outlet to rant or rave about a company, brand, or product % say that reviews from family members or friends exerted a great deal or a fair amount of influence. 11 Consumers say that word-of-mouth is still the number-one influence in their electronics (43.7%) and apparel (33.6%) purchases. 12 If someone doesn t have the time to read user reviews in detail, a quick thumbs-up from someone they trust can make all the difference That s why a simple like on Facebook is such a powerful endorsement. (Note how Thomas Cook requires you to like the Facebook page before you can gain access to all of its content.) 53% of Twitter users recommend companies or products in their tweets, with 48% delivering on their intention to buy the product Harris Interactive, Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Tweets, June Ibid. 12. Retail Advertising and Marketing Association/BIGresearchStudy, December ROI Research for Performance, June ebook // From landing page to shopping cart: Enhancing your website for stellar e-commerce 8

9 Everywhere e-commerce // go mobile. Mobile commerce is not mini-commerce. In 2011, 9.8% of Thanksgiving Weekend s $ million online spend came via mobile devices. 14 And according to Barclays Capital, mobile commerce is projected to grow from $8.8 billion in 2012 to $28.7 billion in Don t Shrink. Rethink. Your mobile presence shouldn t be an afterthought. Nor should it simply be a miniaturized version of your website. Instead, all pages and product displays should be optimized specifically for mobile viewing, as demonstrated by BMW s iphone site. A few things to note: On the BMW mobile site, the homepage is a simple menu almost nothing else. With the limited real estate available to you on a mobile device, it s important to let shoppers know exactly where they can get the information they re looking for. On the product information pages, note how BMW provides all of the details you d find on their website. But here the text is formatted specifically for readability on the iphone no need to zoom in. In billions $30B $25B $20B $15B $10B Notice that one of the top-level navigation elements is Locate a BMW dealer. The site automatically detects which dealerships are closest to the mobile device, thus getting a prospect that much closer to a brick-and-mortar location and a purchase. $5B $0B 14. Ogilvy, From Black Friday to Cyber Monday, November Resource Nation, U.S. Retail Industry: Ripe for E-Commerce, April Growth of mobile commerce from $8.8 billion in 2012 to $28.7 billion in Source: Resource Nation. ebook // From landing page to shopping cart: Enhancing your website for stellar e-commerce 9

10 Make checkout a breeze. Many online retailers do a beautiful job of engaging shoppers, only to lose them at checkout. Here are a few tips to keep shoppers on track until they ve made a purchase. Provide a guest checkout. Twenty three percent of shoppers will abandon their purchase when asked to register before checking out. 16 Don t punish your guest checkout customer. Provide the ability for guests to track and get order status just as you would for a registered customer. Don t make a purchase jump through too many hoops. Aim for no more than four steps at checkout. Do everything you can to emphasize the security of the transaction. Display SSL (secure sockets layer) certificates, security badges, and BBB certification links to encourage customer trust. Know how your customers are paying. Are they using a credit card? A debit card? PayPal? By adding more flexibility to how a customer pays, you might be able to land more transactions. In fact, the latest research by Javelin Strategy reveals that online merchants may lose more than $100 billion in annual revenue when they fail to offer payment alternatives. 17 How customers are paying online (in billions 18 ). Credit 16. GetElastic.com, card: Checkout $88.9 Optimization: // Debit Are You card: $57.2 // Alternative payments: $32.6 Testing the Wrong Thing?, April Prepaid /gift card: $13.6 // Store-branded credit card: $ DarkReading.com, Four Times More Consumers Consider Mobile Payments Safer Than Credit Cards, December GetElastic.com, Checkout Optimization: Are You Testing the Wrong Thing?, April DarkReading.com, Four Times More Consumers Consider Mobile Payments Safer Than Credit Cards, December Javelin 18. Javelin Strategy & Strategy Research, & Research, ebook // From landing page to shopping cart: Enhancing your website for stellar e-commerce 10

11 Take action. Effective me-commerce is no small order. But by taking a customer s-eye view of your website, you can take clear steps toward personalizing the online shopping experience and driving sales. Six steps to empowered e-commerce Engage in a consistent dialogue across channels. Even as you optimize for different platforms and devices, make sure that your voice and look remain consistent. Guide the shopper with contextual offers at exactly the right time. A well-timed, personalized offer can translate into an instant cross-sell or upsell. Prompt their route with suggested next steps. A gentle nudge here or there can help reduce cart abandonment and increase AOVs. Identify and overcome customer interaction challenges. This applies particularly to user-generated content. If a loyal customer writes a negative review of your product, how will you engage, if at all? Know your engagement strategy and stick to it. Understand customer experience at an individual and segment level. Who is the individual customer, and how has he or she engaged with you in the past? What does he or she have in common with other customers? The more quickly and accurately you can answer those questions, the better you ll be at effective personalization. Regularly test and refine offers and promotions. With more targeted offers, you can attract and engage more shoppers across more channels. ebook // From landing page to shopping cart: Enhancing your website for stellar e-commerce 11

12 About Sitecore Sitecore is the global leader in customer experience management. The company delivers highly relevant content and personalized digital experiences that delight audiences, build loyalty, and drive revenue. With the Sitecore Experience Platform, marketers can own the experience of every customer that engages with their brand, across every channel. More than 3,500 of the world s leading brands including American Express, Carnival Cruise Lines, easyjet, Heineken, and L Oréal trust Sitecore to help them deliver the meaningful interactions that win customers for life. For more information about Sitecore, visit sitecore.net ebook // From landing page to shopping cart: Enhancing your website for stellar e-commerce 12