E-commerce has, for the most part, evolved far beyond the late 1990's cliches of hair-wrenching, sanity-shattering slogs through yet another "clever" designer's take on how shopping on the web should be. Standards prevailed, usability won out, and we're now free to spend our collective $107 billion (Census.gov e-commerce stats) per annum.
That said... It can still get better. Online shopping is in, if not infancy, at least a toddler stage. The advances that brought us here have made the process simpler and easier than ever, but some sites still haven't caught on.
Since I've been doing an inordinate amount of online shopping recently (thanks to the theft last weekend and my upcoming lengthy trip to China), I feel uniquely qualified to share a few e-commerce site design tips - 17 tips, actually. Enjoy.
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#1 - Tell Me Where I Am
Whenever a user is navigating inside a store with more than 1 sub-level of navigation, it's critical to show them where in the site structure they are. This should be accomplished with headlines, sub-headers (when necessary) and breadcrumbs (e.g. Home > Category > Sub-cat > Product).
#2 - Let Me Remove Narrowing Options
When a user starts to "narrow" their navigation inside a particular category (in this case by selecting the designer "Ted Baker"), it's only right to allow them to remove those navigation selections rather than forcing the use of repetitive "back button" clicks.
#3 - Allow Me to Sort Every Which Way
The standards are "Price - low to high," "Price - high to low," "Popularity," aka "Best Selling," "Featured," "User Rating" (or "Editor Rating" if you don't have users rate products), and "New" or "Latest." You can eliminate "Featured" if you've got nothing to push, but all the other sorting options must exist (assuming it's possible to do so).
#4 - Show Me the Products
Unless you've got more than 200 products total in a sub-category, it's only right to offer the user the option of seeing every product on one page. Broadband has rendered the load time argument nearly irrelevant and I personally (along with Mystery Guest) can't stand sites lacking the feature.
#5 - Refining Options Bring Joy
If you can provide the user with a useful refinement option, you've made their experience better. In the instance of sizing, this is particularly important, as users loathe finding that "perfect" piece of apparel, only to discover you don't carry it in their size.
#6 - The More Specifics, the Better
Rule #6 is so worthwhile, I'm repeating it. Actually, #7 serves to illustrate a substantive difference between refining your browsing in a section (as #6 shows) vs. navigating to a new sub-category. Offering the latter as an option where relevant and valuable (and when the number of items warrants it) is a wise decision.
#7 - Tell Me What it Costs & What I'm Saving
Some product category pages shows items without the detail users are craving. It's particularly important for discount sites (anything off MSRP helps conversions) to show pricing, but nearly every website can benefit from providing an extra bit of detail before the click to the product page. Tell them materials, give a tiny description or list the sizes/colors/options you have in stock.
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#8 - Keep the Search Bar in Easy Reach
When a search has been performed, don't just show the search and the results, do like the engines and make the search bar front and center, while maintaining the user's query in the box for potential modification.
#9 - Give Me Search Refinement Options
If you have an advanced searching system, or can allow users to select prices, options, colors, sizes, models, etc, do it. Your bottom line will thank you - users often rate "search" as the most frustrating part of many e-commerce sites (apologies for not having the study to cite here).
#10 - Get as Close As You Can Get (while staying relevant)
In the example above, eBay has done a masterful job showing which queries would have produced results. This advanced technique should be a wake-up call to others.
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#11 - Share the Critical "Fit" Information
Many products are designed to "fit" certain criteria, whether it's a laptop (in this case) or a human body (with clothes) or another piece of equipment (when compatibility matters). In every instance of potential matches, show the critical information in the product details. I can't tell you how many laptop bag sites I browsed before finding this one that actually showed which laptop sizes it was intended for.
#12 - Tell Me If You've Got It
There are still sites out there that let you click "add to cart" or even "checkout" before discovering the awful truth - no more of your SKU in stock. It's the kind of experience that will lead you to permanently switch e-tailers.
#13 - You Can Never Have Too Many Photos
Since you don't get to see the item in real life, photos, reviews, videos and even fancy, 3D interfaces (where appropriate) are invaluable to helping the user feel like they've "experienced" the product prior to purchase. One photo, from one angle, sent by the manufacturer to every online store doesn't cut it. Go above and beyond the call of visual duty and conversions will skyrocket - links might, too.
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#14 - Let Me See Delivery Options
There is a certain subset of users that has to see the delivery options before they start shopping. Older generations often fit this stereotype, but those baby boomers still have a lot of online spending years to go, so don't ignore them. It's best to make the link obvious in the permanent navigation (it's most customarily at the bottom of each page).
# 15 - If You Won't Send it To Me, Tell Me Who Will
In the example, Ted Baker is refusing to sell me the $200 dress shoes I want, but what's worse is that he won't tell me who will ship them to his old colony. I ended up finding them on Amazon.com, eventually, but Ted's losing out on his commission with them by not providing the link (and if I wasn't so dedicated to the brand, he'd probably lose the sale, too).
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#16 - Reassure Me With Email
I panicked earlier tonight when I realized the replacement laptop I ordered may not have been shipped quickly enough to arrive in time for my trip to China (and no one wants to spend 28 hours on planes without a lappy). Luckily, Dell's order confirmation proved that I'd chosen wisely. Replicate this experience for your own customers, rather than leaving them in the dark (or, worse, crowding up your customer service dept. with e-mails that could have been answered in an automated fashion).
#17 - Give All the Order Details ASAP
When you send out order confirmations, make sure to include all of the product details to re-assure the buyer that they've selected properly. If I accidentally ordered the size 9 instead of size 8, I want to be able to fix it before the package arrives.
Hopefully, these techniques will find their way to your e-commerce sites, and when they don't, you'll grab the project manager and point them to this blog post. Together, we'll make the Internet an even better place to shop.
Great points Rand. However it's likely that you've left out the two most important areas for an ecommerce site, the homepage and the checkout process.
I too use Bluefly in presentations as an example as a site that gets it. but it's important to note their acumen is a direct result of lots of observational research with real users of their site and testing (the most important new rule of all :)
Jon - agreed. This post is by no means comprehensive; I think you could write another 100-200 rules with ease :)
I am surprised there has been no mention of testimonials. Using them in appropriate locations -- like right next to the credit card form -- makes a huge difference in crossing the sales barriers.
you beat me to it!
"In the example above, eBay has done a masterful job showing which queries would have produced results. This advanced technique should be a wake-up call to others." Yes, but trying those alternate searches might not be returning correct results anyway.
I've never seen eBay used as an example of *good* search. Sure, they offer options to sort by geographic area, subcategory, etc. but those options don't work. "Search is broken" is a common phrase you'll find all over eBay's discussion board.
It's gotten to the point where canny sellers can tell by their item #s which server their items are on, and then when eBay cycles through their servers (evidently they don't access every server every time a search is done), whole groups of items don't show up in searches.
So, a prerequisite to points 8, 9, and 10 is that the search function actually needs to work.
Annoyed, ex-eBay PowerSeller, driven away by eBay's inane policies and lack of respect for the community? Who, me?
Another great post Rand!
I would add the importance of "Trust Seals"...
Some examples are:
These will help make the shopper feel safe and will also boost sales conversion rates!
How much improvement have you seen? With an e-commerce site I used to own, we did not notice much improvement at all after implementing the security features. I'm curious as to other people's experience.
I added the "secured by geotrust" logo to my new store in February, and I do believe it's increased sales - and decreased abandoned shopping carts.
Of course, my new store has lots of features that my other one didn't, so I can't say for sure. I know that as a consumer, I always look for some kind of seal like that.
Nick... we have seen up to 13% increase in conversions by using the seals verus not.
I knew someone more stastically-minded than me would have stats to back it up =)
Great work, good to see reassurance of things that works
I love Ted Baker clothes, but they aren't really sold in Canada much - or they are really hard to find. I second your take on linking to places shoppers can access product if a vendor is unwilling/unable to distribute to a particular locale. Ironically, Ted Baker is a customer of ours (they built out on top of our ecommerce software). They just hired a former Burberry exec and are going to be paying more attention to their online channel. Hopefully you'll have increased access to their products eventually.
Side note, we just put out a report on the ecommerce checkout process where we evaluated tactics like live chat, alternative payments, security badges, number of steps, showing/hiding navigation etc. It has some interesting findings. No registration is required to view the report - it's wide open. It digs into the numbers behind someof your observations. Check it out - The Ecommerce Checkout Report
Thanks for the link, Jason. I'd be fascinated to hear your opinion on the value of particular e-commerce usability upgrades to the conversion rate(s) over the long & short-term.
I do hope to see more attention not just from Ted Baker, but other apparel retailers in the high-end spectrum. I feel like many of these purveyors ignore the online channel because they "feel" that high-end goods must be "experienced" through a high-end shop, in person. There's a logic to that argument, but the data doesn't agree.
We debate long vs short-term all the time. For example, a one page checkout process is likely to be a better user experience (if done correctly), however in the short term, it may not convert as well. It may be an adoption curve thing. Think about how many web 2.0 sites are doing well (seemingly) that previously failed in late '99. User adoption and climatization to new design patterns is key.
You are bang on with the comment on high-end apparel retailers. They put so much stock in offline experience they almost belittle the fact they already have a relationship with their customers. The customers do not need to be reintroduced to a brand each time they touch it - they just need a quality engagement. Ask any shopper - would you prefer an online store to look cool or be easy to use. Guess which one wins?
Of course, one of the big challenges is the level of ecommerce of the site.
Certainly many of the big name sites (and those referenced here) are pretty high level sites, either built from scratch or with a programming team and sizable budget for customization.
Although obviously, many of them have a ways to go on the accessibility, usability and SEO front themselves, although it may be helping as more and more people realize that those three might as well be three musketeers banded together for the common good.
Unfortunately, on much of the mid and low end with the "off the shelf" carts, it feels like much of these great features may be decades away. Even some of the most basic features have yet to be implemented.
Many of these are probably smaller development teams or teams heavy on the programming side, but missing design and certainly missing usability or SEO guidance.
Good point, identity. Who is this list for? This kind of site doesn't need these tips, and this kind of site will never be close to that level. (Not trying to pick on anyone, but after eBay's fee hikes last August, sites like the latter are a dime a dozen).
great examples. the latter took an age to load. This must turn customers away in droves. I've fell (along with everyone else) that the quicker your home/landingpage loads the more likely the customer will stay for longer, stay for longer the more likely they'll purchase or at least come back....
new it was somewhere,
Creating the perfect entry page:
Make it download as fast as possible
Change it daily
Make the user click into the site as fast as you possibly can
Make sure your take-away message is represented at least once in all 4 quads
Allow the user to contact you immediately
Give an urgency push in the upper righthand corner
Give an adequate representation of what’s in your store - Too few products is a deal killer… same with too many
Show a lifestyle picture (real people tend to work best)
Use banners and boxes to get shufflers to click
Establish your navigation standards (and don’t change them!)
Use the PCH magic formula… whether you like it or not….
The most successful launch pages:
Use simple animation in two columns and at least two quads
Utilise the right hand column very aggressively
Feature a deadline in the upper right hand quad
Use perpetual navigation
Offer the user at least 4 items to purchase in the center column
Are jump pages rather than reader pages
Show evidence that “other people just like me were here”
Have column dimension (size and color)
Offer Express/Quick Order sections in all four quads (for catalog companies only)
Have a representation of the catalog in the right hand quad (for catalog companies only)
Offer a Step 1 (e-mail sign-up and polls tend to work best)
Show a perpetual cart and secure shopping information
Product Pages: What Users Really Want
Picture(s) with callouts and/or captions
Logic (information presented in same way)
Quick Facts
At-a-Glance view (no tabs)
Multiple opportunities to buy
Alternative ordering methods
Ability to simplify
Evidence
Other stuff to look at (cross-sells AND exits – no dead-ends)
do you have this in a presentation you could send me? combined with the main article you could build a great e-comm site.
Thank you for your input! You've alerted me to quite a few things that have been neglected in the past
I think one of the key things that a lot of online stores fail on is the importance of big images. A user really needs to see what they're getting. Even better include flash movies of key products - explaining how they work, giving a 3D ish view.
Another thing to think about is the layout of the site. A lot of sites are moving to 1024 layouts, but sometimes forgetting there are still a lot of users out there on 800x600. I've been looking at this problem recently, some more info here: Designing for 1024x768 or 1000 pixel screen resolution
Any thoughts welcome!
...loads of users still on 800x600, especially in less developed countries...
All good points Rand. #7 is a pet peeve of mine. I really hate sites that make me enter their cart before telling me the price of the item. It only assures that I won't be buying. I'll add it to the cart just to satisfy my curiosity and then I leave. So yeah you got me to the cart, but your abandonment rate just went up.
I notice the lack of an upfront price most on software, but maybe that has to do with what I look for online.
Same thing with the shipping costs. I know some details are needed before being able to give out an exact charge, but at least let me know if there will be shipping and an approximation of the charge would be nice.
I've got another one: Allow users to define by multiple keys. For instance, a 10, 10.5, and 11 shoe will all generally fit me, depending on manufacturer. If I'm shopping the discount racks like I usually do, I want to filter to all of them and then keep those filters in place as I surf through the site. Sites that don't allow me to do that will quickly frustrate me and I'll leave. Same with sites that show me a product, and then when I finally click into it with buying in mind I find that "oh, we don't have one in your size!"
Also, the "Add New Comment" box is unfindable in Safari -- I clicked on the link in bottom and saw the page jump, but couldn't figure out how to find the damned box! So talk about usability...
Karl - yeah, SEOmoz is not currently Safari-friendly. Every time we've tried to make it compatible, we lose so much of the cool function in Firefox that we go back. Maybe when Matt gets back from his marathon running tomorrow, he can look into it again :)
Fully agree on the multiple keys - I myself can wear from 8-9.5 depending on manufacturer (why can't they standardize this stuff?).
Have you decided to go with Yellow on your next pair to replace the ones you lost? Or are you going with a different color this time around?
Oh come on. There are tons of site sout there that work on both Safari and Firefox. i bet there are at least 10 memebers of your blog that could get this to work properly. (this one included) It's just a comment box. Take pitty on us Safari users and let us post too.
I'm commenting in Safari right now. :) The comment box sticks up above the comments and below the post. Scroll up and you'll find it.
Good stuff here, Rand. Not sure I'd call these "NEW" rules, but you get bonus points for good headline writing. :)
make sure that the contact details are clear and easily found. While alot of people might find your product online, depending on what you sell, there are a great dela who might prefer to have a 'chat', or to find an actual 'store location' near them (Half of all American adults are only occasional users of modern information gadgetry, while 8% are avid participants in all that digital life has to offer.) Don't lose them for lack of clear contact info.
great article, just dugg it:
17 New Rules for Successful E-Commerce
Nice article
Dugg aswell
In Addition to #14, I think it is always nice to see shipping costs to your Zip before you enter in your personal info and/or credit card info
Unless you're one of those people all over the world who don't have a Zip code! As an "international" shopper this is one of my biggest pet peeves:
1. Sites that don't ship outside of their own country
2. Sites that don't say so until you're filling out the checkout form.
3. Sites that drastically over charge for "international" shipping (it does NOT cost $30 to ship a stick of RAM to Canada!)
The shipping link should include where you ship to and how much it's going to cost for those of us who don't live in the same country.
I've been so conditioned to expect shipping problems when shopping online that I tend to avoid it unless I know what to expect from the site (i.e. Amazon), or I know my sister is going to be coming home from North Carolina soon, or I happen to find a Canadian site. Canadian customs adds a relatively hefty fee onto any shipment over $20 too so that doesn't help (yes, it's rediculous).
Hi Megan,
That's precisely the reason we created ShopToit.ca a couple years ago. We were sitting around fiddling with the US comparison shopping search engines and realized there was nothing like that in Canada. So we started up Shoptoit.ca so we could provide the same kind of service to Canadian consumers and merchants. We show products in CAD from merchants who ship their products from Canada. We do have a few US based merchants online, but all their prices are shown in CAD.
Anyway, just thought I'd chime in to let you know it's not all gloom for us Canucks. :-)
Thanks,
Brendan
Thanks Brendan for the shoptoit link, here in Canada I'm always looking for good shopping sites, and if I had time I'd compile a list of them. There's so much room for growth to the canadian social shopping and comparison shopping market.
In the same vein as e-commerce usability, I stumbled upon this post today that discusses design and usability of shopping cart buttons, interesting: https://www.getelastic.com/add-to-cart-buttons/
Mentions link text choice, branding and these are all the buttons of last year's top online retailers.
would love to get some information on how to do SEO in an ecommerce site best...am using Magentocommerce to build ecomm sites in and know they have options on the backend to help SEO...if anyone has info, please post.
I too agree with all 17 points, and have implemented all of these as best we can. We have just launched a rework of an existing site realting to handles and hope this information will help. We are also considering the mcafee hacker safe seal which is supposed to improve conversion rates by a min of 5% according to their sales team of course! We'll have to wait and see on that one I guess. We'll just keep at the Web Design & Ecommerce in Norfolk UK, hopefully making some easy to navigate and engaging sites fo all to use! Cheers :)
Thanks for agreeying. Because all points are such a good points. Now we use google checkouts in out shopping carts in addition to paypal integration
Good post on ecommerce site. Seeing how I'm doing one of my first ecommerce sites in a few weeks I'm gald I found this.
This is one of my favorite post i have found. One thing doesnt change about web design. Make it easy for users, if you can accomplish that you are more successful than most sites.
Essential points. as a shopping cart web designer and developer at viswam infotech this article helps lot. i used to use almost all 17 points discussed gere
Like this article I just forwarded it to a client who I'm building an e-commerce site for. We might end up adding a few of the things you mentioned in your article.
This should definitely be required reading for all online stores. Thanks Rand!
One thing I'd add, and this is huge for me: Do not ask me to register in order to buy something. I can't tell you how often I've cancelled a purchase because a registration screen popped up just as I was about to buy. I don't want every company I make a purchase from to store my personal information and credit card number, but it's also just simple password fatigue. I am so sick of creating logins and passwords.
nice post! well said, impressive.
Definitely going to have every new designer read through this. It's amazing how many times things have to be explained sometimes. This is an old post, but will remain relevant for a long time.
Some ECommerce websites flourish and many fail. ECommerce websites marketing does not get simpler as time goes by.
WOW!!! What an incredible postings!
Its great to see some people still know what they are talking about!
Thanks!
Day by day ecommerce websites are spreading over the internet to ease the lifestyle of people. They can purchase anything from the internet. But for the sellers it is very difficult to stay on the top among those queries. You are coming here as a god for such people to use these tactics in promoting their website. I am completely impressed about your thoughts and loved your blog post
Hi Rand Fishkin !! thanks for all the inputs regarding on page optimization..! how to go about Off- page optimization for e-commerce site.!!!!! becasue the directory submission , articels posting its not ganna work for off page optimization..!!!!
I’m currently building my first e-commerce shop and these are points I will definitely take into account.
Usability is another important component of website design. For instance, if potential customers can't navigate your site easily, they won't bother. Pay special attention to the ease of the buying process. Your competition is always only a click away.
a perfect article mentioning each and every aspect of eCommerce business. liked it too. eCommerce is spreading with a great speed. so the competition. This competition also enhanced the "return" option which can also an effective rule for successful eCommerce website as easy return policy will also bring trust in customers' mind while shopping.
Most of these are pretty good, but I'd put an asterix on #13 - You Can Never Have Too Many Photos. Be careful with that one or you can blow up your webperformancegrader.com score and load times.
We often see marketing go too liberal on the image content and it ends up bogging the site's speed down too an unusable state.
Hi Peter,
Many of the points you have raised are similar to those in ‘Don’t make me Think’ by Steve Krug but are more specificity to online shops.
Usability is very important in keeping your visitors happy and I’ve seen many website which don’t seem to care about the user’s experience.
Thank you for compiling this list, it is very useful.
K
Nice article and informative.
I found it searching successful e-commerce, searching this term to make improvements to my site.
Thank you!Jeanne
Good advice. I think filtering has been a huge part in our website. Working on usability has paid for itself, especially our popular biobox. Before customers were getting lost in the site, but by working on the narrowing features, we were able to increase conversions.
Great article on ecommerce website it would be great to watch this type of article at internet thanks for sharing..
[link removed]
Great points. Luckily nmost ready diy e-commerce solutions like virtuemart alloq for this kind of setup to be done easily for noobs.
Nice post..i have to review a few webshops for my self and for some client and found this one thrue google.
Great post Rand,
I also like to review alot of the sites I shop with in a similar manor. I noticed a site like www.comet.co.uk, adopting many of the points raised above.
Recently the site also went through a design change by reducing down categories to choose from in the primary navigation. As a result exposing sub-categories that normally may not get selected.
i.e. TV, DVD, Hifi, Gaming into "Home Entertainment".
#13, comet have also added further image functionality by allowing users to select and zoom images of products. A real nice touch, allowing me as a user to check the product in fine detail.
Another great site I've purchased from is the Kurt Geiger store. The site offers great simplicity to the design and really engadges me to explore deeper.
A great post.
Shahid.SEO :-)
Am I right and mixed up the numbers in #6?
Great info. Dugg it.
See Rand, I told you you'd get a new laptop from this ordeal.
Problem is, the one that was stolen was only three weeks old!
Good article. I am reminded though of how far the web has come in the last few years, and if you concentrate on only MEETING the current design standards, you have little chance of dominating your market.
In our marketing studies, we see over and over that while it may seem simple to us to buy online, many "normal" consumers are confused. We have a long way to go in order to truly make the shopping experience intuitive. So, it is time to start really thinking outside the box.
One of the concepts my company (Vitabase) is testing is replicating the experience of a brick and mortar store--when you walk in, someone greets you, asks a few questions and then gives you a few appropriate options.
Great ecomm points. I'll digg it.I had to do a double take to make sure that wasn't my address in the sample fields. You must live right by me in Seattle. Hello neighbor.
Hi Randfish!
Another great article! This time some really new tips about e-commerce sites. This something fresh an altrernative from those run-of-the-mill articles around the internet.
Great article and I am again making this as the "Post of the Day" for "Post Awards". Your article about blogs was also a winner during march.
Hey, good one, Might subscribe to your feed just to keep up to date with the good stuff.
vote one for rand's post
This is great advice, often violated by both new and experienced web-preneurs. Pay attention, take the advice and watch those sales grow!
Great overview, Rand.
I went to Hong Kong for about a week in January -- it's quite the destination. Good luck. I don't miss the flight.......
I guess it is safe to assume that the typical e-commerce programmer won't know about the basics of usability?
-Clif
Sadly, it seems like they often don't. And so many e-commerce sites are template-based; they're ma-and-pa shops or ex-eBayers who want their own webstore but have no idea how to do it effectively.
At first I thought this post was just a re-tread of Kim Krause Berg's "Ring Bell for Service" (which I used when setting up my own store; great stuff) but then I realized that it goes one step beyond. And it has graphics, which are always welcome.
Not to take anything away from this excellent post but,
Any idea what that online shopping site will look like if they actually implemented all these 17 'new rules'?
I think it's more on 'give' and 'take'. Some rules here apply to some online shoppers, and some don't.
You make some great points here Rand! Nice Post!
Scott
iSearch Media
Congrats on hitting the Digg frontpage
I think im the first to notice ;)
Wow... Usually whenever we get on top of Digg, they bury us in the first few minutes. The bury brigade must be busy enjoying the sunshine this morning (or recovering from Cinco de Mayo weekends). :)
Thanks Rand, I was looking for something like this. Now I have a good document to show to my boss, he needs to see this to correct several mistakes we have in our websites.
Nice article, I just forwarded it to a client who I'm building an e-commerce site for. We might end up adding a few of the things you mentioned in your article.
Oh and I'll see you in Xiamen later this month. Any chance your throwing a SEO Moz party over there?
In addition to the above mentioned, I like new ecom stores that have some 2.0-ish features inlcuded within the theme design. I like to save products to social bookmarking sites, add items to social shopping sites and it's handy when I can subscribe to a feed for the products or categories I am interested in finding updates for.
We have attempted this on our store ... qualitysilks.com, specifically the product pages. We are drilling down on some of the other ones you mentioned in your top 17 list, so hopefully those make a difference too. The store isnt that old and already we are on the first page for our number one phrase ... "silk plants".
I agree that you need to think about exposure long before the store is launched, a non-search engine friendly store usually doesn't have a chance against the ones that are, unless of course you have amazing brand recognition.
Some great comments there, Rand. I have a couple items to add...
1. If you have a "click to call" or "live chat" feature, don't wait till the product page to let me know about it.
2. I also agree with thinktank in that you should provide shipping/tax estimates based on zip code before entering in any real personal information.
3. If your on-site search sucks...fix it!
On an unrelated note, Rand, I hope your dell works out well for you. One of my house mates just went through a huge fiasco where he had to return his XPS M1210 due to a flickering screen - then a second time for a bunk harddrive. He ended up with a MacBook instead...
Have fun in China!
Speaking of "live chat"... Ironically, we have terrible time trying to reach a live person at our live chat provider, Live Person. Does anyone have any recommendations?
Good points raised :) Nice post!
I have noticed a bunch of posts in the sphere related to eRetail and selling online. Glad the SEO's are focusing on some of these issues. It seemed like for awhile there everyone forgot!
I went to China in 1984. I was only 12, but it was a fantastic trip and I learned a ton. I think it's one of the most memorable times of my life. I'm sure you'll have a great time.
Oh, and nice post! I like when you do e-commerce stuff, since that's my bread-and-butter.
Thanks for this. We've been working hard for years to implement many of these best practices, and it's sometimes frustrating how long it can take to get these things rolled out. You have to grow revenues, obviously, to be able to afford the changes, but you know that the changes will increase revenue, so you're always trying to beg for the budget from the shop owners or higher-up decision makers because you know it will pay off. It's nice to see the whole argument for good navigation and easy shopping all in one succinct article!
What a great article :) thanks i was just searching for it!
These points all make good sense in usability factors of an ecommerce site. I think one thing you assumed (perhaps on purpose) is that the ecommerce site itself would be search engine friendly. Without that, an up-and-coming ecommerce site would have difficulity gaining traffic without spending a fortune on advertising.
Great stuff, just doing a revision of the site that I currently look after. Some interesting pointers. Your article has just jogged my memory regarding a chat I had a couple of months ago with an ecommerce guy in London. Must dig those notes out and compare again. Will post any additions...G
While going through ur point i immediately realised that you had ur inspiration derived from dell.com, and ur purchase of thier XPS product (awesome machine) proved it ;).
But most of the usability factors of dell.com are heavily critized so i dunno if its a good thing to use them as a benchmark
Hi Rand,
Great post! Basics and Nice points that every E-Commerce site need to follow. Thanks for sharing your user experience with E-commerce sites.
Thanks.
Is there anybody who knows a good seo friendly shopsoftware that got these 17 features already "onboard"?thx.
"spend our collective $107 million"
It's billion, not million.
Oops... thanks for the catch. Changing that "m" to a "b" now.
Good post. People seem to forget about conversion when they get wrapped up in SEO. It's nice to see you bringing the focus back a little bit. Conversion and SEO go hand in hand when we speak to our clients. Keep up the good writing.
Hey! I found all that information very interesting. Thanks for sharing it with us. In addition, I think that the most important thing when selling something on the internet is the same that works for stores... Impression on the costumer, the colors you use, the pictures of the products that must be visually attractive, etc… I consider that the first impression is the one that counts…. That’s why presentation and a creative web design are essential.
Nice blog!! But I want to add something to it as to how SEO (search engine optimization) and web design are related.
Search Engine Optimization is a method to allow search engines to access your website by honing in on your meta tags. Therefore, you must ensure that your tags are properly worded and placed, i.e., using a specific number of characters for your title, keywords, and description, on every page of your website as this will ultimately increase your traffic flow.
But before all this, you must be aware of that Web Design is an important aspect for SEO. Therefore, you need to design your website in such a way so that it is much more appealing to its visitors than the others out there. After all, Good website designs allure visitors to at least visit through the whole site.
Hence here are some web design tips to make your site look more attractive.
· You must choose carefully, a professional color scheme for your website as it represents your company's image. Stick to two or three complementary colors.
· Try to use images and graphics in your website. This will prove to be highly beneficial for you in case the visitor is not free to read your content but if you can attract them by images then you can convey your important message clearly. This will also help in capturing the visitor's attention and recall your site to visit again and again. But remember, do not over use Flash and other animation tools as this leads to an increase in page’s loading time and also looks unprofessional.
· Try to use bullets and numbering to make your content more crisp and lucid. Your visitor might not read every sentence of your content but can read the bulleted points easily.
· You must ensure that your visitors can read the text on the background i.e. if the background is dark always use light color for the writing a text and visa versa.
· You don't need to fill the whole screen with text and graphics instead use the white space effectively, and allow elements to breathe.
· Try to create a simple logo to identity your website. And this very logo explains everything about your business, hence you must take utmost care in not to use more than three colors and not to make it too wide or too tall. Also, have a captivating tag line somewhere with the header, and write an About Us page which describes the uniqueness of your website. These will leave an impression for your visitors to remember your website.
· You must provide a way back to your home page on every single page of your site and give your customer the information they will be looking for and help them find it easily and quickly.
· You must keep your site's navigation consistent. What you do on one page, should be done the same way on the rest of your site's pages. Keep the colors consistent as well.
· You must make sure that your page loads faster. If viewers have to wait for a page to load then they will switch over to somewhere else. It is estimated that if a page doesn't load in 8 seconds you will lose 1/3 of your visitors.
https://www.popxpop.com/archives/2007/05/17.html
I like it blog.