Ecom Revolution
24.9K views | +0 today
September 8, 2014

5 Holiday Website Design Tips - A @HaikuDeck by @Scenttrail
Martin (Marty) Smith
This holiday selling season (2014) will happen as close to real time as any thanks to the social / mobile web. Listening and curating are going to be important, but so is tapping the nostalgia and spirit of the season in creative and collaborative ways.

Martin (Marty) Smith:

add your insight...

Read more
Scoop.it!
Reactions (2)
No comment yet.
Sign up to comment
August 18, 2014

ECommerce's Website Design New Best Practices: What Are Today's Ecom Must Haves?
Martin (Marty) Smith

Ecom's New  Best Practices
Better have all of these if you expect to make money online these days:
* Easy To Get Free Shipping.
* Easy To Find Sale Section.
* Deal of the Day (once Woot.com only now becoming ubiquitous).
* What's New.
* Best Sellers.
* For Him, Her, Kids navigation (if applies).
* An ASK for User Generated Content.
* Clear "WE VALUE UGC" signals.
* Exciting "Magazine-like" content.

Via Tomorrow's Ecommerce: How To Design Tomorrow's Ecommerce Today on Haiku Deck http://shar.es/1nkirc


Martin (Marty) Smith:

add your insight...


Read more
Scoop.it!
Reaction (1)
No comment yet.
Sign up to comment
December 7, 2013

Ecommies Holiday 2013 Report Card
Martin (Marty) Smith

Ecommies - Identifying ecommerce trends, rate and review ecom tools and hold annual awards.

Holiday 2013 Awards
First Ecommies Holiday ratings are in. William-Sonoma & REI.com top the list in November and December.  L. L. Bean gets "most improved" award from November to December and several trends emerge:

* Free Shipping out and back is trending especially in December. 
* Free shipping all orders is trending. 

* Hiding free shipping behind either codes or triggers is declining.

* Deal of the Day is trending with majors like REI.com adding DOD.

* Standard credit card based loyalty programs prevalent. 

* Still many catalog and retail merchandising tactics such as "door busters". 


Ratings report card on Google docs: http://bit.ly/1bPhwz3 


Holiday ecommerce merchandising wasn't very inspired this year. December ratings went DOWN from November. Based on this year's performance ecommerce is clearly in a rut. 

Read more
Scoop.it!
Reactions (4)
No comment yet.
Sign up to comment
October 22, 2013

5 #MustSteal Ecommerce Tricks From REI You Can Use THIS Holiday Season
Martin (Marty) Smith
From backpacking to cycling to staying in shape and more, outfit your outdoor activities with the latest gear, clothing & footwear at REI.
Martin (Marty) Smith:

5 Must Steals From REI
Here re five easy steals from http://www.rei.com that will increase your Holiday sales:

* Red DEAL or SALE button Far Right.

* Deal of the Day (you can put this anywhere).

* Loyalty Program (there are canned ones you can install).

* Trigger Point Free Shipping (below Login).

* BIG Search Box Next to logo.

 

Red Deals Button
REI.com is aware that the right side of a website can be a gutter. If you use the F design idea, and they do, and watch eyetracking you know you can manipulate a visitors eyes with things like a long horizontal menu bar. Since everyone clicks on DEALS REI.com puts it far right and in a somber red (to match their black menu bar).

Deal of the Day
REI.com's is above their footer in the middle (another potential gutter). DEAL shoppers will find that link no matter where you put it, so put it in a potential gutter and you convert "dead space" to ROI positive with a simple graphic and idea. At this time of year and with social media being so HUGE if you don't have a great Deal of the Day lined up you will suffer at the hands of the REI.com's.

Loyalty Program
I hesitated to put this in since installing a loyalty program can feel like invading Russia in the winter. Don't let it get that way. Buy a canned and simple loyalty program or create some easy way to reward your most loyal shoppers. If you can't get your website loyalty together by the holidays use your "Multi-Buyer" segment and serendipitous give them something no one else gets (via an email). Find your 80/20 rule (20% of your customers will do 80% of your sales) and REWARD the 20%.

Free Shipping Trigger
When I was a Director of Ecommerce my boss was so skeptical and worried about Free Shipping I had to do extensive analysis and tests. Here is what we found:

* Free Shipping Triggers are always exceeded by 40% or more.
* Free Shipping beats no Free Shipping every time.
* Make sure your Shipping Schedule is PRESENT and easy to understand.

REI.com's $50 Free Shipping probably produces an Average Order Value (AOV) of just under $100 (or more). Remove the objection (shipping costs are seen as a "don't buy" objection) and your buyers will buy. Interestingly all orders, all shipments FREE SHIPPING didn't always win. Seems Free Shipping is related to BUYER PSYCHOLOGY so some friction actually helps, some hurdle may help buyers feel special.

Big Search Box
My theory is REI.com's menu system is so complex they have to have great internal search. Even if your navigation is perfect expect half of your customers to want it their way (by using search). If you want to get really cool make sure you are merchandising your search sets with either faceted search or dynamic zones (zones you fill with content based on behavior or modeled analytics).

 

Read more
Scoop.it!
Reactions (6)
No comment yet.
Sign up to comment

Scoop it Creator

Martin (Marty) Smith

FOLLOW US