For many of my clients, planning and development for the holiday sales season is well underway. In order to allow time for their marketing to take hold, site and functionality development must be completed and tested well in advance of target roll out dates. I recently came across an article I saved regarding last years online sales (B2C) deceleration entitled “First Ever Drop in Online Sales,” by CNNMoney.com’s Parija B. Kavilanz in which he reports that overall online sales had declined for the first time in seven years. For merchants whose November and December sales make up as much as 50% of their annual profits, such a decline can be catastrophic.
Interestingly, Amazon.com, on the other hand, claimed to have had its best year ever. In an online article in The Wall Street Journal, “Amazon Lauds Its Holiday Sales,” writer Tess Stynes reported that sales peaked on December 15, 2008 with 6.3 million orders occurring at a record pace of 72.9 items per second!
Top sellers included computers, televisions, DVDs and game consoles.
So it seems Amazon.com did something right where others failed.
A quick assessment… Amazon.com has successfully positioned itself as the go-to shopping hub providing customers with an easy to use website that offers:
- wide-selection of products including popular items
- easy on-site search by category or keyword
- expandable images to allow a customer to visually experience the item
- ability to ‘Look Inside’ some books
- easy connection with a multitude of online merchants while providing a unified shopping experience
- competitive pricing
- delivery options including free delivery in many cases
- payment options including Bill Me Later, through which merchants may additionally offer qualified shoppers interest free credit for 90 days
- Wish List tool to save items for later
- easy return/exchange policy
- excellent customer service by phone or email
- gift wrapping options
- customer and editorial reviews to help in the selection process
- suggested products
- order tracking
- ability to register and establish a shopping profile
- one-click check-out, and more.
I think you get my point.
Amazon.com has structured its interactive online shopping experience to support and fulfill the needs of the customer in as many ways as it could come up with, including all those mentioned above.
Sometimes online sales simply have to do with demand for the items being sold. But oftentimes online retailers have not done everything possible to create an interactive shopping experience that truly supports the searching, selecting, deciding and buying needs of the customer.
To win their patronage and acquire a repeat customer you must design and organize your shopping website to not only suit your business needs but to support and fulfill the demanding needs of a multitude of online shoppers with varying degrees of online shopping experience.
Look at your site: how many ways do you offer to search for an item?
Do your search tools yield accurate and helpful results?
Are product images clear, expandable and varied in view?
Is site registration quick and easy?
What about your shopping cart, is it easy to make updates, look at a product again, add more or remove items?
What about check out procedures – are they quick and easy?
Do you offer support by phone?
Maybe you could benefit greatly from an honest evaluation of your website to make sure it will be doing all it can to support your customers now and this coming holiday sales season.
Consider the fact that if your e commerce website is lacking in any way it may cancel out overall effectiveness for generating optimal sales and a healthy profit for you.
