A powerful and easy to find/use search feature is vital as well. E-commerce shoppers will look for this shortly after deciding whether or not they are going to shop so don’t fail them with this tool.
3 – It’s Always Personal: Personalization is red hot and nothing gets a shoppers attention faster than something that appears to be exclusively for them. There are a ton of tools out there that allow you to get in this game. Once the visitor registers on your site as a shopper or member you can use this information to provide a personalized greeting whenever they log on to your home page and/or various other pages on the site.
Something simple like “Welcome Kim, enjoy your shopping experience” is a great personal touch and is something the shopper will remember about your site. Also allow them the opportunity to check in on past orders, their shopping history on the site, order status, and the like. Again, this builds comfort and makes the experience far more personal – it becomes “their” place.
4 – Visual Literacy: Use images wisely – or in simpler terms, show off your stuff. In the imaging industry this should be a no-brainer. Let the customer see what they can do with “their” images – allow them to drop their own images into the variety of photo gifts you sell. It’s one thing when see they can do fake magazine covers – it’s another thing entirely when they can see their kid on a fake magazine cover.
If you’re selling hardware – let them see the products and always allow for larger views (rotating views don’t hurt either). The more details you can provide about a product, the better.
5 – Wishing Well: Once upon a time, brick-and-mortar retail had something called lay-away, whereby a customer could put a product aside and pay for it in small installments while the merchant held on to the product. Offering the online variation on this theme has become a popular feature as well. Make sure you allow visitors to compile a “wish list” – a kind of storage feature that allows customers to put products aside for purchase at a later date. Some sites will even notify a customer when one of their wish list items goes on sale.
Along with building a better online relationship with your customers, this feature assures they’ll visit site again to add to their list or perhaps check on it and make a purchase.
While we’re on the subject of e-commerce shopping tips we thought we’d point out that there are two sides to this story. We’ve just provided a few tips for the retailer so now we’d like to provide tips you can pass along to your customers with regard to safely shopping the Web.
These tips are provided by AVG, a global online security solutions company.
1. Know whom you are purchasing from: Verify the seller with your local consumer protection agency and the Better Business Bureau. Surf the web for feedback forums to read up on people’s experience with the seller. Make sure you have the seller’s contact information in case you have to locate them later.
2. Understand how the seller handles complaints: Read up on the seller’s Web site and learn how they handle their complaints. Check to see if they are obliged to meet certain standards within their respective country.
3. Be wary if there are no complaints: Deceptive sellers can open and close shop overnight. If you don’t find complaints on the seller, it doesn’t mean that they are genuine.
4. Be on guard for super low prices or rebates that are too good to be true: The seller may in fact not have any merchandise at all to send or may not fulfill the promised rebate.
5. Get the low down on the offer: A legitimate shop provides all the details on the product, price, delivery time and refund policies, along with the terms of the warranty.
6. Don’t get pressured: You should be given the time to make a decision. If you are demanded to make the purchase quickly or the seller refuses to accept your “no” for an answer, then it could be a scam.
7. Watch out for an unsolicited email, it could be fraudulent: If you know the company that sent you the email and you don’t want to receive any more emails, you may simply ask to be removed from the list. However, if you respond to an unknown sender, your email address may be validated by the sender and you might receive even more unsolicited emails. The best way to deal with unsolicited emails is to simply delete them.
8. Spot the impostors: You might receive an email that seems as if it is connected to a legitimate business or has a Web site that looks genuine. If you have doubts, search for the company yourself and verify the email with the business.
9. Protect your private information: Never provide your credit card or bank information unless you are paying for something. Social security numbers are not needed unless you are applying for credit.
10. Buy safely: Using credit cards are the best way to assure your online purchases since you may dispute the charges if you never received the item or the offer was misrepresented.
— AVG, headquartered in Amsterdam, is a global security solutions leader protecting more than 80 million consumers and small business computer users in 167 countries from the ever-growing incidence of web threats, viruses, spam, cyber-scams and hackers on the Internet.
Page 1 | 2
