I’ve just finished listening to the latest Smart Company Webinar. A panelist of online business owners and online marketers were discussing “How to boost your online sales in a downturn“.

The general feel of the webinar was to build credability and trust through professional design and customer service.

Here are my notes.

Panelists: Amelie Mills, Campbell Corser, Chris Thomas, Craig Reardon, James Thomson, Naomi Simson, Nicholas Egonidis.

The webinar will cover two parts:

• #1 Fundamentals: Removing barriers to purchase and
• #2 Advanced tactics to close/up the sale.

Part 1 – Fundamentals

Photography

• Critical to have good quality photography (correct lighting, show details, show different angles) first impressions count when it comes to professionalism and trust building/credibility.
• Would you purchase – does it show you enough?
• Naomi Simson: Professional photography is critical. They realised quickly it had a huge impact on sales and now use it to connect to their audience. Must be vivid and authentic – use your own photography, visitors are bored of stock photography. Needs to portray the service/experience authentically and perception is incredibly important – listen to your customers to develop your tone and products/services.
• Provide rich content, and think of all the angles from a customer perspective – think ahead to provide the right information.

Payments

• Offer a range of payment options
• Consider offering pay by phone, fax (least secure way of buying online), mail in addition to online, direct deposit
• Make it clear who you service (which areas) and how transactions are processed (if over the phone, is it still processed online through your gateway?)

Delivery

• Make delivery charges clear upfront
• Consider a flat rate for shipping or build shipping into product pricing and introduce free shipping. Removed a mental block and simplified. <-Chris Thomas
• Last minute charges are a major source of ‘Cart Abandonment”
• Make sure there are no surprises such as shipping and handling, or a long delivery time or out of stock

Tangible Contact Details

• Many people still nervous about purchasing online
• Credible contact details clearly displayed (email address, physical address, fixed phone number not mobile)

Returns Policy

• Tell visitors what to do if product is faulty
• Answer common questions (who pays for shipping, how long have they got?) and let them know the process to give them confidence and remove another sales barrier
• If you’re selling services how do you return? You offer a Refund and Exchange voucher.
• The more info you give them, the less time you have to spend answering questions.

Call to Actions

• Have clear ‘Add to cart” buttons
• Have “Order Now” clear call to actions
• Tell people what they need to do to buy and start directing people towards the checkout
• Don’t make people think about what to do next – tell them.

Customer Support

• Respond to both orders and queries promptly
• Customers will be nervous about transacting with you until they receive a professional response
• Say they will respond within a time frame (e.g. within 12 or 24hours) when you respond promptly and professionally 9 out of 10 customers will go on to purchase.

Security

• Don’t ask for or store credit card details yourself
• Have the payment service (banking/Paypal) collect them
• Assure customers their details are safe – have that clearly displayed that a secure 3rd party gateway is used for their security.

Product Range

• Bring as much product to the front page as much as possible (while not crowding)
• Tell people clearly what you sell
• Involve people in the website – provides interactivity for visitor and useful customer data for you. Think about voting polls. E.g. home page of Red Balloon Days.
• Have reviews from staff – creating personality and trust
• Give people chance to browse the whole range (different price range and types)
• People love a bargain – have a few specials
• Search facility is incredibly important and have fuzzy logic (typo’s or ‘did you mean’ suggestions)
• Suggest related products before checkout

Customer service

• Contacts – give multiple options for customers service.
• FAQs – Explain how transaction works, think about other barriers to purchase and questions that potential buyers would ask and answer them here.
• Show staff photos so that visitors can see who is behind the business, behind the website.
• Always have an “About Us” page
• Naomi Simson: “Life at RedBalloon” is one of their most visited pages people like to see what its like to run an online business and who is behind it all.

Design

• Needs to be as professional as possible
• The less you are known, or your brand is known the more critical this is.
• Naomi Simson: They are up to the 7th version of their website to reflect brand qualities. Be aware of optimising it for Google (text) but humans love images/aesthetically pleasing finding the balance is key.
• Invest heavily in design, how customers use the website and tweak design to suit.
• Doesn’t need to be expensive but should reflect your brand values, consistent message, instill confidence and speak to your customers.

Part Two – Advanced Tactics

Delivery Tracking

• Adds a better level of assurance
• People want to know where their order is up to, when will it get to me
• Enter order number to check process status (processed, shipping, back order)
• Saves time dealing with tracking queries from customers
• Notify customers via email of status updates

Introduce currency conversion

• Attracts international sales
• Have a currency converter calculator/selector

Introduce customer reviews

• Either automatically or manually
• They used to have a rated system but if an experience was consistently low rated they would be removed from the website
• Staff reviews are popular – video and photography gives visitors a richer experience. Customer reviews are priceless – e.g. Don’t just take our word take a look what other people have said to see if it suits you.

Provide Chat and/or Phone help

• Provide further assurance and tangibility
• Look at implementing ‘online/live chat’ facilities

Experiment with eBay

• Good way to clear stock
• Come up with interesting bundles to clear stock

Extras

• Throw in a pleasant surprise in the parcel
• A little treat goes a long way – Red Balloon add a little gift movie tickets, discount coupon, related – Make their day and they’ll come back and spread the word.
• Make it seasonal/e.g. Valentines day chocolates or heart shaped balloons.

Questions and Answers

Q) How can you tell where people leave in the checkout process?
A) <Chris Thomas> Install Google Analytics to see where people are dropping off. Set up a goal funnel from when they add a product to the end of the shopping process. See if they drop out and see where they go – if they’re going to the FAQ page they might be looking for more info on shipping etc. Then you can respond by providing information throughout so they don’t have to leave and look elsewhere for it.

Red Balloon also use Google Analytics for tracking and analytics – daily reporting on drop out rates and keep trying and testing to reduce drop outs. Have found that brand recognition improves drop out rates if they have trust and confidence.

Related posts:

1. 10 Common Shopping Cart Mistakes
2. How to sell physical products through your website
3. Website Basics – What You Need to Get Your Business Online
4. Service based start ups, the Internet and their websites
5. Online business law with Kay Lam-Beattie

Filed under: Attract good visitors, Do good business online, Tips, eCommerce