eCommerce Blog

Here’s an “educational” exercise that I sometimes do: I’ll start to buy a product online, but exit before checkout. In other words, I’ll complete everything on the online order form, right up until I have to enter a credit card, and then I’ll bail, just to see what happens.

Why? Well, you can learn many lessons from this exercise, and I encourage you to do it–for competing products as well as for products that are outside your industry or niche.

I usually choose products that have a heavy online advertising presence or that I’ve seen in infomercials. The reason? Well, these eCommerce sites tend to pour a ton of marketing dollars in 1) keeping people from exiting their site and 2) attempting to woo them back once they’ve left.

Why Do The “Checkout” Exercise?

No matter how hard you try, you will have people exit your site before they complete the checkout process. On the backend, you’ll likely have analytics set up. You’ll be able to look at trends over time and can make evaluations based on these trends–or at least pre-evaluations (don’t change anything based on analytics alone; analytics don’t measure the human mind, only the quantifiable actions that humans take on your site, like which pages they view the most, the page that has the highest bounce rate, etc.).

By doing this exercise on other sites–and trying to think like a regular customer–you can learn a lot about what these sites do right, what they do wrong, and what you can apply to your own site.

The Checkout Exercise Case Study: AcaiBurn

Around the first of the year, I decided to “buy” AcaiBurn, which is advertised as a super-effective weight loss supplement made from acai berries. I had seen many ads on Facebook and finally clicked over. Its big incentive was that you could start with a free trial–all you had to pay for was shipping. And this free trial wasn’t available to just anyone–the site attempts to make you feel like you’re special, because you’re one of the few people who are getting the deal.

The site is slick (note: “slick” is not necessarily meant to sound negative). It has one of those Live Face spokespeople on the site. Her name is Julie Parks. The site uses the long-form method of copywriting, which can be extremely effective, even on websites (despite what some people would have you believe).

I looked all over the site to find out how much AcaiBurn would cost AFTER my “free trial,” which, as far as I can tell, is available to anyone. The site asks you to fill out a brief form: height, weight, etc. and then it “determines” if you qualify for the free trial. But I was able to get to the “Great! You’ve qualified!” page by clicking on “How do I order AcaiBurn?” which was the ninth question in its list of FAQs.

Discussion Topic #1: Should eCommerce sites call its pricing, well, “pricing”?

Remember how I said the site uses the “long-form” method of copywriting? I counted, and I had to move my scroll wheel 36 times before I reached the bottom of the page. In the footer links, you’ll see the navigation. There is NO top-level navigation on the site.

As you can see, there are no items in the footer links that say “pricing.” But the pricing is included in the “Terms & Conditions”–very strict pricing conditions…pricing that increases quite fast from the original $4.95.

I was curious to see what people were saying about their experience with ordering AcaiBurn. I googled “how much does acaiburn cost cancel order,” and sure enough–some complaint sites sprouted up with people talking about the fact that they weren’t anticipating the costs and that they were having trouble canceling their orders. Some responders chided those complaining for not reading the “Terms & Conditions.”

My question to everyone out there is this: is “Terms and Conditions” an intuitive place that REGULAR people are going to turn to for pricing info? If you want people to understand the pricing and HOW to cancel their orders, why not call it “Pricing”? Why not have an FAQ that says “How to cancel your order” with clear directions that work?

I’m a firm believer in transparency, the rule of “Keep it simple, stupid,” and ease-of-use. Transparency might affect (i.e. reduce) volume–at first. But it will increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. If the product works, people will tell their friends–volume can be built that way.

But I’m open to hearing other thoughts on this. Leave them in the comments.

Discussion Topic #2: Should you let people leave your site without a fight?

After I bailed at checkout, I attempted to close the browser window. That’s when this appeared.

I’ve experienced this before, and the first time it happened, I was concerned, thinking I had gone to an illegal website and that something nefarious was happening on the back end.

When I’ve encountered this method subsequent times, I’ve become annoyed. I should be able to leave your website without being hassled. In essence, this is the equivalent of the pushy sales person who’s determined to spritz you with her perfume as you walk through the department store.

Of course, because I’m marketer, I clicked to remain on the site, where a Live Chat box showed up.

I wrote, “Are you a real person?”

And the response was immediate, “I’m a live virtual agent” (with a smiley face).

Pretty convincing for the average person, but not so much for someone who spends a lot of time working on websites. So I started “messing” with the agent, by asking questions: what day and time is it, what big event is happening Sunday night in Hollywood (Oscars), and then just writing gibberish. The responses were fast and all about trying the product. Interesting method, and I bet it works–to some extent.

I think Live Chats are GREAT if the people are real agents who can answer specific questions: How do I cancel my order? Where are you located? Can you point me to any articles on your product? I use Live Chats effectively for things like my cable company. But the Live Chat must be live, in my book. I think this goes back to the transparency issues, and I would recommend either a real live chat or no live chat. What do you think?

Discussion Topic #3: Follow-up marketing. How much is too much?

When I was going through the sales process, I had to enter my email address early on. I went through this exercise at the beginning of the year. Since then, I’ve received no fewer than 20 emails. Some are for “daily diet tips.” Others have subject lines that include the following:

Robyn Do You Still Want Your-Package?

Robyn Try the AcaiBurn at Our Expense

Robyn this is an important email

Bad news Robyn

The positive thing about these emails is that they have a VERY clear “Unsubscribe Me” link at the top of every email. You can also opt-out on the main website (it’s labeled “opt-out” in the footer links).

I didn’t opt out, because I was curious as to how long they would continue to market to me. It’s been almost two months, and they’re still sending me emails.

I DO think this method is the most effective–and most ethical–out of the ones we’ve discussed so far in this Checkout Case Study. It can’t be considered SPAM, because I willingly entered my email address on their site. I can unsubscribe at any time, and this is made clear. The emails are short, direct, and there’s even a customer support number at the bottom of them (I did not call this number, so I can’t say whether it would be a sales person pushing you to try the product, or someone who can actually take–and more importantly cancel–your orders once they’ve been placed).

I’m not going to unsubscribe because I’m curious as to how long they will market to me. I DO think that the number of emails they’re sending, at this point, is overkill. While it’s important to stay in front of prospects, their strategy might be too much. Weekly–or even every other week–might make more sense and be more effective. Also, switching up some of the auto responders with customer success stories and pictures…or reminding me that swim suit season is x-number of weeks away might make more sense. The emails tout that AcaiBurn has been featured on Yahoo and MSN, but there are no links. Real links to articles and news stories and videos would also help reduce any lingering objections I have and make me want to buy the product (not including these links makes me more skeptical and suspicious).

What do you think?

For those of you who use these auto responder emails, what’s your strategy? How many do you send out? What do they say? How long will you send them for? What’s the open and click through rate? What’s the conversion rate?

If you do the Checkout Exercise for another eCommerce site, I’d love to hear about your findings. Again, leave them in the comments.

Thanks for reading!

This entry was posted on Monday, March 23rd, 2009 at 4:26 pm and is filed under eCommerce Business Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.