With Andy MacDowell playing the role of Googlebot…

Have you ever seen the movie Mulitplicity? Do you also happen to run/manage an eCommerce website? If so, then you should know exactly what I’m referring to without even reading any further. This isn’t a signal to hit your back button now, but instead an indication that what I’m about to share with you will shed light on this important subject and how it affects all online retailers - and really any website with pagination for that matter.

Most online retailers use pagination in their product catalogs, and many don’t even understand the underlying effects of this feature. This topic is something that I’ve been performing quite a bit of research on over the past year and is near and dear to my heart. It’s a concern that not only spans SEO, but also Usability, so it is important to define a balance between those needs. (more…)

Time and time again, we encounter eCommerce retailers that think “they know their users”. And sure, most of them have a good idea of who they are. But knowing who they are is a different story than knowing how they act, what they like, and what they don’t like about your website. In fact, these behaviors and attitudes have a tremendous impact on the effectiveness of your eCommerce website converting visitors into buyers. The good news is, that you can gain insight into your users by performing user testing. An often-overlooked tool by eCommerce merchants, this tactic has typically been reserved for government organizations that are mandated to ensure their websites are accessible to everyone, and to large scale corporations with the wallet to fund user testing.

My experiences working with the Centers for the Disease Control and Prevention demonstrated the value generated by performing usability testing - as there was a heavy emphasis on the usability of any page or site developed. Now, some of you may be asking yourself “I’m a small company, I can’t afford to hire a firm to bring users into a room for usability testing and feedback”. Others may be thinking, “why should I care about usability testing” or “I have more important things to worry about”. However, what you should be asking yourself is “what is the opportunity cost of not performing usability testing?” (more…)

My husband is not an impulse shopper. His purchases are weighed out carefully and deliberately, usually weeks or even months before he dusts off his rarely-used credit card. So when he went to Macy’s last month to pick out a new tie for an upcoming wedding, I was more surprised than anyone when he came home with not just the tie, but also a $500 Ralph Lauren suit. When explaining the spontaneous spending, he didn’t point out the suit’s impeccable fit or fine wool fabric. Instead, he said the sales guy was the same one who’d helped him pick out my birthday present last month, announcing “He remembered my name!”

The power of recognition has been influencing the direction of shopping dollars for hundreds of years, so it’s no surprise it’s one of the top initiatives of today’s successful eCommerce sites. Just as you’re more likely to get your lunch from the hot-dog vendor who asks after your family and remembers how much mustard you like, the website that goes above and beyond to personalize your browsing experience enjoys longer and more profitable shopping sessions. E-tailers who have jumped on the “welcome wagon” have reported such benefits as increase in average order size, lower cart abandonment rates, positive feedback from satisfied customers, and greater levels of customer retention over time. (more…)

It may be shocking to some, but even in today’s high-tech Internet age, there’s a sizable chunk of consumers who can only be described as “Web-phobic.” Instead of hopping online to quickly and efficiently locate a product, they’d rather drift from store to store in hopes of stumbling upon it in person. When I asked one such shopper their rationale for avoiding online shopping, she admitted she was afraid she’d “get lost.” Ironic, given that she’d just spent hours driving in circles looking for an obscure piece of china she could have found in minutes by searching Google.

There are a variety of tools you can implement on your eCommerce site to help prevent the feeling of disorientation my friend described. Enter the breadcrumb. The online equivalent of the “You Are Here” designation on a shopping mall map, breadcrumbs provide a subtle identification factor to show shoppers where they are currently and where they’ve been. Although not nearly as important or widely used as the global navigation or the search box, breadcrumbs have nonetheless become an industry standard in ensuring the comfort level of online shoppers. (more…)