Websites

You don’t need to be an ecommerce expert to know that related products helps you sell more stuff online.

Amazon are often hailed as the trailblazers for related products, at least, the customers who come in and brief us on their ecommerce websites always ask for ‘the “Customers who bought this also liked…” like Amazon have’ widget! And below you’ll see it in all it’s glory…

I have to be honest. I’d always seen this as a very neat upselling tool that was much more useful to the etailer than it was to the customer. I would generally always encourage my ecommerce clients to include this sort of upsell tool unless completely inappropriate, but it wasn’t until I was shopping online this week that I realised that related product functions can actually be really useful to the customer.

When related product functions are useful: the flooring case study

If you’ve been following me on twitter or reading the blog for a while, you’ll know that I’m in the middle of a complete house renovation that is consuming most of my time and energy. I’m delighted to say that light is nearing the end of the tunnel, the builders should be out next week and normal blog service will very soon resume… But I digress. Throughout the process of the build I have ordered all manner of things online that I’m just not used to buying, and it’s been a real eye opener. The flooring was a really good example of this that I’d like to share with you.

My husband is amazing at DIY – he fits kitchens, tiles bathrooms, plumbs stuff in and is generally brilliant around the house. I am not so practical, but for whatever reason I was the one to source and order the flooring (it’s probably down to my impatience). We ordered our oak flooring from a website which shall nameless (for reasons which will become apparent) that unfortunately appeared to be set up with a real disregard for the customer in mind. To say the site was frustrating to use was an understatement.

However, I persevered and ordered the flooring. Not being an expert at fitting floors (and not having an expert to hand that could tell me what to do) I felt like a fish out of water.

I wanted someone to tell me what extras I needed. Did I need underlay? I don’t know! I don’t know how to fit a floor. Do I need adhesive? Again, I’m not sure!

There was a real opportunity for this company to think carefully about the experience they wanted to give the customer, to provide a really high level of service online and win significant business because of it. It would have also meant that they wouldn’t have needed to compete quite so heavily on price.

Taking the customer on a journey

Think about it. I suspect that most people that order flooring through that site are in my shoes. They’re probably (and forgive me because I’m generalising here) ordering on behalf of their installer, and therefore need some guidance around what they need. Imagine how powerful it would have been if the website took you on a bit of a journey once you’ve added the wood to your basket.

Imagine something like Welcome Fiona, we see you’ve added 50sq m of oak flooring to your basket. How will you be fitting your floor (2 options to tick then move on to next screen)

If you’re floating your floor we recommend buying 50sqm of 2mm underlay and 3x pots of adhesive. Would you like to add these to your basket?

This could have all been done through the checkout journey for a seamless, fun and recommendable experience. The actual experience was anything but seamless, although to the company’s immense credit, they were interested in feedback. It’ll be interesting to see how much of it they take on board!

How can you use related products to improve your customer journey?

Tagged as , powerful ecommerce in Online Marketing, Powerful Ecommerce

We’re currently doing some really fun work with Harvey Maria working on their customer experience. When we wireframed the website we mapped out the basics, and we’re now working on the sampling and order experience with the team. Working on this sort of thing gets me really excited because it gives companies the chance to really stand head and shoulders above the competition. By making your customer feel great, helping them enjoy the process of interacting with you and getting them excited about your product, you’ll generate loyalty, increase your conversion rates and build repeat business and referrals.

I’ll be sharing the Harvey Maria customer experience case study at my Creating Engaging Experiences and Compelling Propositions event on 24th November (do join us if you can – we have some cracking content for both etailers and service based businesses that will apply to all sectors). But for now, I thought we should just get thinking about the basics. Many companies just don’t get this right (and I’ll be sharing my incredibly frustrating experiences of ordering materials later…) and all the clever search engine optimisation tricks in the world will be futile if you can’t get these basics right.

1. Who are your customers? Sounds obvious? Not really. Are you selling to consumers or trade? You need to be clear about this right at the outset. If you’re selling to trade, by all means keep your prices ex VAT and fill up your pages with jargon (if you’re confident your customers will understand it). If you’re selling to consumers, prices should include VAT and your product descriptions should be user friendly.
2. How do your customers want to buy? What journey will they go on to buying with you? What do they need to know before commiting to a purchase? What do they need to see? Don’t overlook essential information such as product dimensions/ installation instructions etc. Something as simple as a light fitting is probably just a case of seeing a picture, liking it and checking the spec. Ordering something more complex like wood flooring (can you tell I’m in the middle of a building project?) will probably involve sampling, checking the technical spec and understanding everything required to make it work.
3. Be clear about what you’re selling: give a clear description, decent product shots (detail, in situ/ lifestyle and cutout if relevant) and tech spec/ full dimensions/ materials etc. People can pick up and touch online, so you need to be as clear as possible. Which leads me on to…
4. Use great photography. Beautiful, clear, well-lit and well-shot photography will do wonders for your ecommerce site. If you’re serious about building a decent business this is something you need to invest in. See my Powerful Photography series for more info
5. Show the relevant extras on the product page by this I mean not only delivery costs but actually showing related products. This isn’t just about upselling – in the next post I’ll show you how I actually wanted to be told what I needed and related products is the way to do this
6. Make it easy for people to buy. Use software that makes it easy for customer accounts to be created (and make sure the functionality works), be clear about the buy now button – simple things that make it easy for people to do business with you.

Tagged as , ecommerce basics in Powerful Ecommerce, Websites

There seems to be a school of thought amongst many online retailers that price and search engine optimisation are king, and everything else is unimportant. Now whilst I’m not going to argue with the fact that price and being found for what you sell are crucial, many ecommerce businesses fail to place customer experience at the heart of their websites and ordering processes, I believe, to their detriment.

There is no doubt that things have got tougher this year. Discretionary spending has decreased by an average of 30% and retailers need to be much, much smarter about how they attract and retain customers. Ecommerce isn’t just about making a fast buck out of customers once. A truly successful ecommerce business, like any successful business, needs to gain repeat business. 

New customers are the most expensive, and difficult type of customer to acquire. But if repeat businesses is king, why do so many online retailers fail to plan effectively to get their hard earned customers to buy again? Over the next few posts I’m going to give you some examples of situations that could have easily been avoided.

Generating goodwill matters

The sad truth is that if you have the best product, at the best price, then you will of course sell product – whether you have a wonderful customer experience or not. I suspect you won’t be maximising the opportunity as much as you might, I suspect that you could make a lot more profit with a wonderful customer experience, and I know for a fact that you’ll generate more repeat business and more recommendations.

Retail is all about making customers feel good about what they’re buying, and that matters just as much online as it does offline. I just wish that online retailers would remember that!

Tagged as in Online Marketing, Powerful Ecommerce, Websites

Rarely does a week go by when someone doesn’t ask me the question “How on earth do you find the time to blog?”. I too, have been the victim of the “I don’t know how she does it” type comments. Small children, business, baking etc – where does blogging fit into my time? I know [...]

Tagged as in Blogging

DR Solicitors are a niche law firm that specialise in law for the medical profession. I love DR Solicitors’ approach to business: flexible, expert and incredibly professional. Their new website really communicates their status as one of the leading niche law firms and certainly seems to be paying off in terms of attracting new business [...]

Tagged as in Web Design, Websites

Angela Marshall is an author and one of the country’s leading image consultants. I’ve known her for years since I met her networking when I first started my business, and I was delighted when Angela invited to give her blog an image makeover. Angela works with large corporates: often financial institutions and professional services, and [...]

Tagged as , angela marshall, appearance management, blog design in Blogging, Case Studies, From The Studio

Yehey! It’s been quite a week in the studio for getting websites live. Stuart has a number of quite chunky ecommerce sites to finish off this week and next but he certainly hasn’t been twiddling his thumbs recently! I have a whole host of delicious websites and blogs to share with you over the next [...]

Tagged as in Web Design, Websites

A few members of the Flourish team were recently given the fantastic opportunity to attend the SheerB2B Social Media Conference in London and over the next week or so Dani and I will be sharing some insights from the day. The day was incredibly inspiring and insightful, but the presentation made by Steve Shroud – [...]

Tagged as in Branding, Online Marketing

Hurray! Something gorgeous to look at! This is Chloe’s first draft for the eCommerce website design for Harvey Maria. What do you think? Remember the current website? Visually and structurally there was a lot to do. Make it feel more aspirational, easy to use and something that reflects our brand values and engages our target [...]

Tagged as , ecommerce web design, Harvey Maria, powerful ecommerce in Case Studies, From The Studio, Graphic Design, Powerful Ecommerce, Web Design, Websites

Visually this post isn’t going to be quite as exciting as the post that came before and the one that follows. But it’s an important part of the eCommerce website journey and one that I think is important to share with you. The Wireframes Between every website brief and website design comes the planning and [...]

Tagged as , ecommerce website design, Harvey Maria, powerful ecommerce in Case Studies, From The Studio, Graphic Design, Powerful Ecommerce, Web Design, Websites