E-Commerce Best Practices: How Do You Like to Shop?

So here’s the setup:

You’re in the checkout line at the local grocery store. Your basket is full with most of the stuff you came for and even though you didn’t end up with exactly what you wanted and know you’re forgetting something, you’re just ready to get out and get on with your day. The way the store has it’s aisles laid out makes no sense, the dude behind the meat counter never remembers that you’ve picked up a pound of ground beef every week since Bush Sr. was in office, and the lighting sometimes makes it hard to see the quality of the produce. The checkout gal doesn’t bother pointing out that there’s a coupon for the tomatoes you’re buying in this week’s circular. She also doesn’t pipe up and mention that you’ve got all of the ingredients for a great pasta sauce, but haven’t actually grabbed any pasta off the shelf. Is it really a good idea for that girl to be hand-keying your credit card info? That doesn’t seem safe. Real bummer that they don’t honor that gift card your mother-in-law gave you, too. As you shuffle out of the supermarket with what’s left of your sanity and your half-complete dinner purchase you curse your foolishness and vow to never return.

No one in their right mind would go back to a brick-and-mortar like the grocery store in the example above unless it was just the only shop in town. Take a look at your e-commerce site, or your planned e-comm presence, and consider this... The Internet is a very big town.

We talk e-comm best practices around the office almost as much as we debate the Phillies’ disgraceful offense. The fact is, the goal of an online store is exactly the same as the end-game in a brick and mortar: you want the visitors to buy something. Ideally, you want them to buy more, buy often, and tell their friends. The best way to ensure that happens? Make the experience as frictionless as possible. Let’s break down the grocery store above and apply e-comm best practices, along with a few examples:

AISLES - Organization is key. In a physical shop the way the aisles are laid out, what’s on the end caps, and the items you’re presented with in the checkout line are all key factors to consider. Everything needs to make sense and make it easy for the customer to find what they want, or entice the person that’s just browsing with some of your best product. Online, this means implementing layered navigation, relevant homepage call-outs and featured items, and breadcrumbs for your visitors to easily understand where they are, where they’ve been, and how to get back to any step in the chain.

MEAT COUNTER - This is a big one. Everyone likes to feel that an experience is personalized to them, to go someplace that everybody knows your name. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways in your e-commerce store, from saved carts to wishlist functionality to order history, all of which depend on creating and utilizing user accounts the fullest. Additionally, if you don’t know who your customers are, how can you market to them?

LIGHTING - Maybe lighting itself isn’t an issue online, but you know what is? Photography. If your product depends at all on the visitor seeing your product, whether it’s to verify that it’s an appropriate part or to create a serious emotional connection, you need good pictures. You may even want multiple shots of the same product from different angles, or the ability to zoom, or even some kind of crazy augmented reality shenanigans. Point is, you need good visuals.

COUPONS + SUGGESTIONS - Building on the theme of personalization and reducing friction for your customers, consider the shopping cart and checkout procedure itself. Checkout needs to be simple, straightforward, and secure, and if you really want to flex your marketing muscle, it ought to provide additional opportunities to cross-promote and sell your products. Is a customer only $10 from free shipping? Tell them. If they add one more t-shirt to their cart, do they get a pair of socks for free? Tell them! Do you know through copious research that people who buy socket wrenches also often benefit from a new set of screwdrivers? Yeah, tell ‘em. Why deprive yourself of the opportunity to sell more while making your customers happier?

PAYMENT + SECURITY - Ever go to a restaurant where they’re having computer trouble and have to manually write down your credit card? Gets a little uncomfortable at times, no? How about a website where as soon as you click “Pay Now” it boots you to some shady looking third party payment solution that looks like a bad website out of a 90’s movie? Neither of these things inspire confidence in your customer. The payment process should be easy, allowing customers to pay with whatever payment methods you make available to them. The experience should be seamless, but most of all it should be secure secure. PCI Compliance is a big deal, and depending on the number of transactions you’re doing, could end up being a big fine for you.

So there you have it. The takeaway from this whole scenario? Good commerce is good commerce. Think about what you like about your favorite stores, both online and off. How much of that experience is mirrored in your online store?

Got an e-commerce horror story or an example of a really great experience? We’d love to talk about it; drop it in the comments below. And if you wanna talk a little shop about your e-comm plans, you know who to call.