Top 10 Ecommerce Tips

Updated November 2, 2008

Everyone loves a "top-ten tips for ecommerce success" list.

Why? It's probably because top-ten lists are quick to read and easy to digest. Filled with business platitudes, compact info-bytes, and soggy ecommerce McNuggets, top-ten lists sure don't require much mental dexterity to assimilate. Besides, most top ten lists tell us what we already know (at least on some level of consciousness) and we are usually rewarded with a strong sense of validation by having our own ecommerce viewpoints corroborated by what the lists are telling us.

For example, when an ecommerce top-ten list admonishes, "post a privacy policy", we're positively aglow, downright vindicated, because we've already done it - or at least we've been planning to do it for the last several months - or at least we agree that's it not a half-bad thing, this whole privacy policy craze.

Additionally, one benefit of a top-ten list is that it never begins with the words, 'The Truth? You can't handle the truth!' No, top-ten lists sum up the solution in a few easy words - and attention spans can be checked at the door (good news for compulsive mouse clickers). Yes, for Internet users who subscribe to the ideology that reading 20 headlines is better than one actual article, top-ten lists are a great excuse to get in-depth and close-up.

Clearly, top-ten tips lists can't be beat - even if you're reading the same recycled list over and over again. That said, here's another ground breaking "top-ten tips list for ecommerce success".

1. Integrate An Interactive Top-Ten Feature into your Homepage

Don't just read them. Use them! Put a regularly rotating top-ten feature on your homepage that your site visitors can vote on or 'write-in'. Interactivity is everything! And if this won't make your site sticky, nothing will. Original articles and dynamic content? Editorials and industry-specific news? Daily promotions, freebies, and fresh news snippets? Sure, excellent content creates repeat visitors, long-term customers.

2. Give Back to Your Community

Despite explanations by e-com apologists, more than a few dot.coms imploded simply because of an abuse of venture capital. Instead of throwing a party or building another warehouse, consider community involvement as a way to market your brand, create positive PR opportunities, and generate constructive energy for your e-business. Or differentiate your site by showing your customers that a slice of all proceeds goes toward bettering the world.

3. Use Splash Pages

Running an ad or e-zine promotion? Going postal with some real-world snail-mailers? Considering a banner campaign? Don't just drop customers off at your boring old homepage! Build a 'splash page' that follows up and capitalizes on the ad content, that highlights the big promotion, that creates a seamless bridge between your ad message and your sales objective.

4. Radicalize Communication Touch-Points

Paste your contact information everywhere. Toll-free numbers, email addresses, corporate addresses, online contact forms, customer service numbers. Show your legitimacy, be there to answer inquiries, dispel distrust, and close the deal the old fashion way - by telephone - if you have to. Communication is key, so make sure your ears are open and your com-channels many.

5. Make it Easy for a Customer to Buy from You

That's hardly a revelation. But with all the commercial websites that fail to provide a compelling call to action, that lead customers through a labyrinthine click-a-thon to a hidden order page, that over-educate and over-saturate with marketing minutia and lingo-jingo, that make people fill out interminable forms, that fail to offer frequent short-cuts to the Buy Now page, and then fail to use real-time credit card processing (or instead use flimsy pseudo-ecommerce alternatives)… the point is: Get your customers to the center of the Tootsie-Pop, ASAP.

6. Publish your Fulfillment Info and Return Policies

Before I order something on the Internet, I want to know how the product will get to me, when it will get to me, how much it's going to cost, and who's paying for shipping. More than that, I want to know what's going to happen if the gizmo is broken or if it doesn't go with my purple wall-to-wall carpeting. Like a privacy policy, fulfillment and return information won't sell a product - but if you neglect to include these details, you will lose sales. As an old marketing professor of mine use to chant, "Why shoot yourself in the foot?"

7. Deploy E-Metrics and Performance Optimizing Software

Get to know customer behavior, determine which ad campaigns are working for you, identify which search terms are landing customers, compile top referring pages, observe which of your pages are the most and least popular and how long visitors are staying. E-metrics software can tell you these things (and more) so you can optimize your website and marketing tactics.

Ever wondered how molasses got into your web browser - or why your server always crashes on the weekend? If your site's a big one, consider performance-monitoring software that can eliminate your website's hiccups, convulsions, coughs, and lethargy problems. Why hang a 'closed sign' over your e-business with slow page loads, dead links, spontaneous server combustion, or even the dreaded "HTTP 404 - File Not Found" error? Holistix.net offers some decent solutions to end these dilemmas.

8. Ask Customers How They Got There

If a customer buys something or fills out a contact form, ask them how they got to your site using a drop-down menu or field. Figure what's working in your marketing mix so you can eliminate the drag as you tune the engine.

9. Maximize Low-Budget Marketing Tools before Throwing Money at a 'Problem'

Intelligent budget appropriation means covering all your low-to-no-budget marketing bases before sinking big money into more expensive campaigns. Network, build strategic partnerships, design the perfect website, optimize for search engines (then keep a registration schedule), and research the most cost-efficient venues to advertise your products. Make sure your customer acquisition costs are set so you come out ahead in the long run.

10. Price for Profitability

No-profit pricing strategies are not the only way build customer relationships and brand loyalty! And there are better ways to create loyal, repeat clientele than by sacrificing profitability! Figure out ways to get the edge on your competition (differentiate) while making a profit at the same time.