Top 10 Things Customers Expect from Your Online Store

Oneupweb has recently put out some interesting research which includes the top 10 consumer expectations that influence purchase decisions.

Let’s take a closer look at these items:

Pricing/shipping information clearly stated – 95.5%

No surprises here, as several studies have found that “sticker shock” (the unexpected inflation of final price due to shipping and taxes) is the number one reason for cart abandonment.

Crutchfield does a good job presenting not just the price but shipping, warranty and servicing prices on this product page:

Looks credible and trustworthy – 76.5%

If you’re not a household name, you can improve your site’s “trustworthiness” by having a clean and professional design (yes, first impressions count). Security badges, store ratings and a mailing address on your contact page can also help.

You must also avoid things that scare off your customers like expired SSL certificate warning messages (even the largest sites can fall victim to this).

Product displayed on homepage – 70.8%

Most online stores show products on the home page, but not every site. For example, Abercrombie and Fitch:

The study does not specify whether customers prefer to see individual products merchandised on the home page (such as bestsellers, new arrivals, featured items, etc) or simply be shown product (in a banner, rotating Flash presentation, or other creative). But when you consider that the goal of the home page is to keep the customer interested and win a click deeper into the site, it makes sense that the customers would like some idea on what to explore on your site without fudging with menus or search boxes.

Just showing product is not enough. The way you design and merchandise your home page has an impact. If you’ve been reading Get Elastic for a while, you will recall some A/B tests we did for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Store. One test looked at home page design. We actually found better results showing categorized mini-menus above featured products. Bounce rate, conversion rate and average order value all improved with the test version.

Visually appealing – 66.7%

Similar to looking trustworthy, consumers also consider the look and feel of your site. There are several low-cost tools to help you gauge whether your site is aesthetically pleasing (using real people’s feedback!)

Total cost calculator (shipping, tax, etc) – 59.1%

Showing taxes and shipping before checkout will likely reduce checkout abandonment. But don’t expect it to dramatically boost conversion rate. Rather, more people will abandon before checkout if the additional charges are too high. Customers appreciate you providing these tools, so you do win some warm-fuzzy points.

Search function – 48.2%

The larger your product catalog, the more important site search is to your ecommerce success. While it’s rare to find an ecommerce site without a search box, it happens, even among some of the most famous brands.

It’s not just the presence of a site search box that matters, it’s also the functionality of search. Web users are becoming more comfortable with Google’s “suggest” feature, the search engine will suggest terms as the user types. More and more e-tailers are adopting autocomplete tools to improve usability and relevance of search results and reduce “zero results found” occurrences. It’s possible users may expect suggestions, and even product results, as they type, rather than after they hit “submit.”

Search result usability is also important. Customers expect filtered navigation to further refine results by attributes that are meaningful to them (category, price, star ratings, color, size, etc).

Killer search result pages provide filters, the ability to sort results, prices, stock availability, large thumbnail images, product description snippets and add-to-cart/add-to-wishlist buttons.

Privacy statement – 45.5%

Though the legalese can be overwhelming, some people do look for privacy policies (though they may not read them). It’s important not just to have one but to make it easy to find wherever the customer experiences “privacy anxiety” on your site.

Onsite customer reviews/testimonials – 40.9%

There are plenty of studies that tout the popularity of ratings and reviews with customers. Reviews reduce the risk of making a bad purchase, and show an online seller is trustworthy when negative reviews appear.

Review content can also help your search engine rankings as a wider variety of keyword phrases appear on your pages than your product description alone (provided your reviews do not appear in a frame that is not read by search engines).

Testimonials are not as common (and not always as believable since only the glowing testimonials are published), but they can give the customer a bit more confidence in transacting with you if you’re not a big brand. Marketing Experiments has tips for using testimonials effectively.

Online customer service (live chat) – 32.5%

Not only can live support help customers figure out your site, locate products or ask questions, one study found that 76% of customers wanted to chat about checkout problems, which could prevent cart abandonment.

Live chat can be reactive, where a clear call-to-chat appears on your site, and the customer initiates the conversation, or it can be proactive, where the system triggers a chat invitation based on user behavior.

Links to social networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc) – 22.7%

I was surprised to see that over 1 in 5 consumers expect to see social sharing tools on a commercial site. I can’t imagine the absence of social links would deter someone from making a purchase. Perhaps this stat is the result of how the question was worded. Today’s customers might expect to see these links because so many sites have jumped on the social network bandwagon, but that doesn’t mean they use them or are more likely to purchase because of them.

Though social sharing buttons increase the likelihood the product will be evangelized by your visitors, your site can also take a performance hit (as some have found with the Facebook Like button). This may not be worth it, as we know that site speed is one of the most critical factors in bounce rate, customer satisfaction, loyalty and conversion. (Fast page loads was an item I believe is missing from this questionnaire, it should be #1 or #2!)

Do you agree with this study? Think #10 is way out of left field? What important elements of the sales process was missed (perhaps omitted from the questionnaire?) Speak your mind in the comments!

Read more: arrowhitech.com, mage-shop.com

5 Awesome Simple Steps To Find Your SEO RankScore

The aim of this post is to give you a gauge of the most important SEO metric for your website – your search engine rankings. Often, we find ourselves searching for our keywords on Google to see where we rank. That gives us a binary result – a ‘yes/no answer’ i.e. you’re either ranking well or not. But while performing this periodic ritual, we miss recording something more valuable. And what’s that?

Imagine you’re playing a game – and all your rankings in that game are put up on a scoreboard, next to your competition. The score-keeper runs some calculations on the rankings, and comes up with a total score for each contender. Those scores are then put up on a totem pole (a pole where ranks are put in order from top to bottom), so you know exactly who’s winning & who’s losing. You then track this score over-time to witness your improvement (or decline); and make changes to your SEO strategy when necessary. Such a score would arm you with precise knowledge of your competitive rankings & tell you where you stand on Google in one go, wouldn’t you agree?

That’s the concept behind RankScore, and that’s why I feel it is important to share it with you. By the end of this post, you’ll be able to determine your own RankScore (with the help of a simple Excel sheet), and know the RankScore of your competitors too. You ready? Let’s jump right into it then.

Step 1: List your Keywords

In the first step, simply list down all your keywords together (preferably in an excel sheet). In the next column, write down your website name/URL, and highlight the whole column.

Tip: the more keywords you enter, the more awesome analysis you’ll get

Step 2: Know your Competition

This is important! You need to know who you’re competing against. If you already know your top 3 competitors (atleast), skip this step. If you don’t, perform a search on Google for your main keyword, and note down the top 3 competitors. Now, enter them next to your website like this:

Step 3: Find thy Standing

Where do you rank on Google? More importantly, where does your competition rank? Let’s get searching! To do this, you can either use free tools available online that allow you to check your rank on Google, or do it manually yourself. What we’re trying to do here is fill in that sheet with actual data that can be used for our analysis in the next step. The final version may look something like this:

Step 4: Analyze

Done checking your rankings for all keywords? Great! It’s time for your hard-work to pay off! The first thing you should do is find out your average rankings. This will tell you the exact number of #1’s, Top 10s, Top 30s & Top 100s you have. The formula I use to calculate this is:

=COUNTIF(B3:B6, “<=10″)

The above formula will tell you the number of Top 10s that are present within a keyword cell range. To put this in your sheet, simply change the B3:B6 to your keyword cell range, and “<=10″ to whatever criteria you want to apply (for eg: “=1″ for to find the number of Position 1s).

Next, let’s run a formula to get the actual rankScore. For the sake of simplicity, here’s a formula you can use right away:

=(COUNTIF(B3:B6, “=1″)*5)+(COUNTIF(B3:B6, “<=3″)*4)+(COUNTIF(B3:B6, “<=10″)*3.5)+(COUNTIF(B3:B6, “<=30″)*2.5)+(COUNTIF(B3:B6, “<=50″)*1.5)+(COUNTIF(B3:B6, “<=70″)*1)+(COUNTIF(B3:B6, “<=100″)*0.5)

Put this formula below all your rankings and replace the “B3:B6” with the range of your keyword cells. This formula basically counts all your rankings, gives a specific score to each position range (for eg: 5 points if you are #1 for a keyword), and then sums it up for all keywords. There it is, your RankScore! This is how it all looks at my end:

Step 5: Take Action!

Yep, about time! Now that you know where you stand, it’s time to think about your future steps & the action you’re going to take on them. If you have a lower score vis-à-vis your competition, change your SEO strategy. For more insight, compare your averages too (your number of #1s, Top 10s etc.). If you fare great on both these aspects, great job – be proud of yourself!

Read more: arrowhitech.com, mage-shop.com

Development: Add breadcrumbs on a page via XML layout

The following article may be useful for front-end developers, it describes how to add breadcrumbs on the page (where it is not supposed to be by default) using layout XML and minimal PHP programming. It describes adding of 2-levels breadcrumbs (i.e. “Home / Some page”) which is needed in most cases.

In this article we will add breadcrumbs to Contact us page. There is no breadcrumbs by default.

Step 1

Modify corresponding XML file, in our case it is contacts.xml. You need to add the following code:

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<contacts_index_index translate="label"> ....             <reference name="breadcrumbs">                     <action method="addCrumb">                             <name>home</name>                             <params helper="arrowhitech_mod/getHomeUrl" />                     </action>                     <action method="addCrumb">                             <name>contact</name>                             <params>                                     <label>Contact Us</label>                                     <title>Contact Us</title>                                     <link/>                             </params>                     </action>             </reference> </contacts_index_index>

As you see we operating with breadcrumbs block via XML. We added 2 breadcrumbs:
- One for homepage (with a link to homepage).
- One for the current page.

The interesting point here is the assigning of the link to first breadcrumb:

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<action method="addCrumb">     <name>home</name>     <params helper="arrowhitech_mod/getHomeUrl" /> </action>

As you see, we call method getHomeUrl() from helper arrowhitech_mod which insert the link to homepage into breadcrumb. This is our custom helper, lets create it in “Step 2″.

Step 2

First of all, we need to create our own module (Note: If you don’t know how to create your own module in Magento don’t read further).

In below example the module is located in app/code/community/Arrowhitech/Mod/, but you can use any other location you like.

In the /etc/config.xml file of the module we need to define our helper:

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<?xml version="1.0"?> <config>     <modules>         <Arrowhitech_Mod>             <version>0.0.1</version>         </Arrowhitech_Mod>     </modules>     <global>         <helpers>             <arrowhitech_mod>                 <class>Arrowhitech_Mod_Helper</class>             </arrowhitech_mod>         </helpers>     </global> </config>

Finally, we need to create a helper file app/code/community/Arrowhitech/Mod/Helper/Data.php:

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<?php class Arrowhitech_Mod_Helper_Data extends Mage_Core_Helper_Abstract {     public function getHomeUrl() {         return array(             "label" => $this->__('Home'),             "title" => $this->__('Home Page'),             "link" => Mage::getUrl('')         );     } } ?>

That’s all. If you did everything right you will see the breadcrumbs on the Contact us page.

http://www.arrowhitech.com, http://www.mage-shop.com

How to Choose a Magento Developer

Say you've discovered that when you wear your bathrobe backwards, it makes a pretty neat blanket.

You decide to develop the product that you’ve cleverly named “The Snuglet," ... or something sorta like that, and after many days and nights of work, you’re ready to take your product to the first and final frontier: The Internet.

After the research dust has settled, you realize that Magento is the most brilliant, sexy, easy-to-use eCommerce CMS platform out there. (We would agree with you). And your Snuglet is bound for Magento glory.

But who’s going to develop your Magento site? When you do a Google search for “Magento developer,” you get (gasp!) 6 million results! Do you just pick the first technology company on the list? Do you get quotes from all of them and choose the cheapest? Do you call up the one with the most friends on Facebook? Your dad is good with computers. Maybe he could do it....

Choosing a Magento developer can be scarier than a Spanish cucumber, so we’ve put together a few tips for choosing a team to make your eCommerce site really sing and get your Snuglet – or whatever your product may be – on the internet map.

1.) Look for a Magento Partner

A good place to start your search should be the Magento Commerce website. They have a great database of companies that are both Silver and Gold-level partners, meaning they have access to Magento support, services, extensions, forums, and other real smart people who can help make your project go smoothly. 

We also have that sweet little logo on the bottom of every page of our site just screaming at you that we’re more than competent nerds, and we have some pretty sweet nerd connections. Make sure you’re seeing that somewhere on your developer’s site as well.

Keep in mind the scope of your project when choosing a developer. If you are a small business trying to market a Snuglet using the free Community version of Magento, you may not need a Gold-level partner. No need to kill a rabbit with a bazooka. However, if you have a large catalog, complex business rules or some integration with your back end systems and plan to use Magento Professional or Enterprise, you will most likely want a Silver or Gold-level Magento partner with the big guns necessary to knock out your project. 

Whats the difference between Silver and Gold partners?  In general it's the size of the organization and the service offering provided.  If you have a 5K budget, you probably don't want to call a Gold partner. However, some companies will take on small projects if you're willing to purchase a bucket of hours for development or maintenance.

2.) Check out Your Developer's Magento Portfolio

Once you've found a handful of Magento developers you're willing to work with, check out their portfolio. Some companies – like us – call it “Work,” some companies call it “Featured Websites,” some companies may call it “Our Clients.” The point is, a great Magento Developer will be proud of the stuff they’ve done and make it easy for you to find. 

Browse through some of the companies you find on Google and peruse their porfolio. Make sure you find examples of work that you would want for your own company.

3.) If at all Possible, Look them in the Face

Working through the internet is great because you can get things done without having to meet in person. Efficient, yes, but not always the best way to do business. So do your darndest to meet one-on-one with your developers and find out about their background and what they recommend for your project. You’ll get a better idea of how comfortable they are with the platform, how long they’ve been working with it, and what they know about Magento’s strengths and weaknesses.

Sitting down with your developers also gives you a better idea of whether or not you actually like your development team – which matters more than you may think. You’re going to be spending some quality time with these people during the development process. If your account manager is a little dodgy, or your designer is neurotic, it can turn that process into a nightmare in a hurry. But when you work with good people that you like, you’ll have a much better development experience, and you’ll probably get a better product in the end.

4.) Ask for References

So now that you’ve narrowed it down to a couple companies, ask for references from the company’s Magento clients. You probably wouldn’t hire an employee based solely on the resume they’ve submitted.

"You betcha!"

Even Sarah Palin could apply for a job as a rocket scientist... Or president, for that matter. That doesn’t mean NASA should hire her to run mission control.

Companies understand this, and should have no problem providing references for you. The last thing you want is to be the test project for a company that has no idea how Magento works, or how to handle the intricacies of the program. We’ve helped several clients who have unfortunately had this experience with another developer, and it can get ugly. You want a company that has a wide range of experience developing Magento sites, and they’re not afraid to share those references with you.

5.) Make Sure to Explain Your Product and Current Business Practices

Whether you’re a new company or you’re rebuilding an existing eCommerce site with Magento, make sure your developer knows what you need, and more importantly, they’ve confirmed they can do what you want. Do you need to integrate with an ERP system? Do you need Search Engine Optimization services? Do you need custom extensions outside the scope of regular ol' Magento?

Chances are, even if you’re just selling a bathrobe that you’ve ingeniously disguised as a blanket, there are probably some unique functions you want on your site. Custom check-out features, changing product images, fancy color swatches... whatever it is, just make sure your developer knows what you’ve got in mind and they can deliver on those items that you can’t do without. Explaining how your business works on a day-to-day basis will help your developer come up with a plan, and give you some reassurance that you’ve chosen the right tech guys.

6.) Evaluate the Developer’s Website

You probably don’t want to choose a company whose website looks like it was built in 1997. Although those were legendary times in eCommerce history, you want a company that has a modern perspective and keeps up with current trends. You want to know that your site won’t look like this. If the developer’s site hasn’t been updated since Limp Bizkit was cool, you should definitely note the red flag.

7.) Price vs. Quality

When you're choosing your Magento developer, keep in mind: You get what you pay for. We know it's a cliche, but we've seen it a lot. Human<>Element has had several clients come to us with half-finished projects from other developers that just spun out of control because their previous developer didn’t understand what they were undertaking with Magento, underbid the project, and couldn’t complete it. Keep in mind that the cheapest developer is rarely the best, and sometimes you’ll end up spending a lot more to fix something than building it correctly in the first place for a little more.

That doesn’t mean you need to go with the most expensive developer to get a functioning Magento site, but it does mean you should look carefully at what each company is proposing in their quote. Make sure all the features you want are included in that proposal, and that you’ve spelled out functions that are essential to your business.

Whoever you end up choosing, be confident that your developer has the skills to meet the needs of your business, or you could end up with an internet mess bigger than Snooki.

http://www.mage-shop.com