Poor Customer Service / Contact Options
The good folks at e-consultancy have put out a must read list of Top 10 most common e-commerce mistakes. I really liked the idea of prominently placing a telephone number at the FAQ page.
Chirstmas Gift Finder
Alfred Dunhill started playing with their eCommerce environment last year and they have already unearthed a pretty neat and engaging interface. Click on the image below to see the ‘live’ tool: Not everything about the gift predictor is perfect though: the interface is heavy, they don’t mention price and matches are a little weak but all in all, it’s a …
An Idea For Amazon.com
Amazon interview.
The Kindle
Much has been written about Kindle. Most reviews give it a 50/50 chance or call it a failure, but from the vantage point of having no real knowledge of the product I would like to make a bold claim: Kindle will (eventually) change the world. Everything about this product is skewed in Amazons favor: – They own the “last mile” …
Holiday Shopping Tips
While the focus of this Blog is eCommerce, offline retail is still king. For this post I am presenting Mellody Hobson’s shopping tips. Here are my favorites: – Head to the Back The back of the store is where you will always find the sales. They’re out of the way and hard to find, but it’s where the best deals …
Some eTail Best Practices
As we scan through best practices in the eCommerce world 2 common themes emerge: –Leaders set and match customer expectations better than peers–Successful eTailers deliver brand promise consistently through all touch points Amazon.com (1 on IR500 list): By focusing on core innovations: collaborative filtering, onsite search and testing they have grown from carrying books to carrying virtual storefronts of other …
UPDATED: April 2024. Interesting eCommerce Stats I’ve Been Tracking Since 2007!
There are so many ecommerce stats out there. Here is a collection of the most interesting ones (maintained by a guy who has been in ecommerce for 13+ years).
Toward Higher Response Rates
Quantity centric attempts to improve email marketing effectiveness is far too scattered a strategy to ever have metric level dependability. However, it is true that people shop (more) when happy and this is an element marketers could consider when developing email marketing programs. And, it turns out, over a relatively large, related, sample size group behavior is astonishingly predictable. For …
Memorable eCommerce Quotes
eCommerce quotes are like concentrated nuggets of wisdom by some of the smartest people in the world of eCommerce. They will teach you a lot.
Peanut Butter with Asian Curry Spice
Any consultant would advice against selling something as complex as “Peanut Butter with Asian Curry Spice” online. The safest way to sell this flavor is to first get people to try it at your store. At first glance not even you would buy it. But PB Loco seems to have found a creative way to convince people this flavor is …
But Why?
Why do online retailers ask for type of credit card? If it starts with a 4 it is a Visa and if it starts with a 5, it’s MasterCard
Is There A Thing Known As Too Many SKUs?
OfficeMax discovered that by keeping too many products in their store they started losing margins because associates were spending inordinate amounts of time helping customers find products. More choice was causing lower satisfaction levels (an idea eloquently described in ‘The Paradox of Choice’). Does this apply online too?
Just Because YOU Care About Your Suggestion Box Doesn’t Mean Your Customers Do Too…
In the last 20 years I have had bad customer experiences no less than 1,200 times and yet I can’t remember one instance when I actually filled a feedback form. So the store never really knew I was unhappy. Fortunately, in the online world feedback feature comes standard. When a customer is unhappy you don’t need to ask but observe …
How To Convert A Liability Into An Asset
Panera Bread is one of the few coffee retailers that actually offer customers free Internet access and I can’t even tell you how much I feel endeared to the brand because of this. But I also know Panera is giving free Internet in hopes of getting me to buy more stuff (which, I don’t think I really do) so it’s …
What Can The iPhone Teach Retailers?
A LOT. Apple knows as much about the cell phone business as Nokia knows about the PC, yet only one of them is going to add $10 billion to top line revenue through their new shiny product. So what’s the lesson for the rest of us? The good news is that this illustrates (once again) that understanding consumer aspirations is …
