The Atlanta Journal Constitution featured AIS Media’s Chairman and CEO, Thomas Harpointner, for his expertise in e-Commerce on Cyber Monday. Harpointner weighed in with his top pitfalls retailers must avoid this holiday season. Harpointner highlighted that with e-Commerce growing 13%, or $ 21.3 billion, from 2008 to 2009 and with more than half of Americans yet to shop for the holidays, e-Tailers have ample opportunity to profit this holiday season. However with only 25 days remaining before Christmas, there is no time to lose. Retailers must optimize their online storefronts now to get their share from online shoppers.
Harpointner’s Top 5 e-Commerce Pitfalls To Avoid:
- Lack of Incentives
Despite the promising e-Commerce sales, shoppers still expect to be enticed to buy your product. The most popular incentives your competitors offer are: free shipping (and return shipping), % off on orders above specified amount, online purchase/offline pickup, and guaranteed delivery by the holidays. - Frustrating Navigation
Customers are not only cash-strapped this holiday season, but are also time poor. Any navigation kinks and obstacles that frustrate shoppers or impede their ability to quickly search, find, evaluate and purchase your inventory, must be eliminated. Shoppers must get to what they’re looking for in 3 clicks or less, otherwise look for a drop-off in traffic and shopping cart abandonment. Use strong calls to action and clear directions to make the purchase as easy as possible. - Customer No-Service
No matter how good the inventory, trust is king online—especially if your brand is less established. Do not force your customers to jump through hoops to contact actual employees. Commonly asked questions and customer service contact information should be in plain sight in your online storefront. Give options like email, telephone, and chat to instill a sense of trust. - Hidden Policies
Do not burry your store policies in mice print or at the end of the checkout process. Keep shipping, return, and coupon information at the forefront of the checkout process. Don’t send your customers to the competition by assuming you have reason to hide your policies. - Intrusive Information Gathering
Gathering pages of information about the shopper will result in fewer sales. If you ask for too much information, you’ll start to alienate and test your customers’ patience. Require only the information necessary to get the product to the customer, then provide an incentive to fill out additional information or gather the information in follow-up emails. With 57% of Americans still waiting to do their holiday shopping, or $77.2 billion dollars to be spent on e-Commerce (according to Rasmussen and eMarketer, respectively), e-Tailers can perfectly position themselves to reap the financial rewards if they go about it the right way.
AIS Media has been helping businesses cut costs and increase productivity since 1997. With consultants worldwide, AIS Media assists performance-driven companies implement and manage Interactive strategies. To contact an AIS Media consultant in your area click here.
