Less than a month after Yahoo pulled the plug on their popular Paid Inclusion program. The company has decided to outsource its shopping engine to PriceGrabber. This decision to exit the shopping engines won’t come as too much of a shock to those in the industry given Yahoo’s future plans with search advertising. However, it is surprising that they decided to give this business to PriceGrabber over Microsoft’s platform, Bing Shopping.

Perhaps Yahoo believes that by giving Microsoft their shopping business, they will eventually become too dependent on them. Either way, it should be interesting to see how this will play out for all parties involved.

Most importantly is how this will affect the advertisers. My suggestion would be to stay ahead of the game and open an account with PriceGrabber directly. Be ready to capture the major shift in traffic as the largest shopping engine outsources all their traffic to a direct a comparison shopping site. By advertising through these types of engines you have the ability to reach a more qualified audience.
 

This holiday season the keyword is incentives. Most consumers aren’t frivolously spending their money; they’re cutting back and searching for the best deals. If you want to be the retailer that they choose, you’d better consider incentives. This statement might sound forward, however the statistics don’t lie. Let’s look at some incentives that consumers are searching for before making a purchase.

Coupons are a big hit and they are becoming more popular. According to comScore, a global internet information provider, 62% of consumers are using coupons to help cut back on their shopping expenses. A survey by eMarketer, a market research company, shows that 59% of consumers will be using coupons to decrease their shopping expenses. Surprisingly enough, wealthy consumers, those that make $100,000 plus a year are turning to coupons. According to a survey by comScore, coupon site visits by the wealthy increased by 37% compared to this same period last year. Here’s a hint, if you have an ecommerce site, coupons are a definite plus and consumers will be looking for you.

Consumers are also motivated by free shipping. If I’ve heard it once I’ve heard it twice, “If a site doesn’t offer free shipping, I’ll find a site that does.” If you don’t believe me check the statistics. According to a survey by comScore, 72% of consumers said, “If an online retailer charged them for shipping they would search for an online retailer that offered free shipping.” Now more than ever before consumers are becoming more savvy. If a competitor is offering the same product with free shipping, I’d bet money that you’re going to lose the sale if you’re not offering the same.

Sales and deals are being sought out by consumers. Everyone loves a discount. According to a survey by e-Marketer, 40% of consumers will be looking for sales and 24% will be looking for deals in order to lower their shopping expenses. Why do you think Black Friday is such a busy shopping day, not to mention Cyber Monday which follows a few days later?

Incentives are the key this year. More and more consumers are comparison shopping and not just buying items on the first site they see. Comparison shopping sites are seeing an increase in traffic and more competitors are allocating their advertising budget towards online spending. If a retailer wants to be competitive this year, they need to have an incentive, even if it’s not coupons, free shipping or big sales, there needs to be an offer that tells the consumer they are getting the best deals on a particular site.

Today more than ever, sales are harder to come by and you should make sure you are not losing sales because your e-commerce site is not user friendly.  When you look at some of the most successful e-commerce sites, the overwhelming trend is that their shopping carts and buying processes are simple and easy to use.  Every year more people are relying on the internet to find and buy products and the new “converts” to online shopping often have a healthy dose of skepticism about the process.  They may have finally accepted the concept of buying a product online, but if they get too far out of their comfort zone, they will abandon your shopping cart in a heartbeat.  My wife is a perfect example of this new “online shopper”.

She recently made an online purchase for my parent’s anniversary and I asked her why she chose the company she decided to purchase from.  Not surprisingly, this company was not her first choice, but she decided to buy from them because it was easy and fast.  Initially, she was in the process of buying from another site, but dropped out of the ordering process because she got confused with all of the steps involved.  The site had a product she wanted, she started to make the purchase but in the end another company got her order!  When asked what confused her, she said there were too many steps and she became frustrated “with the whole deal”.

While some of these tips may seem over simplified, here are some ideas to keep in mind to ensure you don’t lose sales because your site isn’t user friendly:

1. Do not require the shopper to register before they make a purchase.  Instead, allow the registration process to be optional.  Most people shopping online, once they find what they are looking for just want to place the order and get moving.  While capturing customer data is important, it is still trumped by sales and shouldn’t be an obstacle to gain a new customer.
2. Keep the order screens clean and simple.  There is nothing wrong with having a small section of “related products” to show the shopper as they are finalizing their order but if you bombard them with 20 other product “specials” all over the page this can confuse the shopper.
3. Provide a clear and simple pre-confirmation page, showing all products being purchased with taxes and shipping (if applicable), so the shopper knows exactly what they will be charged before they click the “Place Order” button.  This is an important step to instill confidence in the shopper that they are only being charged for what they purchased and allows them to review the order before they checkout.
4. Provide the shopper an online confirmation page and online receipt and make it clear that the receipt is printable.  People expect a hard copy receipt when they make a purchase at their local store, it shouldn’t be any different when they purchase online. If they provided their email address during the order process, send a back up email confirmation and receipt to their email address.

These are just a few ideas to consider when streamlining your site’s ordering process.  The main objectives are convenience, simplicity, and user friendliness.  By doing so, you can help avoid customers getting frustrated with your site and buying from another company!