Selling Fashion Online

10 most important merchandising tactics to create a winning homepage

Over the years, many have asked me what is the single most important consideration in merchandising the homepage. My answer has always been: “A clear, consitent, end-to-end branded experience that is right for the company, the brand, and the customers. Here are 10 important things to keep in mind:

1. Call out the value proposition. Clearly state the value proposition of the brand or site, particularly for brands that are less known. If yours isn't a widely known brand, overcome the shopper's understandable caution by giving prominence to guarantees and risk-free returns and exchanges.
2. Provide quick, easy and organized access. Provide customers with key links on the header and footer. Keeping navigation simple avoids the risk needlessly frustrating visitors and potentially losing a customer to a competitor's site.
3. Optimize global navigation. Expand the menu options to include the key departments. Allow the menu to be expanded as necessary to support events such as sales and clearance, holiday gifting and special launches or campaigns.
4. Front-and-center offers and promotions. Call out offers and promotions such as free shipping, gift with purchase (GWP), purchase with purchase (PWP), and others prominently. These are key conversion drivers.
5. Expand on the homepage real estate. Maximize the homepage real estate to support to the key merchandising, marketing, branding and multi-channel initiatives.
6. Merchandise for the broadest appeal. Until you arrive at personalization or one-to-one targeted messages, broaden the merchandising features to include the key categories, products, trends, and other merchandising initiatives to serve all your key segments.
7. Develop compelling copy. Copy must manufacture the intended feelings and create an immediate call-to-action and get users to click on the features.
8. Support the shopper's multi-channel requirements. Not everyone comes to your site to buy—some may be researching a retail purchase. It is crucial to understand what your customer wants to do on your site and design to accommodate the different customer segments.
9. Distortion. The more important a features, the more prominent it should be. A feature's importance for your site could be potential sales, higher margins, number of customer served, cross-channel support, etc.
10. Test, test, and test. It is necessary to conduct on-going version or multivariate testing in order to improve the effectivenessof the homepage.

How do you merchandise on the homepage? Are you satisfied with the homepage? How do you measure your success? What are your best practices? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comment section below.

Thanks! 

 

Follow us on Twitter.

Like us on Facebook. 

Follow us on Linked-in. 

Taking the customer through the purchase funnel to drive conversions

In the brick-and-mortar store, conversion is all about turning shoppers into buyers. In online retailing, it’s exactly the same — help shoppers find whatever they’re looking for and turn them into buyers. It is the conversion rate that ultimately translates into sales, the only real measure of success for any retailer.

But conversion remains a top challenge in online retailing. For the majority of retailers, conversion rates remain mediocre, in the low single digits.

In order to improve conversions, merchants must first understand the multiple kinds of online customers and their various shopping behaviors. Then, take them through the purchase funnel from the moment they land on a merchant’s website all the way through to checkout until an order is submitted or, alternately, completed through a visit to a brick-and-mortar store.

I have recently published an article on the key areas where merchants can effectively drive conversions on zippycart.com. To read the full article, please click here. 

 

Follow us on Twitter.

Like us on Facebook.

Follow us on Linkedin. 

The 25 links your fashion retail Web site can’t do without

Last week, we had a conversion about how many e-commerce Web sites are still positioned as cash registers without fully taking into account customer intent and behaviour. Not every customer goes to a Web site just to purchase. Customers go to a Web site to perform different tasks. Among them:

• to make a purchase
• to browse
• to research an item
• to get fashion tips
• to plan for a future purchase
• to do comparison shopping
• to check order status
• to locate a store
• to see what’s new
• to see what’s on sale
• to contact customer service
• to find out more about a brand or a company
• And more

And for most retail websites, a majority of the clicks take place in the header and the footer areas and outside of the main feature area. These links are critical to serve the different needs of multi-channel customers. And, whichever the page a customer lands on, these persistent links are always prominently displayed on the header and footer.

We benchmarked some top 100 fashion retail Web sites in the US, Canada and UK and came up with the following top 25 must-have links on a fashion retail Web site.

1. Search
2. Shopping cart
3. My account
4. Order tracking/Status
5. Telephone number
6. Contact us
7. Guarantee
8. Wish list
9. Gift cards
10. Customer service
11. Sizing/Size chart
12. Style/Fashion tips
13. Return & exchange
14. Payment options
15. Shipping
16. Store locator/Find a store
17. Shop catalogue
18. Security/Privacy/Terms
19. About us
20. Connect with us
21. Career/Jobs
22. Investors
23. International
24. FAQ
25. Site map

Each unique business will have its own few unique links. Which other links are critical to be prominently displayed in the header and footer areas of a fashion retail Web site? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comment section below.

 

Follow us on Twitters.

Like us on Facebook.

Follow us on Linkedin.