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Ecommerce articles on internet retail, online marketing, social media, SEO, and all things ecommerce from Elastic Path Software; Featuring the Get Elastic ecommerce podcast - conversations with industry insiders.

URL: http://www.getelastic.com

Updated: 1 hour 20 min ago

Bloggers Digest - 7/18/08

July 18, 2008 - 12:20pm

It’s exciting to be part of a growing blog…I must admit one of the first things I do in the morning is visit Get Elastic to check the Feedburner stats. So today was very exciting to see our subscriber count crack the 4,000 mark, making Get Elastic the most subscribed e-commerce blog in the world. So a big thank you to all of our valued readers who have subscribed, shared with friends and co-workers, bookmarked, blogged about and linked to Get Elastic and attended our webinars! Like they say on the airplanes, “we know you have options, thank you for flying with us.”

If you’d like to find more ecommerce blogs to subscribe to, I posted a list of as many as I’m aware of a while back, as well as non-blog resources for ecommerce topics.

And if you’re a new subscriber this week, welcome! Friday’s are traditionally link lists to recognize other blog posts that are helpful to online retailers.

Do testimonials help or hurt? You’ll never know for sure until you do your own testing, but before you test, you will benefit from the expert testing done by others. Marketing Experiments recently offered a free webinar on testimonial optimization. You can catch the replay of Are Your Testimonials Properly Optimized? complete with case studies.

Marketing bloggers are also web shoppers - and often our blog content is born out of personal experiences, positive and negative. Tim Peter and Andy Beal share their experiences this week, reminding us that customers don’t want to buy the wrong thing and overnight shipping shouldn’t take a week.

Invesp Consulting has a 2 part series on choosing an ecommerce platform, do check out Part 1 and Part 2. And don’t forget next month’s webinar is all about the ecommerce platform decision. (Though we are an ecommerce software company, the webinar will not be self-promotional).

Before you get too excited about Google’s improved Flash indexing, read Rand Fishkin’s 7 Compelling Reasons Search Engines and Flash Still Don’t Mix for a reality check. If your ecommerce site is still full Flash, remember your content still exists on one URL, among other issues.

Don’t have the budget for comparison engines but still want to play in the channel? Kevin Packler provides tips on how to optimize for Google Product Search over at the Mercent Blog.

Chad White spotted an email-contest idea from Circuit City - have customers create wishlists, register for an account and be entered into a $1000 sweepstakes draw. Chad notes this type of promotion encourages browsing and product attachment, not just entering a name and email in a draw.

The Art & Science of Choosing Ecommerce Technology

Free webinar: August 14th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Bernardine Wu, CEO, FitForCommerce
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Winner's of Signed Copies of Web Analytics: An Hour A Day

Phil (it was his Birthday, we had to)
Heather from Stacks & Stacks
Catherine from Reitmans
Brooke from Home Science Tools
Kim from Samsonite

Thanks to everyone who attended the webinar with Avinash Kaushik. It was the most registered, most attended, and highest rated webinar we've held to date! If you missed it, catch the on-demand version.

You may also like these similar posts:

Webinar Recap: Web Analytics Unleashed

July 17, 2008 - 12:30pm

We were thrilled to have Avinash Kaushik join us for 3 Things to Die For: Web Analytics Unleashed today. It was an information-packed hour with a brief question and answer period, but Avinash has a reputation for being very helpful answering questions via email and has invited you to get in touch with him to provide your feedback at ak AT marketmotive.com. Also, do not hesitate to post your questions in the comments of this post.

Even though this was an ecommerce webinar, everything Avinash talked about is useful to anyone with a website. If you missed it, want to bookmark the replay for future reference or forward this webinar to a friend, client or colleague, the 3 Things to Die For: Web Analytics Unleashed replay will be posted ASAP. You can also catch all our previous webinars in our archive.

(The winner of the signed copy of Web Analytics: An Hour a Day will be announced in our RSS feed, have you subscribed to Get Elastic yet?

Context (framework)

Data, data everywhere.

In the past, there was a quest to acquire lots and lots of analytics data. If one found himself unable to make decisions, it was from a lack of data. But in reality, we have access to way more data than we know what to do with. Companies will not die from lack of data!

The goal is not to collect more data – it’s about extracting insight from this data. Clickstream data is great to help understand the “what” – which products sold, what people do within the cart, where did visitors come from. But clickstream doesn’t address the “why” of visitor behavior. Many believe “if only I had enough path analysis data, I would understand the why.” The reality is, the web is a personal medium. Clickstream data alone is insufficient to explain the “why.”

Solution? Web Analytics 2.0

Reports doesn’t measure outcomes. So it’s key to expand the number of sources you have access to. Avinash lays the framework like this:

THE WHAT: Clickstream data
HOW MUCH: Multiple outcomes analysis (measuring micro and macro conversions)
THE WHY: Experimentation and testing (A/B, A/B/C and multivariate), voice of customer (surveys)
THE WHAT ELSE: Competitive intelligence (understanding whats going on outside your business, useful for benchmarking)
THE GOLD: Insights

This webinar’s focus is on The How Much and The Why. As wonderful as clickstream data is, ttesting and things you can take back to your business.

Insightful Outcomes from Measuring Multiple Goals (The How Much)

Most ecommerce folks have an obsession with conversion rate. This is a classic mistake, as it’s only one way to measure the direct value added by your website. Shop.org reports the average conversion rate for ecommerce websites as 1.74%. That means 98% + are doing something else on the website. Many of these things are actually micro-conversions such as:

Attracting leads for your business, or offline conversions
Improves customer satisfaction
Establishes you as a thought-leader or information resource (blog, articles, reports, guides)
Attracts human resources
Et cetera…

Every ecommerce and non-ecommerce website can learn more about how your website is truly adding value / impact to your business by focusing on the “non-converting” visits and measuring successes from them. This subtle shift in thinking will also help you value your website a lot more.

Avinash cited an example of how one company believed its website was adding $13 Million of value before measuring micro-conversions, and after realized it was really “worth” $43 Million to the business.

Assigning “Fake Dollars”

Even though Avinash’s blog is not an ecommerce site, he measures “All Posts” clicks, as it’s a stepping stone to becoming a subscriber (in the sense it measures deep interest in his content). He also tracks “About” page views - that makes him happy. He also measures page views for his Speaking Engagements page. With each goal assigned a dollar value, Avinash concluded his blog accounts for $19,000 of value overall.

Measuring this and trending it over time is key to showing decision makers the value of the website and almost always leads to better questions.

Avinash used Fidelity Investments as an example. Since Fidelity does a lot of business in its physical locations, measuring the sue of the zipcode search box can show you customer intent by geography.

Repeat Visitors. Loyalty is certainly a measure of success. You should look at distributions of data – perhaps 40% visit once, and 2.80% visit 201+ times per month. You want to understand what kinds of content your loyal visitors are consuming. What kind of cross sells can you show them? And so on.

Visitor Recency. Another measure of success is visitor recency. Who comes every day and why? How can you better meet their needs?

Pay attention to visit number, time since previous visit, depth of visit (page views) and length of visits (seconds).

So, it’s very important to figure out what are the multiple goals, and ask yourself “am I doing anything for the 98% that are not converting?” And, “how do I extract value from that?” Measure outcomes first, then look for reasons and things to fix.

Your ecommerce website is not a one night stand. Understand how many visits are made before conversion with Visits to Purchase and Days to Purchase. Then, segment by acquisition channel to understand the differences in behavior from visitors who arrive through affiliate links vs. PPC vs. organic and so on. Paid search traffic (research mode) may take a few visits to convert. Pre-sold affiliate traffic may convert right away. Understand why your goals are or are not being accomplished.

Your Top Landing Page reports are a great place to start, then segment by traffic source.

Capturing the Voice of the Customer (The Why)

This is about giving a real voice to people on your website – not a fake voice. Give site visitors a channel to communicate and they will. The best way is to use surveys on-exit (not to interrupt the visit).

Avinash says the greatest survey in the world has 3 questions.

Why are you here? Your survey could have the following fields:

Researching
Looking to purchase
Product / service support
Check product order status
Register a product
Update information
Other

Were you able to complete your task? Yes / No

This is important. What if 44% of your customers report that they were looking to purchase and couldn’t complete the task?!

If you couldn’t complete, why not?

Pay attention to the feedback! Look for “segments of discontent” and really understand what are the things that are broken. Not your web usability team pontificating on what might be wrong, but really using that customer feedback.

Avinash and iPerceptions have created 4Q, an on-exit survey that uses these key question. Oh yes, it’s also free!

Experimentation and Testing

You may have heard that many decisions are the result of the HiPPO, or Highest Paid Person’s Opinion. (Did you know this was coined by Avinash’s former employer, Intuit?) Perhaps the HiPPO is responsible for the home page design and content, and it’s hard for you to argue against the HiPPO!

A tip: Learn to prove HiPPOs wrong and quickly. Then you can create an “ideas democracy” where
everyone in the company has an equal voice and are allowed to try ideas. Google Website Optimizer can do A/B/C testing for free, or use a paid tool like Offermatica. But use something! Small, big or medium sized business, anyone can get their hands on a tool and get testing in as little as 6.5 minutes!

The simple A/B or A/B/C test is running 2 versions of a page, with one variable on each page. You are testing to see which version of the variable (like home page image, or headline) performs better against the “control” version.

MVT or “multivariate testing” is a bit sexier. Catch the webinar replay to find out if an endorsement from Oprah can sell more popcorn than a plug from the Today Show. Thanks to MVT, a popcorn e-tailer tested these 2 endorsements with various text promotions at the same time: Spotlight Gift vs. Spotlight Product vs. Customer Favorite, vs. Customer Favorite with Image A (Bags) Image B (tubs).

In this case, Combination 11, with 99% confidence, improved conversion by 24.9%.

Surveys and testing are essential to achieving True Customer Centricity. Involve customers in your website decision making process and you can make better decisions.

One more thing…

Avinash has a word of wisdom he calls the 10/90 Rule: of every $100 you have to spend on web analytics, spend $10 on the tool and $90 on great brains (your web analyst, and not someone who will just “puke reports.” Invest in good people, and even hire a consultant for a few months before bringing someone in house.

Questions

1. Should you implement surveys at the beginning, in the middle, upon exit or post-transaction?

Avinash has experimented with different approaches and prefers on exit pops up when people leave your website. The advantage is you don’t interrupt them in any way (better response quality, better participation rates). Another way is serving pop-under surveys to visitors who engage a bit more with your site than the typical visitor. The pop-under will be noticed when they close the browser.

2. Surveys and analytics – what to test first if you have limited resources?

Avinash would pick surveys because, even though there is a lot of data in analytics, but if you’re not giving your customers a voice, it’s very difficult to be customer centric. Give your customers a feedback channel. Then you go fix those problems you have on your website.

However, this doesn’t have to be either/or. Both analytics and surveys are available free through Google Analytics of 4Q.

Start with A/B testing - it’s straightforward and easy to do. Make dramatic changes and test them. Then tackle multivariate tests, with small tweaks here and there. Start with high Bounce Rate pages in your testing.

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Categories: Vancouver Blogs, Vancouver Business Blogs, Vancouver Technology Blogs

Saving Sales With Triggered Coupons

July 16, 2008 - 6:00am

Out of all the Internet Retailer Top 500, I’ve only found one that offers incentives to web surfers who look around without purchasing. When you close your browser tab or window, a pop-up chat window appears:

123Inkjets.com is using UpSellit.com’s SMARTagent product to re-engage visitors that exit prematurely from the site, the cart or a form. According to UpSellit, clients see sales increases of 5-20%.

It appears site visitors only have one go at the offer. If you close the box and return again on the same day it won’t pop back up. Of course, it could use browser cookies and it could reappear after cookies expire or you delete them.

The Art & Science of Choosing Ecommerce Technology

Free webinar: August 14th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Bernardine Wu, CEO, FitForCommerce
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Winner's of Signed Copies of Web Analytics: An Hour A Day

Phil (it was his Birthday, we had to)
Heather from Stacks & Stacks
Catherine from Reitmans
Brooke from Home Science Tools
Kim from Samsonite

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Categories: Vancouver Blogs, Vancouver Business Blogs, Vancouver Technology Blogs

Bad Bad Bad Bad Ads Dont Make Me Feel So Good

July 15, 2008 - 6:00am

Running ads on your ecommerce website can be very confusing to customers, especially when it competes with the product image or resembles a customer service function like live chat.

*Shudder*

Tamara Adlin shares other examples of bad, bad, bad, bad ads on her blog, Corporate Underpants. And no, in this case bad does not mean good.

The Art & Science of Choosing Ecommerce Technology

Free webinar: August 14th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Bernardine Wu, CEO, FitForCommerce
Register to Attend...

Winner's of Signed Copies of Web Analytics: An Hour A Day

Phil (it was his Birthday, we had to)
Heather from Stacks & Stacks
Catherine from Reitmans
Brooke from Home Science Tools
Kim from Samsonite

You may also like these similar posts:

Categories: Vancouver Blogs, Vancouver Business Blogs, Vancouver Technology Blogs

Making Emails Enticing to Everyone

July 14, 2008 - 6:00am

As email marketers, we never know what mindset email recipients will be in at any given time. So a good idea is to design your copy and creative to speak to all personality types/buying modalities: competitive, spontaneous, methodical and humanistic. If this makes you go “hmmm?” make sure you check out our explanation of the buying modes in our personas webinar and webinar recap.

For example, I’m in the market for a GPS. I’m not actively researching one right now, but it’s “on my radar.” Being methodical, I usually research the heck out of something before I buy. I read reviews, compare products, compare retailers. I just don’t have the time to look into my GPS purchase now.

But I recently received an email that caught my attention. The headline read:

“Initial GPS is All Sold Out! Here’s A Magellan Instead from Comp-U-Plus!”

Though I’m usually methodical, if an email like this could cut out my research time and tell me why I can’t go wrong with {featured product} and give me a deal - I just might wax spontaneous and convert today.

So, how does Comp-U-Plus “speak” to all four buying modes in this email? Let’s break it down:

Headline

This would have made a good trigger email if I had viewed the Initial GPS recently on Comp-U-Plus as a registered, logged in customer. Or if I had added it to my cart and abandoned the purchase. But since that’s not the case, I assume this email was sent to all subscribers.

First off, some people may be confused by the wording of this headline. “Initial” is a brand of GPS (I was not aware prior to this email), but also is an adjective, noun and verb. Worst case scenario, the message comes across as:

“Our first GPS is All Sold Out! Here’s Our Second Best Instead!”

“GPS Personalized With Your Initials are All Sold Out, But We’ve Got Magellan”

Okay, maybe this is a stretch, but these are examples of lost-in-translation subject lines.

Assuming there’s no confusion, this headline may appeal to the competitive shopper, who responds to best-seller merchandising. Unfortunately, competitives also want to own the best-seller, so offering a “consolation prize” is counter-productive. Same with humanistics who trust others’ opinions. If so many people love the Initial, what about the Magellan makes it equally attractive?

Really, the body of this email needs to give compelling and persuasive back-up for why someone should buy a Magellan today from Comp-U-Plus instead of buying an the Initial from a competitor.

Before we move on, please note that nowhere in the email does Comp-U-Plus address back-orders or restocking of the Initial.

Competitive Shoppers

Likes to be the first to own a product, responds to new items, featured or best-sellers. Naturally, competitives want to win, so “…consolation prize! Grab it before it’s gone too!” is fitting - although consolation prize does suggest someone is not a winner…

“…fastest GPS position accuracy in the industry” is a powerful selling proposition. The product description would serve competitives who prefer to scan copy better as a bullet list.

Competitives are less likely to comparison shop and read lots of text, so making a compelling sales pitch in the email copy is essential. This text is also readable with images off.

Offering exclusive web-only prices for a limited time speaks to competitives who like to have the edge on the regular folk.

Spontaneous Shoppers

Responds to sales, discounts, limited stock and time-limited offers (like day-only sales), so this campaign is appropriate.

Spontaneous are text scanners, so bullets would be better here, too. They like to see products in action, a link to a demo video would be great. Or an enlarged image.

They’re interested in what others bought, and how popular. Including a customer review star-rating and “how many” reviews there are for the Maestro model may help that spontaneous conversion.

Methodical Shoppers

Likes product details, very thorough in researching a purchase. So providing a product description and link to more details is great.

Unfortunately, the product description doesn’t explain how the Maestro model is comparable to the Initial. Methodicals like side-by-side comparisons.

“Fastest GPS position accuracy in the industry” is a powerful selling proposition - but as a methodical, I want back-up and proof before I believe the hype. But if I’m really interested I will read more, and hope the site has enough information for me to make the right decision.

I like the phone number option, I can ask questions of the CSR in real-time. I just hope the CSR is knowledgable about the product.

Humanistic Shoppers

Star ratings and a sample review would help persuade humanistics, who value the opinions of others. The telephone number is great too, he or she knows a person is available to talk through the purchase and answer questions.

The gratuitous use of exclamation points aside, Comp-U-Plus’ email includes something for every buying mode. It also provides links to other categories if the featured offer doesn’t do it for you.

My recommendations would be to tweak the copy to include:

Bullet points to make it easier to scan
An average star rating and link to all reviews (unfortunately there are none that belong to Comp-U-Plus.com)
Some idea of how the Maestro compares to the Initial
Information on how to backorder the Initial.

And the landing page could definitely use some optimization:

There’s no price on the landing page to confirm the promise made in the email (you have to click to see a pop-up, but that’s confusing). If you need to hide prices from the public because they are so low, you could create a custom landing page for your email campaign that’s not linked to from the rest of your site (like you would for an A/B test) and show the price.

What’s worse is the recommendations for similar items, with star ratings, from other retailers (powered by Shopping.com) appear on the landing page.

*Smacks head*

The Art & Science of Choosing Ecommerce Technology

Free webinar: August 14th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Bernardine Wu, CEO, FitForCommerce
Register to Attend...

Winner's of Signed Copies of Web Analytics: An Hour A Day

Phil (it was his Birthday, we had to)
Heather from Stacks & Stacks
Catherine from Reitmans
Brooke from Home Science Tools
Kim from Samsonite

You may also like these similar posts:

Categories: Vancouver Blogs, Vancouver Business Blogs, Vancouver Technology Blogs

Win 1 of 5 Signed Copies of Web Analytics: An Hour A Day!

July 11, 2008 - 9:54am

Just a friendly Friday reminder to reserve your spot for next Thursday’s webinar with Avinash Kaushik, 3 Things to Die For: Web Analytics Unleashed.

Response has been overwhelming and there are limited spaces. Again, this free, one hour class will include a time for questions with Avinash at the end, and every attendee is eligible to win a copy of Web Analytics: An Hour a Day. So sign up today!

You can also catch up with a whole year’s worth of webinars in our archive.

The Art & Science of Choosing Ecommerce Technology

Free webinar: August 14th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Bernardine Wu, CEO, FitForCommerce
Register to Attend...

Winner's of Signed Copies of Web Analytics: An Hour A Day

Phil (it was his Birthday, we had to)
Heather from Stacks & Stacks
Catherine from Reitmans
Brooke from Home Science Tools
Kim from Samsonite

You may also like these similar posts:

Categories: Vancouver Blogs, Vancouver Business Blogs, Vancouver Technology Blogs

Bloggers Digest - 7/11/08

July 11, 2008 - 9:00am

Big day for Get Elastic today, Marketing Pilgrim announced that 8 Stupid Things Webmasters Do to Mess Up Their Analytics captured first prize in the 3rd Annual SEM Scholarship contest. Big thanks to all of you who supported me by checking out the article, blogging about it, Sphinning, Stumbling and socially-bookmarking it!

And for you analytics buffs, did I mention we’ll be chatting for a full hour on web analytics with Avinash Kaushik next week?

If you’re new here (maybe you followed the link from Marketing Pilgrim or found us through a search engine today), every Friday we link out to others, but if you’re looking for the best of Get Elastic, you can check out the Best of the Blog to your right, or check out Why Ecommerce is a Lot Like ICanHasCheezburger which links to my favorite posts organized by topic. This should keep you busy for a while, and if you like our stuff, please subscribe!

Okay, without further ado, here are the links for the week:

Big news from Google, you can now see hard search volume numbers with the Google Keyword Tool. This is really helpful for your keyword research that you can apply to all areas of marketing: organic SEO, PPC, email marketing, etc.

Is your copy optimized for skimming and scanning? Some great tips from GrokDotCom.

It’s always hard to pick just one article from Grok, so here’s a couple more: How to do A/B Testing on Lower Traffic Sites and 5 Copywriting Keys to Landing Page Credibility.

Yep, it’s that time of year again - Christmas is just around the corner and according to Internet Retailer, you should be ready to promote by October. Join Sitebrand on July 30 for a quick 29 minute webinar and learn what was Danskin’s secret to Cyber Monday success.

If you’re jonesing for even more ecommerce posts, the German hit Exciting Commerce has launched an English edition, highlighting new business models and emerging markets in ecommerce.

Tom Lindmeier, Get Elastic reader, blogger friend and former director of e-commerce for a Top 500 retailer is available for e-mail marketing consulting. Thought you might be interested…

The Art & Science of Choosing Ecommerce Technology

Free webinar: August 14th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Bernardine Wu, CEO, FitForCommerce
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Winner's of Signed Copies of Web Analytics: An Hour A Day

Phil (it was his Birthday, we had to)
Heather from Stacks & Stacks
Catherine from Reitmans
Brooke from Home Science Tools
Kim from Samsonite

You may also like these similar posts:

Categories: Vancouver Blogs, Vancouver Business Blogs, Vancouver Technology Blogs

Product Photography: How To Achieve The Ghost Mannequin Effect

July 10, 2008 - 6:00am

A conversation emerged out of the comments on last week’s post Can Product Images Improve Conversion? Showing Products in Context about how to achieve a “ghost” mannequin effect like these examples, where the body is filled out, you can see through the V-line but the mannequin is invisible.

As the post explained, showing products “in context” can be more persuasive than flat images - models and mannequins give customers an idea of how a garment fits a real person. I recently researched how to achieve the invisible mannequin look and found answers like:

Make a mannequin out of a very open wire mesh, and then edit the mesh out in post. You could even paint the mesh with green or something like that and chroma-key it out.

Make a mannequin out of a thin, cheap material (perhaps even wire mesh again) and put the garment on it, and position the camera. Then, start cutting away the mannequin in all the places where it’s visible to the camera, even with the shirt over it. You’d end up cutting off it’s left arm, part of it’s left ’shoulder blade’ and some stuff around the neck.

-djlemma, from Flickr discussion

and

Looking at a few of the examples I reckon the mannequin is being chopped out. Looking at some of the tops you can see no back to the item even if there is a lower front if you see what I mean.

An ideal solution could be to get a mannequin and a background with a strong colour. Take the photo then in Photoshop make a clear layer below the image layer so you have a transparent background. On the photo layer click the Select main menu item and choose “Color range” and click the mannequin colour on the photo. It should select just this colour, use the sensitivity slider to get the best selection and the just cut it out. Do the same with the background. It is not the quickest but compared to hand tracing each item and mannequin area it would potentially save a lot of time.

-MickeyFinn, from Freelance UK Forums

I noticed a couple photographers left comments on our post, so I tossed out the question, what’s the best way to achieve the ghost mannequin look? Anna Yeaman, professional photographer who specializes in product photography for apparel and accessories shared the following:

Two years ago I tried plastic and wireframe mannequins to achieve the “ghost” effect but I was not happy with the results. Also this limits the types of mannequin you can use.

I sometimes combine two images in Photoshop if its just a small part of the label I’m after.

I never found a simple way to do this in-camera, I decided that there must be custom made mannequins out there but could never find them. I considered taking a saw to one of my own and cutting out the chest area!

I’m going to renew my efforts and contact some websites using this effect. I will let you know how it goes. Most of my clients are after the Bluefly.com look and don’t mind the mannequin.

One thing I do a lot is take a photo on a mannequin, in Photoshop I edit out parts of the mannequin that are showing (around the hem, arms ect). You end up with an item with shape and form without a mannequin showing, but you cannot see through to the back…We take multiple angle shots and close ups of every item instead.

I have a hook that I hang bags off, then I edit it out later in Photoshop. For earrings I use clear fishing wire (craft shop), the earrings hang perfectly and the wire is invisible. I also use a clear plastic board for studs (I drilled a small hole) and clip ons (clip onto the bottom).

In a follow-up comment:

I contacted a bunch of product photographers to find out how they achieved the “ghost” effect.

John Gibbens of, G2 Catalog Design sent me this reply,

“We either shoot two images and piece together or we use an inexpensive plastic mannequin supported from below (for shirt/jacket images) whose neck is cut down below the open neckline. We then keep a couple different lengths of removable arms to fill sleeves - long arms with hands cut off for long-sleeve items and shorter arms for short sleeve garments.”

So we can conclude that the invisible mannequin look, though very slick, takes a bit of pre and post production effort. Another alternative would be to shoot a flat image and mannequin shot, so customers can still see the product on a form and see through the V-line. Works for Net-A-Porter…

The Art & Science of Choosing Ecommerce Technology

Free webinar: August 14th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Bernardine Wu, CEO, FitForCommerce
Register to Attend...

Winner's of Signed Copies of Web Analytics: An Hour A Day

Phil (it was his Birthday, we had to)
Heather from Stacks & Stacks
Catherine from Reitmans
Brooke from Home Science Tools
Kim from Samsonite

You may also like these similar posts:

Categories: Vancouver Blogs, Vancouver Business Blogs, Vancouver Technology Blogs

Book Review - Web Analytics: An Hour a Day by Avinash Kaushik

July 9, 2008 - 6:00am

Last Christmas, I picked myself up a copy of Avinash Kaushik’s Web Analytics: An Hour a Day. (I read about 50 marketing and ecommerce blog feeds each week, so it’s a real treat to read top-notch marketing material offline from time to time). And now with the warm and sunny weather, I’m finding myself sneaking outside for around an hour a day to give it a second run through.

Since we’re having Avinash as our webinar guest this month, I figured now’s a good time to share my review of the book with Get Elastic readers.

Who It’s For

Web Analytics: An Hour a Day by Avinash Kaushik is a great primer on web analytics for any webmaster, business owner, programmer or marketer. You don’t have to be a techie to “get it.” In fact, if you’re not a techie, you should read it simply to understand the basics of how data is collected on the web.

Because web analytics is as much art as science (perhaps more so), even seasoned web analysts can glean from Avinash’s strategies, tips and tactics. Plus, page 85 to 92 is all about what makes a great web analyst (aren’t you curious?), and there is an advanced analytics chapter that is sure to challenge your thinking.

Although Avinash is Google Analytics’ ambassador, it’s not a Google Analytics guide, nor is it biased to any particular analytics tool. The principles can be applied to free, mid-sized or enterprise tools.

Format

Web Analytics: An Hour a Day starts off with a few chapters to bring you up to speed on what analytics is, the different tools available and how they work, types of data and common challenges of web analytics. You’ll learn the “what,” the “why you should care” and the “what you should care about” of each item.

This is followed up with invaluable advice on what to look for in a Web analyst, a detailed guide to choosing the best analytics solution for your business (without finding out after spending a ton of money that it was the wrong tool) and how to ensure your tracking is set up properly.

Once you’re settled with your tool, the book continues with an 8 month plan for understanding the major capabilities of web analytics in — you got it — an hour a day. Each day you’ll do a little bit of reading, and the rest of the hour you’re hands on with your data. Kaushik covers all the bases - SEO, search engine marketing (PPC), internal site search, email marketing, multi-channel marketing, blogging and RSS tracking.

The content in Web Analytics: An Hour a Day is valuable for anyone who is involved in ecommerce - even if your title is not “Web Analyst.” Just like you must understand financial statements and balance sheets, even if you have an accountant, Web Analytics: An Hour A Day will help you understand your analytics data and reports.

Win a Copy of Web Analytics: An Hour a Day

If you haven’t read Web Analytics: An Hour a Day (or even if you have), please sign up for our upcoming Webinar, Thursday, July 17. Avinash will be presenting 3 Things to Die For: Web Analytics Unleashed, and every participant is eligible to win one of 6 signed copies of Web Analytics: An Hour a Day. And if you have a burning question for the analytics master, this is your chance as there is time for questions at the end. For details, and to sign up click here.

You’ll also do yourself a favor by checking out Avinash’s blog Occam’s Razor. It’s top notch content, and he responds thoughtfully to every comment and email. There’s an archive of podcasts and other media coverage on his blog, which will tide you over until next Thursday.

The Art & Science of Choosing Ecommerce Technology

Free webinar: August 14th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Bernardine Wu, CEO, FitForCommerce
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Winner's of Signed Copies of Web Analytics: An Hour A Day

Phil (it was his Birthday, we had to)
Heather from Stacks & Stacks
Catherine from Reitmans
Brooke from Home Science Tools
Kim from Samsonite

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Social Media Campaigns: When MySpace is Already TheirSpace

July 8, 2008 - 6:00am

Luxury retailer Cartier recently launched a MySpace presence for its Love by Cartier campaign. But it faces an interesting reputation management issue: since MySpace already has hundreds of profiles that use the name Cartier (it is a surname, after all).

If you type in “Cartier MySpace” in Google, this is what you get:

If someone really wants to find the page, they may head over to MySpace and use it’s site search box, and still not find the official page:

You have to type “Love By Cartier” in Google or MySpace to get the link to the Cartier MySpace page (at time of posting, algorithm changes or incoming links to Cartier’s page may change that).

Yahoo’s algorithm does select the right page for “Cartier MySpace”:

Though you can’t control how Google matches pages to the search term (duplicate content filter in action), you can build links to the page you want to rank well to help boost its “Page Rank” which may cause it to beat out other pages in the search engine’s index. (If the search engine indexed 500+ pages from MySpace relevant to the term “Cartier”, it only picks 1 to show in search results, 2 if it uses an indented second result).

Cartier could also nag MySpace to tweak its internal search to rank its page tops for “Cartier” searches, especially since this is an advertising partnership between the two.

This is also an example of why brands should really claim their social network profile names / domains / Facebook Pages and Groups proactively, even if they just sit on them. It’s easy for net citizens to beat you to the punch which makes it harder for you to be found in search engines and social network searches.

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Free webinar: August 14th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Bernardine Wu, CEO, FitForCommerce
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Winner's of Signed Copies of Web Analytics: An Hour A Day

Phil (it was his Birthday, we had to)
Heather from Stacks & Stacks
Catherine from Reitmans
Brooke from Home Science Tools
Kim from Samsonite

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Does Your Ecommerce Website Speak to Howsers?

July 7, 2008 - 6:00am

Say what?

Marketing Experiments has found the highest performing ecommerce sites address customer motivation, and most visitors are either “hunters” or “browsers”:

1. Hunters already know what they want. They want to find the product quickly and easily. Usable site search, navigation menus and filters are essential to convert hunters.
2. Browsers may be contemplating a purchase, or just “window shopping.” Your goal is to get them to click deeper to products with enticing offers like top rated, best sellers, sale items and new arrivals.

I’d like to add a third category: “howsers.” (Hunter-browsers, not underage doctors.) Howsers are customers that are ready to buy from a certain category but they’re not sure what they want/need from that category. This type of customer is the best of both worlds - closer to conversion (needs stuff ASAP) and more open to suggestive selling and cross-sells. Examples would be someone who’s looking for gifts for an 8 year old boy or redecorating a living room.

Let’s take the example of someone planning a family camping trip next month, but has little to no equipment — like a family of four that has waited 10 years until the youngest rug-rat was old enough to rough it for a week in the woods. (Think personas!)

Example: Sports & Outdoors Retailers and Doogie Howser

Let’s call this fictional family the Howsers, and assume daddy Doogie’s in charge of kitting out the clan for camping. A typical Doogie:

May have little or no knowledge of camping, or it’s been a while
Wants to create a memory
Doesn’t want to get “caught without” - wants to ensure he grabs everything necessary for survival and safety in the bush (and doesn’t want to get blamed for forgetting!)
Is willing to buy multiple products to ensure a) beautiful memories and b) survival without suffering
Appreciates product guides and suggestive selling
Is willing to invest in gear for next summer, and the summer after that…

Our second assumption is that Doogie begins his quest for gear on a sports and outdoors retailer’s home page. The first objective of the home page is to guide Mr. Howser to the virtual camping department and to assure him this is the right online shop to do business with today.

Do typical outdoor gear retailers do this effectively?

OutdoorGB.com

The only slightly relevant links to camping gear are in the cluttered top sellers menu on the left (highlighting mine).
There is a camping category, but it’s hidden behind the Outdoor menu. Have trouble spotting that tab? It’s second from the left.
You must click the Outdoor tab (if you predict camping gear is found behind the veil) to see subcategories, there’s no preview with a dropdown or AJAX flyout menu (example of that is coming up…)

Cabelas

Cabelas has a link, but it doesn’t stand out against other categories.
Count the competing calls to action: shop the sale of over 2,000 unspecified items, shop the bargain bin (probably winter stock), find a store location, get a Visa, buy a boat, get a gun, request a catalog, pick up in store, find an outdoor adventure…
The menu link and the search box are the only options to find camping products. Customers who look closely will get to their destination, but this is not optimal usability/design.

Altrec

Camping Equipment is a featured link, indicating Altrec believes a significant number of site visitors are interested in that category right now.
Behind the Gear button, camping subcategories can be found, though the menu is very long and even has its own scroll bar.
There is nothing in the body of the page that speaks to our case-persona, Doogie Howser.

Backcountry

Camp / Hike is placed at the top of the Gear menu on the left (we can assume this changes with the season).
For customers who tend to scan text, an image of a tent and a list of camping subcategories helps the visitor hone in on subcategories, and see that Backcountry carries a range of products. This helps reassure the customer of convenience of shopping from one store (save time, effort and perhaps shipping). Backcountry has placed this list above the fold.

REI

REI makes “Camping & Hiking” the first link in its horizontal navigation menu, and links from the left menu.
There are a couple references to camping in the body.
Below: Using a hover menu, you can see the full range of camping subcategories without clicking. It’s nicely organized into Gear, Electronics, Kitchen and Safety - REI likely has everything Doogie needs and he can find it easily.

Cotswold

Camping & Festivals appears first in left hand navigation, and there are links in body copy to camping products.
Featured Item and Offer of the Month are camping-related.

When you click on the Camping & Festivals link, you get a submenu with options that may appeal to our persona: Camping Starter Packs, 3 & 4 Person Tents and The Family Unit. You can tell Cotswold has thought through customer segments and purchase scenarios.
The starter packs are a great example of product bundling. Remove the paradox of choice and provide expert advice / service at the same time.
The “Family Unit” section includes products that are not necessarily camping gear but are relevant cross sells, like kites.

I didn’t see anything compelling on these home pages, but I did spot a good example on L.L. Bean’s camping category page. “Our Best Selection of Family Tents Ever” gives purpose to the image and a persuasive message to check out the tents.

I’m not arguing that outdoor gear sites have to cater to campers this month. Rather, if campers are an attractive and profitable segment at this time of year, most of these home pages leave opportunities on the table. Checking out a handful of competitors (wearing the “hat” of your persona) can give you ideas on how to adjust your site for maximum promotions - what to redesign or what to test.

Of course, if you can predict what people are looking for when customers land on your home page you can deliver more relevant offers. Sitebrand’s personalization suite allows you to serve up different home page and landing page messaging based on referral keywords from search engines.

How do you identify attractive customer segments / product categories?

1. Historical sales data, especially seasonal trends.

2. Google Trends keyword search data:

You can research different product categories like climbing gear, fishing gear, hiking gear and camping gear; or even synonyms for keywords like camping equipment, camping gear, camping tents and camping supplies.

The beauty of Google Trends is you can further segment by geography:

You may discover that UK residents are 12 times more likely to use the term “equipment” than “gear.” Make sure your category labels and marketing messages use the most common terms for each market you serve. You may even apply this to your SEO, PPC and email subject lines.

3. Web analytics keyword and conversion data. (Don’t miss our upcoming webinar with Analytics legend Avinash Kaushik July 17th.)

Once you select your focus, you need to brainstorm purchase scenarios where a customer might buy a range of your products all at the same time (cha-ching), especially for seasonal product. Then make sure your home page speaks to this customer, and the rest of your site (categorization, navigation, merchandising, searchandising et cetera) supports the sales process. You may even want to do some usability testing as well.

The Art & Science of Choosing Ecommerce Technology

Free webinar: August 14th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Bernardine Wu, CEO, FitForCommerce
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Winner's of Signed Copies of Web Analytics: An Hour A Day

Phil (it was his Birthday, we had to)
Heather from Stacks & Stacks
Catherine from Reitmans
Brooke from Home Science Tools
Kim from Samsonite

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Bloggers Digest 7/4/08

July 4, 2008 - 3:30am

Hellooooo? Anyone out there? Just want to wish a happy Fourth of July to all our American friends.

If you’re carving time out of your long weekend celebrations to read Get Elastic, we thank you! And here are some links you may also enjoy:

If you are puzzled on how to track offline conversions, read and bookmark 7 best practices for tracking offline conversions. I’m continually impressed with the quality of free information Avinash gives away on his blog, and I look forward to July 17th when Avinash joins us for a live webinar called 3 Things to Die For: Web Analytics Unleashed. Sign up for your chance to win one of 5 copies of Kaushik’s book Web Analytics: An Hour a Day.

The name says it all: Tips for Selling High-Ticket Items via Paid Search in Today’s Tough Economy, from the Rimm-Kaufman Blog.

While we’re talkin’ PPC, Justin Palmer has 25 PPC survival tips you should check out. 3 Customer Confidence Builders is also an excellent read.

Can you trust machines to handle your keyword research? George Michie says “Don’t let machines write your keyword lists!”

A Get Elastic reader created her own list of shopping LOLcats inspired by yesterday’s post Why Ecommerce is Like ICanHasCheezburger.

Considering comparison engines as a marketing channel? Chip Arndt from EtailDtail explains why online retailers should use comparison shopping engines, including 7 steps to success. You can also find an impressive roundup of the most popular shopping engines courtesy of Merchant Advantage.

Good newsflash if you use Flash to deliver rich media experiences, Google’s working hard to improve Flash indexing including text and links without any effort on your part.

The Art & Science of Choosing Ecommerce Technology

Free webinar: August 14th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Bernardine Wu, CEO, FitForCommerce
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Winner's of Signed Copies of Web Analytics: An Hour A Day

Phil (it was his Birthday, we had to)
Heather from Stacks & Stacks
Catherine from Reitmans
Brooke from Home Science Tools
Kim from Samsonite

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Why eCommerce is a Lot Like ICanHasCheezburger

July 3, 2008 - 6:00am

ICanHasCheezburger is a photoblog where users can submit funny cat pictures with captions. Users are encouraged to “Lolspeak” which has evolved into common buzzwords like “oh hai,” “ur doing it wrong,” “srsly” and “kthxbai.” A lot of people surf ICHC while they’re supposed to be working.

Ecommerce websites upload product pictures and descriptions. Etailers speak gibberish like “average conversion rate,” “landing page optimization” and “Geo-IP targeting.” A lot people shop online when they’re supposed to be working.

Today’s post is a tribute to online retailers and cat lovers everywhere. For each ecommerce topic, there is a Cheezburger pic and a link to a related article (most on Get Elastic, a few from our blogger frendz). Hope u likez. (If you’re on Sphinn or Mixx you can also Sphinn it or Mixx it).

Search Engine Marketing

SEO Myths

Jill Whalen’s Top 10 SEO Organic Myths
Lee Odden’s 5 Myths About SEO
Tadeusz Szewczyk’s Top 10 SEO Myths V2

Improving Click Through Rates

Short URLs Attract 250% Higher Click-Through in Organic Search
An Example of Excellent Search Result Marketing
PPC Advertising: Are You Selling Yourself in Your Ads?

Analytics

Marketing Pilgrim Guest Post: 8 Stupid Things Webmasters Do To Mess Up Their Analytics
Problogger Guest Post: Almost 7 Ways to Re-Optimize Your Blog Posts
All of our posts tagged analytics

Product Pages

Product Descriptions

Improve Product Descriptions Using Customer Reviews
Janet Meiners’ What Customers Want: More Detailed Product Descriptions

Show Products in Context

Can Product Images Improve Conversion?

Calls-to-Action / Cart Buttons

107 Add to Cart Buttons of Top Online Retailers
Call to Action Buttons: Does Size Matter?

Image Zoom

How Top Retailers Show Product Images

Increasing Average Order Value

Merchandising

Webinar: Effective Online Merchandising, What Sells?
Crazy Ecommerce Video: Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought…
Check out all merchandising posts

Up-selling / Cross-Selling

Cross-Selling Tips for Online Retailers
User Generated Cross-Sells, Why Isn’t Anyone Doing It?
Read all cross-selling posts

Product Subscriptions

Amazon’s Novel Way to Increase Customer Loyalty
Asking Customers to Go Steady: Tips for Repeat Orders

Design and Usability

Site Navigation

See all posts about site navigation

Alternative Navigation

Office Max Reinvents Navigation

Site Search

Why You Should Turn On Google Site Search Today
Optimizing Site Search for Non-Product Information
Crazy Ecommerce Video: Zero Results Found
See all site-search articles

Pop-Ups

Design Vs. Art Blog: Pop-ups Are Bad for Usability

Slow Loading Pages

Alan Rimm-Kaufman shares tips for speeding up your site’s load time
Crazy Ecommerce Video: Banana-rama-rama-rama…

Registration Usability

Registration Usability: 87 Registration Forms Tested
Registration Usability - Permission Email Dos and Donts

Landing Page Optimization

Creating Compelling Copy

Browse all posts tagged Copywriting

Personalization / IP Targeting

Using Geo-IP To Tailor Content Delivery
Webinar Recap: Love, Faith & Hope: Conversion Meets Customer Behavior
Full replay of webinar: click here

Cart Abandonment

The Ecommerce Checkout Report

Trust-Building

Podcast: Building Trust with Hackersafe
Guest Post: Losing Customers at the Register: 12 Checkout Blunders

Dealing With FUDDs

Cart Abandonment: Nipping FUDDs in the Bud

Privacy Policies

Marketing Campaigns

Email Marketing

Make Emails Look Good With Images Off
Tips for Writing Welcome Emails
Do Your Email Subject Lines Deliver?
Check out all our email marketing posts.

Unwanted Email

Consumers Believe Spam Means Unwanted, Not Unsolicited Email

Product Guides / Tutorial Marketing

Copyblogger: The Return of Tutorial Marketing?

Holiday and Event Marketing

Webinar: 7 Simple Ways to Boost Your Holiday Conversion Rate
Webinar: 12 Things Retailers Must Learn from Christmas ‘07
View all posts tagged holiday marketing

Value-Added Incentives

Giving Gift Givers More Options

Customer Service

Live Chat

GrokDotCom: Make Your Live Chat Persuasive
Internet Retailer: 10 Tips for Employing Live Chat Profitably

Responding to Emails

Justin Palmer’s 25 Ways to Improve Customer Service
View all entries tagged customer service

Return Policies

Dodging Dishonest Customer Chargebacks

Free Return Shipping

Good Customer Service Still the Best Word-of-Mouth Strategy

Building Community / Social Media

Ratings and Reviews

How to Attract Customer Reviews
How to Ask for Customer Reviews, Nicely
Webinar: User Reviews: The Power of Social Commerce
All customer reviews articles

User Submitted Photos

Do Customer Submitted Photos Add Value?

Community Moderation

Fake Customer Reviews, Bad Product Reviews - What to Do?

Reputation Management

Invesp Guest Post: Common Reputation Management Issues and How to Address Them

Turning a Reputation Crisis into an Opportunity

The Art & Science of Choosing Ecommerce Technology

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Guest Panelist: Bernardine Wu, CEO, FitForCommerce
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Winner's of Signed Copies of Web Analytics: An Hour A Day

Phil (it was his Birthday, we had to)
Heather from Stacks & Stacks
Catherine from Reitmans
Brooke from Home Science Tools
Kim from Samsonite

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Categories: Vancouver Blogs, Vancouver Business Blogs, Vancouver Technology Blogs

Do Customer Submitted Photos Add Value?

July 2, 2008 - 6:00am

Earlier this week we discussed why enlarged images, alternate product views and showing products in context can help conversion.

But what about “user generated images” (or the friendlier term “customer submitted photos”)? Are they just social media / Web 2.0 hype or do they really improve customer experience?

Customer images may be used to help sell product (like customer reviews complement product descriptions) or just build community (if the retailer has a community section). Either way, customer submitted photos have their challenges:

Image quality can vary from submission to submission. Dark or fuzzy images really don’t add value and can hurt the consistency and professionalism of your site.
Attracting images can be a challenge - only a small percentage of customers will take the time to create a picture and send it to you.
Moderating images for appropriateness and relevance takes extra time.

Let’s look at some examples of how online retailers are using customer submitted photos:

Product Pages

You may have noticed that Amazon shows customer images along with its own product images:

You can roll over the thumbnails to view larger versions and even read notes that users have left on them:

This is helpful as a customer review - the color on the web is not the color in the box.

Customer Reviews

Power Reviews allows photo attachments to reviews, as spotted on Uncommon Goods:

(Sometimes customers pick useless tags…)

What I like about this approach is it’s seamless. Good review content is not separated into text vs. image reviews. On Amazon, a very helpful tip like the color is actually more mint than neon green could be missed unless you read reviews AND view pictures. Plus, it’s less programming work when your reviews product has image upload already available.

Customer Testimonials

Modern Line Furniture has a testimonials page with customer images linked to from the home page (though the call-to-action gets a bit lost in the home page clutter).

The testimonials page links through to the product pages for items featured in the room. Yay! There’s hope for a transaction!

Community / Resource Section

Some retailers actually have a community component to their e-stores, like David’s Bridal. Customers can upload pictures from their weddings, and brides-to-be can surf them to get inspiration for dress styles and color schemes.

While this is a good idea, the community section is kind of a dead end — there is no link back to products or tools that facilitate a purchase decision like shop-by-color.

Alternative Energy Store has a similar community gallery, but without links to products or buying guides, it’s not very helpful.

With links to products, the gallery could be a social tool for product discovery. I just haven’t come across a retailer who’s doing that well (community gallery that aids shopping). Have you? Please share your find in the comments.

The Art & Science of Choosing Ecommerce Technology

Free webinar: August 14th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Bernardine Wu, CEO, FitForCommerce
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Winner's of Signed Copies of Web Analytics: An Hour A Day

Phil (it was his Birthday, we had to)
Heather from Stacks & Stacks
Catherine from Reitmans
Brooke from Home Science Tools
Kim from Samsonite

You may also like these similar posts:

Categories: Vancouver Blogs, Vancouver Business Blogs, Vancouver Technology Blogs

Can Product Images Improve Conversion? Showing Products in Context

July 1, 2008 - 6:00am

According to a Future Now client, images can lift conversion rates by 147% by showing products “in context.”

Yesterday we looked at examples of image zoom and alternate views, which can help customers experience the product better than one small view. A good photographer plus AJAX or Flash technology like Scene 7 or Magic Zoom can achieve this.

But online retailers can go a step further and use photos that show products in use, or “in context.”

This can reduce a shopper’s fears, uncertainties and doubts about a purchase like “how does this look on a person?” or “how large is this in real life?.” Images can also “sell” by triggering an emotion, showing the quality or versatility of an item or illustrating a products features and benefits.

Here are some effective and creative ways online retailers are showing products in context:

Show Items in Use

Delia’s shows this hoodie lying flat and on a model. Showing clothing on people gives the customer a better idea of the style of the garment. Is a hoodie fitted like yoga wear or loose like a track suit? I

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