This year it’s really more likely to be a cyber Tuesday as the first Monday of December actually falls on the 7th, a long way into December, but still the principle stands. What’s important is how you as an online retailer prepare for the onslaught of customers your site. The following tips should help…

1. Don’t make the mistake of thinking this doesn’t apply to you. People give crazy things as presents, anything from scart cables to yachts are affected by cyber Monday. Of course, some industries are affected to a greater or lesser extent than others but the principle applies to almost all ecommerce stores.

2. Make sure your PPC account is ready. Do a full check of your PPC account, add all the necessary negative keywords you can to avoid irrelevant clicks and make sure you’re appearing in good positions for keywords that have consistently converted in the past. However, I would shy away from making wholesale changes, you probably won’t have time to deal with the ongoing optimisation necessary to make sure these changes work. Also, if they don’t have the effect you’re anticipating, you may miss out on sales.

3. Up your budgets. Unfortunately, there’s no getting around this. With higher search volumes come higher costs. However, people are also in the mood to buy, so conversion costs should fall sharply too. You don’t want to miss out on potential sales because your account is offline due to lack of funds.

Related posts:

1. The Recession’s effect on eCommerce Sites We see practically every day on the news that high...
2. ECommerce School Lesson 4: Address Security Issues Even now, with ecommerce so...
3. Ecommerce School This week the generous online teachers over at top click...

Even now, with ecommerce so established, many people simply don’t feel comfortable buying online. It’s important to address these concerns even though you, as a seasoned internet professional, probably don’t share them.

Firstly, if you have any official security accreditation, get that out front and centre and make a big deal about the safety of your payment systems.

Also, it’s a good idea to make sure that any pages even remotely connected with payments are clean and professional looking. Anything that looks even slightly bodged on these pages can start to make people suspicious that you are not a legitimate company.

Finally, if you can avoid sending people off site to make a payment then do. I know inbuilt shopping carts can be expensive and time consuming to set up but they are necessary – people have put trust in your site, not your payment provider’s site. Quite apart from this, sending people off site just looks amateurish and disrupts the consistency of your payment process not to mention the fact that if you were trying to steal someone’s card details, install spyware or do anything else dodgy, then sending people offsite is exactly the sort of thing you’d do. This fact is not lost on your customers.

Related posts:

1. Interesting news for anyone with an Ecommerce Site A survey conducted by Click and Buy has found that...
2. Ecommerce School This week the generous online teachers over at top click...
3. Ecommerce School: Are you ready for ‘Cyber Monday’? As anyone who sells goods online should know, we’re fast...

There are a number of necessary steps when it comes to an E-commerce transaction, many of which need to be done on separate pages. At times it can seem as if the process is never ending with page after page to fill out. A good way to mitigate this frustration is to be up front and honest with your customers about the entire process and map it out in bit sized pieces for them.

Some kind of neat functionality like a check list that gets filled out as you go makes customers feel more at ease, like they know what’s required of them, it also makes the whole thing seem simpler, less of a big deal.

It also makes people aware of how far into the process they are at all times and more importantly how far they have to go. This limits the really annoying phenomenon of losing people just before the payment screen because they get frustrated that it’s taking forever. If they know how close to finishing they are they’re more likely to keep going.

Related posts:

1. E-Commerce School Lesson 2: Keep it Simple Always remember, there is only...
2. ECommerce School Lesson 4: Address Security Issues Even now, with ecommerce so...
3. Microsoft-Yahoo deal might finally happen! This old chestnut again I’m afraid. According to a report...

Always remember, there is only ever a quick tap of the back button stopping a customer from navigating away from your site in frustration. Online customers know they have a choice and thus exhibit a very low tolerance for extra hassle.

Isolate what the bare minimum you need from the customer is and ONLY ask them to supply that information. Don’t fall into the trap of trying to get extra information out of them like ‘how they heard about the site’ or getting them to ‘rate their experience’ – you might get some valuable information, though is it really worth losing sales? If you really must have this information, get it after the customer’s credit card has been billed.

It’s not just about what information you gather, but how you gather that information. For instance, it’s more hassle for a customer to fill in card expiry dates by name of the month as opposed to number, as they have to mentally convert the number on the card to an actual month. This may seem like nitpicking but you really should be interrogating each part of your process in this level of detail to make it as easy as possible.

Related posts:

1. E-Commerce School Lesson 3: Break up the Ordering Process There are a...
2. Mac Sales fall 6 Percent As any economist will tell you, a recession is not...
3. The Recession’s effect on eCommerce Sites We see practically every day on the news that high...

Lesson 1: Email addresses not User Names

Because email addresses are used much more regularly than individual user names, they are much more memorable to consumers. For this reason it’s a better idea to have customers sign into their site with their email address. This can seem counterintuitive as email addresses tend to be much longer than most user names though if you think about it, it does make sense. Anyone who is reasonably active on the internet is going to have accumulated several different user names in their time, though nobody really has more than two or three actively used email addresses. Why would you?

This is a particularly good ploy for bigger websites. How annoying is it to try to come up with a user name and find that your first five or so choices are already taken by someone else? An email address is by its very nature unique, so you bypass this process entirely.

Related posts:

1. ECommerce School Lesson 4: Address Security Issues Even now, with ecommerce so...
2. Ecommerce School: Are you ready for ‘Cyber Monday’? As anyone who sells goods online should know, we’re fast...
3. Web Design School: Tips for writing good Web Copy #2: Formatting Never forget that a solid block of text...

The assumption is that consumers are going online in order to find savings not available on the high street. This reasoning is borne out by the behaviour of consumers online who are researching more meticulously than ever, and not just on big-ticket items either, on all kinds of goods.

So how does someone adapt their ecommerce site to meet the demands of this new kind of online customer. Well, the first is of course, add value – do deals make savings, in general, give your customers a reason to shop with you, then push those savings in your PPC ads.

The new breed of choosy customer has also produced a real spike in the number of people using price comparison sites, so getting yourself on one of these has never been more important. There is however, also evidence that these customers have been doing their own research and legwork via peer reviewing facilities like blogs and message boards.

On the latter point it might be worth reaching out to relevant blogs and content sites, maybe offer a product for review, or sponsor a competition etc.

So, basically, at the moment if you’re a player in the world of online commerce, you need to be cheap and add value. You also need to have a strong off site presence and reputation.

Related posts:

1. Should I be using Coupon Sites to promote my Business It’s no surprise at a time when most people in...
2. Ecommerce School This week the generous online teachers over at top click...
3. Ecommerce School: Are you ready for ‘Cyber Monday’? As anyone who sells goods online should know, we’re fast...

Firstly, the survey reveals some interesting truths about the perceived wisdom that we are all more comfortable with shopping online now than we were a few years ago. According to the survey, 37% of us agree with the statement ‘I feel no safer when buying online now than I did 5 years ago’ with only 34% disagreeing, proving that the notion of increased ecommerce confidence is more than a little spurious.

Based on these findings, it might be an idea to not be too glib about internet security, have your credentials clearly on display and explain at every step how what the user is doing is safe.

Another thing worth noting from the survey is that, exactly half the respondents would cancel a purchase if their preferred method of payment was not available, so it pays to have a wide selection.

There is good news however, a large number of respondents will not be stopping buying because of the recession, instead they merely intend to shop around more online. The message is clear, if you can lower your prices, do, and expect your PPC conversion rates to drop as people click around more.

Related posts:

1. ECommerce School Lesson 4: Address Security Issues Even now, with ecommerce so...
2. Online news overtaking print in US This has been the way the wind has been blowing...
3. The Recession’s effect on eCommerce Sites We see practically every day on the news that high...

This was taken as discriminatory and the backlash began. Amazon however, have denied that there is a discriminatory policy in place, or in fact any particular policy of removing anything, describing the removal of the work as an ‘issue’ or ‘problem’.

‘It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles – in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally.’- Amazon Statement.

So what’s going on? Well, as always, when we know, you’ll know.

Related posts:

1. ‘Prudish’ Facebook censorship sparks Protests amongst Mothers Facebook has landed itself in trouble with mothers of newborn...
2. Apple bans ‘Hottest Girls’ App Another day another banned iPhone App. This time it was...
3. Sales rally for Blu-Ray In a market where most products are understandably struggling to...