PalatnikFactor.com

If you walk into a home depot, office depot, or any big or even SMALL department store, you always see a customer service area along with returns. When you open up your first e-commerce store, all you probably worry about is getting sales. Sure, that will make or break your business, but how about returns?

Returns is a big part of e-Commerce, come on…you didn’t actually think you would satisfy every customer did you? Of course not.

Things TO DO to avoid major customer service issues 101:

• POST AN 800 NUMBER OR EMAIL TO REACH YOU.

• INCLUDE A RETURN POLICY FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS THAT IS VISIBLE

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The holiday season is here and your site should be ready to sell, sell, sell! So, what can you do to optimize your site for the holiday season? A few things can change the aspect of your site for the buyer if this is your first holiday season online.

1) Design: Make it KNOWN on your home page and landing pages your company is aware the buyer is looking for deals and of course, it’s the holiday season. Take a look at BestBuy.com, JCPenny.com, and Sears.com. You can find holiday jargon all over the place. This is done through text and images.

2) Sales: Put your top 3-4 products displaying on your home page with sale images or even if they aren’t on sale, say they are! You should also have these 3-4 product items along side other landing pages/product pages.

3) Shipping Discounts: Keep in mind people are purchasing many products online so not only is the product costing money, but so is the shipping. All the big companies are offering free shipping or a deep discount on the shipping, try to do the same. If they spend over a certain amount, comp the shipping.

4) Share Links: How can you turn 1 visitor into 2 from that 1 visit? Below every product (and this doesn’t only apply for the holidays,) place a ‘send to friend’ link. You’d be surprised how many people may not purchase your product but maybe send it to a friend who may be interested in what you have or at least they want their friend to check it out.

5) Gift Wrapping: Make some extra money on your product by offering gift wrapping. You can either charge for this option or do it for free which the buyer would probably appreciate it more of course.

6) E-Mail Collection: This holiday shopping season maybe the most traffic you will get in a month’s worth. If you’re not collecting your customers email or even potential customer email address, it’s time you do. Set-up a email box where visitors can enter their email to receive newsletters, sales, etc. It’s never too late to start a list.

7) Customer Reviews/Testimonials: This works! Visitors want to gain trust with your company and your products. Write product reviews with testimonials. If you don’t have testimonials, get them quick! Any one of your friends or family count as testimonials.

DO YOU HAVE ANY TIPS? Comment Below.

Cyber Monday is here and the reports are already starting to come in.

CNNMoney reports, “By 2 p.m. ET, more than 300 retailing Web sites tracked by Internet monitoring firm Akamai were drawing 4.6 million visitors per minute - a three-year record for most traffic in a single day to retail Web sites.
Akamai said that its Net Usage Index - which monitors North American visitors to sites such as jcpenney.com, Bestbuy.com and Circuitcity.com - said traffic was up more than 80 percent compared to a normal Monday.”

It’s reported that online spend today will surpass $700 million in sales which will be a new record. Sears.com actually went down on Black Friday which surprisingly to me, a lot of people reported on that. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), 72 million consumers plan to shop online from home or at work on one of the biggest online shopping days of the year. That's up from 61 million shoppers last year.

Are you capitalizing on Cyber Monday? How? If you aren’t, it’s definitely an indication the holiday shopping season will be a good one. If you have an e-commerce site, see what big sites such as bestbuy.com and sears.com, etc are doing and how they are getting the attention of the holiday shopper. A more detailed post to come on that…

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Its official, the holiday shopping has started. I drove by Best Buy last night around eleven o’clock at night and people were camping out…huge lines! Now, if you’re like me, you’re not going to put up with long lines but rather shop from your computer.

According to Google search trends, let’s look at sears:

5.sears.com
17.www.sears.com
20.sears

It’s 12:14pm and I’m trying to browse through Sears.com and it doesn’t let me…too much traffic? Not enough server power?

Check out Black Friday Ads.

It’s about that time of year when you’re probably having your best sales to date since the holidays are around the corner and people are starting to shop as of now.

If you’re selling a product on your website, besides having quality pictures of the product itself and good content, what else could entice the user to make the purchase? PEER FEEDBACK. I’ve been meaning to blog about this for a while now until I just saw this research study by the e-tailing group which proves this very important aspect of shopping online.

Reviews from buyers are so important…buyers are sheep (for the most part) and that’s why trends become trends…people tend to follow other people if other people think its good or cool. Product reviews act as that for many online buyers.

“The study sought (1) to understand how online shoppers use reviews to make informed buying decisions, and (2) to explore consumers’ preferences and interests in “Social Navigation” - or the ability to narrow product selections based on reviews from like-minded people with similar interests.
Some 70% of all online shoppers said customer reviews and ratings on a retailer’s website were extremely or very important when they are selecting and purchasing products, followed by 62% citing a top-rated products list (as rated by customers):

Among the respondents, 65% were identified as Social Researchers - consumers who actively (always or most of the time) seek out and read customer reviews prior to making a purchase decision:

Social Researchers were found to engage in the use of reviews across all behavioral areas at a rate 20% higher than average online shoppers:

* 86% of Social Researchers find customer reviews extremely or very important, vs. 70% of all online shoppers.
* 76% of Social Researchers find “top rated product” lists to be extremely or very important, vs. 62% of all online shoppers.
* 64% of Social Researchers research products online more than half the time, no matter where they buy the product (store, web, catalog, etc.)

How online shoppers, particularly Social Researchers, perceive Social Navigation was also examined.

* Some 82% of Social Researchers (vs. 75% of all online shoppers) found reading reviews better than researching a product in-store with a knowledgeable sales associate.
* 76% of Social Researchers (vs. 69% of all online shoppers) are more likely to shop on a retailer’s website - vs. its competitor site - if it offers social navigation.
* 75% of Social Researches (vs. 64% of all online shoppers) found it extremely or very helpful to narrow product selection based on feedback from people like them (with similar interests).

If you are selling product on your website, I'd advise to start putting up some product reviews or ratings and test if it starts to convert better.