Archive for March, 2010
Customers are more sensitive to shipping costs than ever. In many cases it can even be one of their pet peeves. High shipping costs obviously leads to lost sales, and lost customers. Adding in an extra dollar or two might seem like a way to sneak in some additional profit, but more often than not backfires. With comparison shopping sites, quick search, and competitor visits, it is very easy to find out what is reasonable when it comes to shipping. Handling fees are another area where customer’s are sensitive to price. I recommend eliminating it altogether. Take all your real costs into consideration and price your product and shipping accordingly. Do not
a la cart all your costs together. Customer perception always wins out. Read more... (142 words, estimated 34 secs reading time)
Marketing Sherpa conducted a survey of its members to gauge how effective local search is from 2008 vs 2009 (the latest full year available). Their results show:
While Geo-Targeting has increased, the survey results showed:
that few marketers were taking advantage of geolocation-specific messaging once the searcher clicked through. For retailers, in particular, this is a huge missed opportunity. Read more... (152 words, 1 image, estimated 36 secs reading time)
I was reading a post on E-Commerce News, entitled “Top 5 Web Site Usability Mistakes” and one of the web usability mistakes listed was ‘Banner Blindness’. Here is a quick definition from their article:
A phenomenon specific to Web site usability, Banner Blindness occurs when users ignore images that appear to be advertisements. Partially attributed as a learned behavior due to the backlash of overwhelming advertisements on the Web, banner blindness is believed to be caused by the task-oriented mental model of Web users. Read more... (291 words, estimated 1:10 mins reading time)
Here is a quick blurb from website magazine today article: “Survey Says: Customer Service a Costly Afterthought“. Check out the article for the details, but here is a highlight:
Online consumers are willing to pay nearly 11 percent more for e-commerce items if it means the highest level of customer service is included in the process, according to an Ovum survey commissioned by StellaService.
They further found that exceptional customer service was defined as excelling in the three following areas: Read more... (97 words, estimated 23 secs reading time)
