How many times have you come across a site that begins, right there, bang smack at the top of the main page with information about when the company began, what the company stands for and even a little word from the owner? You might be thinking “but what is wrong with that”? It’s an important question and one that is not asked enough when merchant are considering what to present to would be customers on their eCommerce stores.
Have you ever had someone stop you as you go into Woolworths and ask you if they can tell you a little bit about what the corporate body stands for? No? That’s not surprising, because Woolworths has invested an untold fortune in understanding who their customers are. They’re people who have money, want quality and don’t mind exchanging one for the other. They’re also people who are largely not interested in the corporate body. So Woolworths, in a nutshell, have become renowned for selling premium-selected products at premium prices. That’s it.
That’s why they spend millions merchandising their products, packaging them correctly, displaying the right products alongside more expensive alternatives (cross selling), bundling products together (up selling) or advertising specials, new produce and limited stock availability to mention but a few tried and tested selling methods that have been around for well over 100 years.
All of this effort is geared towards providing customers with not only what they want but also what they might want before they even do. Notice those long isles you’ve got to walk through to get to the cashier lined with sweets, magazines and other things you end up throwing into your basket without even realizing it? They’re called Impulse Buying Units engineered by very bright merchandisers who envisioned the stress of negotiating those isles with little hands and round eyes in tow, demanding, whining, crying and putting pressure on tired mommies and daddies (like me) to buy those craftily placed items for a moments peace. Fair trade I suppose, but definitely brilliant merchandising. Woolworths is pushing sales. And they push sales hard.
So when thinking about the prime real estate of your main page, think about this: For most sites this is the page that is accessed the most – it’s your front door. It’s also your first, and often last chance, at that pivotal first impression where either you snag your customer’s interest or they close your site down.
Instead of punting snazzy corporate styled mumbo jumbo about the company, or flogging news articles about when you last moved office or hired an employee, ask yourself one simple question: Does my customer really care? Would you?
What they really care about, and the reason why they’ve accessed your site, is to find something worthy of spending their money on. They’re looking for a deal, have something in mind or might simply be browsing with a little interest.
What your customers are more likely to care about on your main page:
- Product Specials and Promotions. Give your customers a deal or an incentive - whether they be products that you are clearing or offering at a special discount or attractive price.
- Your Top Selling Products. It’s likely that if you’re selling a lot of a particular product, new visitors are more than likely to be interested in that product too.
- New Products on your Virtual Shelves. Introduce those new products and make your customers aware of their existence. Give them an obvious reason to view them because if they don’t know about them they’re unlikely to search for them or find them easily.
- An easy to use search facility. Search facilities are an obvious means for your customers to find what they’re looking for (or something similar) fast.
- Subscription Options. Tell your customers that you’ll notify them of new products, top sellers or competitions they can enter. Besides keeping them coming back for more, you can acquire important information on what your customers really want by asking the right questions.
- Reasons to Buy from You. Make it plain and obvious the differentiating factors that can build the credibility of your site like free delivery, quality assurance guarantees and the fact that you might support multiple payment options.
Sites in South Africa that do this exceptionally well are the likes of Igear and My New Laptop who push their most popular products to their customers while regularly keeping their sites up to date with new and interesting products.
To conclude, I’m not suggesting you don’t publish company information or news. Just put it on an about us page somewhere that’s obvious but not in your customer’s face. If the customer really wants to read it, as do some customers of Woolworths who might have questions about GMO products for example, they can find it here.
Otherwise, treat your main page like solid gold real estate and honour it with information of true value to your customers. Do that and watch the sales pour in!
Posted
Sep 24 2008, 02:21 PM
by
Byron Levey