E-MAILS TO PEOPLE WHO HAVE abandoned their online shopping carts can recover up to 25% of lost sales.
Web catalogers should make it easy for customers to find items of interest, said Michael Abney, senior commerce site manager for online catalog consultancy DMinSite. “I know it sounds really simple, but a lot of sites don't offer that.”
“Every click costs [site visitors] time and energy,” added Abney's colleague, senior marketing manager Jennifer Wells. The two spoke together at DMA05 in Atlanta last month.
As an example of an abandoned-cart e-mail, they showed a soft-sell version noting that the company periodically checks its site's performance and would like to know why the customer broke off the transaction. It also included a link to the product.
The pair also urged marketers to maximize the value of the home-page header by including, among other things, a link to the company's satisfaction guarantee, the firm's call-center telephone number and the customer's shopping cart status.
And top-selling items also should be displayed prominently on the home page. “The home page has a different purpose than the catalog cover,” Wells said.
Another simple recommendation with its roots in traditional direct marketing: Put a “buy now” button next to each product. “Call-to-action devices consistently have proven to increase response rates,” said Wells.
Customers also should be able to search by solutions to their particular problems. “We've all heard the saying, ‘People don't want to buy a saw. They want to buy a cut,’” said Abney.
With that philosophy in mind, the Gardens Alive Web site has a “solution finder” that asks questions like, “What do you want to accomplish today?” or “What pests do you want to control?” The site then offers products based on what the visitors choose from the drop-down menus.
The “no results found” page also can be an opportunity for savvy marketers, Abney and Wells said. When a visitor searches for something that's not on the site, the search engine should deliver the “no results” message with best-selling products rather than presenting the bad news alone.
The duo also recommended sending triggered “thank-yous” with cross-sell e-mail offers three days or so after customers receive their purchases.
