Getting the customerto buy

Going from point A to point K

[hannamyluv]

What do you guys think are the most important featurs to get a customer to slap down the money online.

I'll start...

Readily avalible search box
Clear BUY and CHECKOUT buttons
Good FAQs
Security

What else?

[Shak]

testimonials (non cheesy)

Shak

[fabfurs]

Excellent product copy.
Best possible product image.
Clear and friendly sales and return policy.
Privacy policy.

Security - third-party site review with feedback capability. SSL Logo...

[Sanenet]

(non cheesy) is right. Some of the US testimonials, while risable, do little for EU sentiments (no offence meant!)

[pshea]

I can only speak to products, not services offered online, so it's photos, good photos, 'click to enlarge' is my favorite phrase, I show it from any angle the customer could want. And in all of this I would EMphasise, lean pages, quick loading. Today's buyer is very get-to-the-point.

[andy_boyd]

Make yourself easy to contact.
Show your address and telephone / fax number on every page in the same position.
Get a toll-free number, it will improve your trustworthiness.
Make your pages load fast.
Don't force the customer to set up an account.
Clearly show shipping costs, and speed, before checkout.

[SlyGuy]

Clearly show shipping costs, and speed, before checkout.

Very important.

To take this point even further, it's great to have a shipping FAQ or "shipping information" page readily available.

Being from Canada, I've noticed far to many etailers telling me how much it costs to ship a product within the United States and everything else is lumped into one "International Shipping" catch-all.

The customer shouldn't discover how much he/she is going to pay for shipping at the checkout stage, because many customers won't make it that far.

[fabfurs]

SlyGuy - interesting point.

How do you manage it? We need to have two variables answered before we can provide ship options;

1. Total cart weight
2. Ship Address

So at this point we display the shipping options on page two of the checkout process.

I would love to place a zip/postal code field on all pages so the client can enter their zip at anytime (only once) and the system starts displaying the lowest shipping price with other cart summary information.

[andy_boyd]

Because most of our orders weigh roughly the same I apply a flat rate fee across geographic areas. Our current fee from the UK to USA is $15, $20 to Canada, $30 to Europe and then we arrange a customized fee for Australia, New Zealand etc etc. It's surprisingly cheap to get our stuff into America, and amazingly expensive to Europe.

How does that compare to your shipping rates?

[fabfurs]

Items range in volume and weight but if I take one average item of a typical order using our lowest shipping rate,

Continental US, UPS Ground $8 to $15
Canada, UPS Standard $25
Europe, USPS Global Express $53
Australia, USPS Global Express $57

[lgn1]

My problem is, "getting the American Customer to Buy from Canada".

Over the past year, I have used geographic ip targeting (which is 98%+ accurate) to serve american customers prices in American funds, order forms with American info first, and other techniques, and still my American
sales have dropped so they are now 50/50 US to Canada.
I still get 90% of my traffic from the United States, and after all they outnumber us 9 to 1. We are just as competive as our compettion on prices and shipping as our American cousins, so I can not figure it out.

The only thing, I have not done, is post a United States address on our website. Do you think that
is going to make much difference. I would setup a virtual office in the USA if it would help.

[fabfurs]

Even when my site was in Canada nearly 98% of my North American sales came from the US. In our case the product is fabric based so the duties, additional US Fabric customs handling fee and the brokerage fee added 50 to $60 per shipment.

We used truck down to a friendly warehouse across the border twice a week and handled distribution directly so the client never paid an extra dime.

My point is unless you make the client aware that he will not be paying any extra fees or at least indicate how much he will pay to clear the shipment, he just won't order.

We have since setup shop in the US.

[lgn1]

We have a no duty or state tax guarntee on our shipments to the US. Most of our shipments are Low Value (under $200 US), and we split ship anything over $200. In five years, we have had no problems.

Maybe the American public does not believe us.

[CernyM]

We charge $3 shipping from US to US and to Canada.

Shipping charges to the UK are generally $12 and we do other countries on a case by case basis.

Shipping costs are greater than our shipping revenues, but we like being able to offer flat rate, inexpensive, and simple shipping calculations for our customers.

[transactiongeek]

Perhaps I missed it, but one of the most important ways to increase # of buyers is alternative methods of payment.

Eg: I really recommend adding "PayPal" or 2checkout or whatever.. Don't use them as your primary payment gateway if you don't want, but it's a great addition..

Personally (yes, I know I am not everyone..), I avoid merchant accounts like the plague. Who in their right mind wants to give their credit card #s to some random website? With all the reported ID theft you might find on Paypal, I'm pretty sure it's far more secure than some SOHO website..

(no offense anyone, they're more secure than mine and I helped write the SSL cert server for Netscape.)

Anyone have solid experience with adding other forms of payment? And if so, what were they? How did it help your sales and how did you avoid losing too much money to extra handling / fraud / etc.

Great thread, btw.

[andy_boyd]

Good one transactiongeek,

Having multiple means of payment has a couple of strong benefits for the seller. First of all, last year those of us who use 2CheckOut were hit hard with long spells of downtime due to a series of Distributed Denial of Service attacks. This meant that for days payment was impossible in some of the worst cases, and your income vanished. If you offered PayPal as an option then at least you could theoretically still get orders if your other service was down.

One major benefit of offering PayPal is that it is often treated as a customers 'mad money' that is used to fund their impulse buys. PayPal money doesn't seem 'real' and is easier to spend, and there are plenty of eBayers around with money accumulating in their PayPal account! :-)

Another way of converting better is by using Amazon style customer reviews of your product. They work well by padding out your page with content, making you appear larger than you really are and fit in comfortably with testimonials.

[sem4u]

Don't make customers register before you have to buy. Never force them back to the homepage once a registration has taken place if you registered to buy a specific product. A major UK retailer does this and I was very surprised about it!

Make sure that shipping/delivery information is clear with the costs fully explained.

[lgn1]

I have tried the alternate payment route, and it is not worth the effort. I used to offer credit card, electronic cheque, COD, credit card by phone and money orders.

Frankly it was more pain than it was worth. Now we only offer Credit Card by web or by phone, and money order, and we do nothing with the money order option until we see the money.

The chance of credit card theft on the web is remote, and has been overblown by the media. Im sure if you check online theft or fake stores against all the other types of credit card theft, im sure you will find it is just a drop in the bucket.

When it comes to online credit card theft, you will find that it is always the merchant, not the consummer that is being ripped off.

[jsinger]

On the other side of the coin, occasionally REMOVE features and products from your commerce site that add little and confuse the buyer.

I agree that few sites benefit from 10 payment options. Do you really need live help? If you're selling plumbing supplies, do you need a "wish list" or a tell a friend link?

Remove clutter from time to time.

[badtzmaru]

My experience with paypal, which granted was a year ago, was that the majority of the customers had no idea what it was. I ended up getting a merchant account and removing paypal support because it was causing more confusion than anything else. During the period where I had both, maybe 1% of the customers used paypal. This was on a site selling women's apparel.