Home > Writing Advice & Resources > 11 "Must-Haves" for E-Commerce (Pt. 1)

11 "Must-Haves" for Successful E-Commerce (Pt. 1)

Updated Feb 2006
Note: in the original version of this article, there were several links to sites that were perfect examples of what NOT to do in e-commerce. Interestingly enough, it's a year later and every one of these sites has fixed the offending point! Guess their sales figures prompted them to take action.
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To succeed at e-commerce, you need to do more than bring new customers to your website and entice them to buy. To succeed at e-commerce, you have to ensure that these customers keep coming back to buy. In other words, you must create customer loyalty.

Zemke and Connellan asked customers to rate their experience at various e-commerce sites, then express how likely they were to return to that site for another purchase.

Sites that ranked "poor", "satisfactory", and even "good" had a low likelihood of repeat business. Surprisingly, improving a site's ranking from "satisfactory" to "good" didn't increase the likelihood of repeat business by very much.

However, when a site was ranked "excellent" by the customer, there was a fourfold increase in the likelihood of the customer returning for repeat purchases.

The message is clear: if you want repeat business, give the customer an excellent buying experience. This article explores the first five of eleven key concepts for giving customers an excellent e-commerce buying experience.

1. Make it Fast

Customers' number one complaint about e-commerce sites is that they take too long to load. Create a fast-loading site and you not only show shoppers that you respect their time, you increase the likelihood that they will browse.

One way to reduce load times is to minimize the use of graphics on each page. Eliminate all non-product graphics except your company logo. Use thumbnail (small) photos of products, with links to enlarged photos. That way, customers don't have to wait for innumerable large graphics to download, but they can still see detailed photos of the products that interest them.

Good Example: The Amazon.com site loads quickly (nine seconds during a load test run during a peak Internet hours), even over a dial-up connection. Graphics are used sparingly, and they load only after the page's text has been displayed.

2. Minimize Clicks

Design your site so that the number of clicks to find and buy products is minimized. Amazon.com has thousands of products, yet shoppers can get from Home page to checkout for any product in 3 clicks (checkout being the 4th click) by using the search function. Never force people to drill through layers and layers of menus to find products.

3. Don't Require Cookies

Have you ever been to a site that wouldn't let you proceed because your browser had "cookies" disabled? Cookies are small text files, stored on the visitor's computer, that are used for tracking information about the visitor. Some people don't mind having cookies stored on their computers; others do, and they set up their browser not to allow cookies.

Never create an e-commerce system that refuses entry to people who don't use cookies. With a worldwide marketplace to choose from, buyers can always find a competing site that does not require cookies. If you arrogantly demand that the visitor meet your needs in order to buy from you, you will simply lose business.

4. Get Rid of Flashy Visuals

Customers dislike splash screens, Flash "entry pages", popups, and all moving or blinking elements that they can't control. These elements are perceived as annoying and time-wasting - and remember, once a customer's estimate of your site's shopping experience drops below "excellent", the probability of getting repeat business from that customer drops off sharply as well. So get rid of the annoyances.

The Lonely Planet site is a good example of a simple, non-distracting user interface.

5. Disclose Prices & Shipping Costs Early

Some sites withhold shipping costs until far into the buying process, hoping that the customer has invested enough time & mental energy not to balk at a last-minute disclosure of high shipping charges. Some companies even go so far as to hide basic product pricing until the customer clicks the "Buy Now" button.

This approach may have worked in the past, but today's customers know they can click through the buying process as far as they need to to find the price/shipping cost, then abandon the purchase. Hiding your pricing in this way is unlikely to increase your sales. All it will really do is create annoyance in the customer and hurt your site's chances of receiving the "excellent" ranking you need to create repeat business. For this reason, disclose all pricing and related charges early in the shopping process.

Summary

So far we've covered 5 of 11 tips for creating an excellent e-commerce experience:

• load it fast
• minimize clicks
• don't require cookies
• get rid of flashy visuals
• disclose prices and shipping costs early

Part 2 of this article will explore the last 6 tips.

Continue to Part 2