In short things and people have moved on, consumers and retailers have both become more sophisticated.
So what do you need to do to successfully sell Touchy Feely Stuff Online? Here are a few pointers.
Products.
Choose your products carefully. If you’re selling clothes, a very fitted garment will look completely different on people of different sizes and shapes and is probably going to be a hard thing to sell over the internet. A baggy jumper, on the other hand, will fit a wider variety of people and won’t be so difficult.
Pictures.
Good images help sell products. Poor images will stop sales. And no images is an absolute no-no. I was shopping online with my 9 year old daughter yesterday for a new webcam and was amazed by the number of items we saw that either had no image or were ‘awaiting images’. My daughter wouldn’t even consider those products. If the image was poor or product badly displayed there was a similar reaction.
Make sure the image is representative and realistic. If a product (like a person) has a good side and a bad side show both. If you just show the bad side you won’t sell anything. If you just show the good side you’ll have disappointed customers.
Where possible, show as many pictures as possible, from different angles and distances, so that the customer can really see what they are buying
Scale. Size is important - try to emphasise it in the product image. People tend to see what they want to see. You don’t want people discovering its much bigger or smaller than they imagined once they’ve bought it.
Colours. Be wary that everyone’s monitor is different and represents colours differently.
Style. Try to follow a consistent theme with your product photography. A mish-mash of different image sizes, layouts, backgrounds, etc., will confuse people and will detract from the shopping experience.
Words or ‘Content’
If you’re familiar with the concept of NLP you’ll recognise that people place different emphasis on images, words and feelings. If your site is to be successful it needs to have a good balance of images and words. Some people will focus more on the images, whilst others will concentrate on the words and some will study both. The words need to describe, in as much detail as possible, the product and its benefits to your customers. You need to write these words in the language of your target customers. If your target ‘demographic’ is teenage girls you need to use a completely different language to that if your target market is 50-60 year old men.
Focus on the benefits of your products not the features. Simple but you’d be amazed how few people do!
Don’t over promise – Do over deliver. You want delighted customers whose expectations you’ve exceeded, not disappointed ex-customers who will tell all and sundry how you let them down.
Add as much background and stories behind your brand as possible. You want to establish credibility and trust with your customers and potential customers, so that they believe what you’re telling them and want to do business with you.
Guarantees and Returns.
A Guarantee and a straightforward, no-nonsense returns policy are vital. People don’t want to be conned and they don’t want to be stuck with something they’re not happy with. Few people do return items or enforce guarantees but they don’t want to risk trying new things or suppliers if they haven’t got the option, so you’ll tend to gain more than you lose. If you’re selling clothes returns are a given and you need to build that into your pricing.
In short, you have to make your online shopping experience as comparably enjoyable to visiting a shop as possible, with all the added benefits of e-commerce. You must look to give your potential customer as interactive experience as you can and look to engage them wherever possible in the benefits of your brand. And you need to give your customers as much information as they need to allow them to buy your products.
For further information or assistance with your e-commerce business visit the innovative-internet-marketing.com website.
Peter Van Zelst is the principal of innovative-internet-marketing.com, an Online Marketing Specialist.
