To make each of these points easier to relate to, we show practical applications of each of these points as they relate to an "ideal" store.
I know. I know. It’s not that simple. Instead of people on phones, it’s people on computers or computers doing the work of people. But the similarities are: Orders are placed electronically, logged in, processed, transacted, shipped and customer service and returns are handled efficiently or you go out of business. As Michael Dell of Dell Computers said, “Internet commerce is merely the direct-sales model on steroids with customers and suppliers enjoying an electronic connection, any time, any place.”
“24/7” is the catch phrase, and “open all night” is English. It doesn’t mean that you are making an extra effort to capture the insomniac market, but rather that you welcome business from L.A., New York, London, Berlin and Beijing. The reason they call it the world wide web is there are profits around the world.
Whether you like it or not, you and your competitors all sit on the same intersection just eight or so seconds away. Anyone who remembers gas wars between stations on every corner, knows what this means. You took one glance, checked the lowest price, and boom, it was in, out and gone. On the web, everyone’s on the same corner with less than 8 seconds between them.
Just like a brick and mortar store, your front line of “advertising” is your store window or home page. Put your hottest stuff up front. When your customers come by, you’ve got to show them what you’ve got and how to buy it— but not everything, unless you plan on being Amazon or CD Now (unfortunately they already exist).
If you already have a brick and mortar store and you’re still in business, that means you have saved millions of dollars in advertising. You’re in. The minute you go on line, you have an audience. You start with your satisfied customers. And if they’re satisfied, you’ve also got their friends and family. You are the envy of every upstart on-line start-up. The minute you go on-line, you have more name recognition and brand equity than their millions in Venture Capital money can buy.
An on-line store is still a store. If customers don’t come in the door, they can’t buy. On the street, you have to be visible and accessible. On the web it is much the same. In one sense you are everywhere. At everyone’s fingertips. Anyone in the country, or the world, can reach you if they know you are there. But if they don’t see you, they can’t reach you. And you may as well not be there.
Early attempts to capture the web audience took the form of ubiquitous banner ads. They were like back doors to your store. They were everywhere. But their effectiveness plummeted when the audience wasn’t there. Banner advertising for beer on a sports site makes sense, but advertising little girls' tube socks there is a waste. One reaction to declining banner business has been to use RichMedia to make banners more kinetic with sound and colors and movement, but long, slow, download times has resulted in their becoming a nuisance that turns customers off.
We’re seeing a move away from banners and a trend toward revenue-sharing arrangements. It creates a true interactive relationship between the advertiser and the host web site. They’re both in it together, and they recognize it. A junior clothing position on a web page with a true shared audience, CD Now for instance, would cement a CD/clothing cross promotion or a contest. Now there’s a reason to click on a banner. In short, it’s worth doing because everyone wins.
No big mystery. It is virtually the same as a store. You need to show your customers what they want and stock what you show. If the product’s not in, it’s not going to move. All the entertaining content in the world cannot make up for undeliverable purchases. If you say you’ve got it, your customers expects to get it. Whatever is on the site has to be available. On the other hand, electronic stores are easier to control, because the minute products are no longer available, they can be taken off the site.
In every brick and mortar store, display managers set up the store to encourage shoppers to buy. The hottest items are right up front or easy to see from the door. People looking for plumbing can find it immediately. Those looking for lipstick can’t miss it. The shoe section is unmistakable. Everything is set up to let the customer find their way in. On-line it has to be even easier and more attractive. If it’s not, then something easier and more attractive is just a click away.
There are three basic types of customers. Those who like to shop, those who like to buy and those who like to shop and buy. Your site should accommodate them all. There should be a mechanism for shoppers to take a look at what they like and be able to go back later and buy. And there should be a place where the “I-need-it-NOW!” types can immediately get what they need.
Customers want to feel special, and you have to go out of your way to make them be special. The most successful sites will recognize customers by name, taste and buying habits. They make shopping fun and buying easy. This kind of functionality is no longer reserved for premium sites. It is the minimum basic standard. It is expected, it is demanded and if you don’t offer it, remember, your competition does.
“Content” is everything your customer wants to know. Sites that bury content in small type or avoid it altogether are the bottom-line-price-only vendors. That’s okay for the “buy now” folks, but it prevents your site from being a lifestyle resource, and eliminates many cross promotional possibilities. A feature on landscape archetecture would not only garden sites to sell sod, statuary and roses, but lead customers to “sponsored” architects and related, non-competitive sites and in some cases even to your competition.
The projections of growth for e-commerce are staggering. But even at its current dizzying geometric pace, the total retail audience taken over by e-commerce (a predicted $185 billion by 2002) will be just 7 percent of total retail sales in the United States. The other 93 percent will, we be where it always has been— is stores. Your web site must support the base in-store sales force. A combination of internet and intranet will reinforce store sales and increase on-line efficiency.
With today’s mapping software, finding your store could not be easier. With a click, customers are offered a choice of viewing or printing a map to the store nearest them. As an additional benefit, we can also offer them the option of typing in any location, from their office to their sister in-law’s garden, and getting a map of that area as well (with of course, your closest store included as well). This is the kind of benefit that helps build an affiliation with customers, keeps them coming back to the site, and makes them loyal.
As always, the byword is, “get ‘em where they live.” On-line advertising and portal usage should be a part of the mix. However, if you want to capture Gen Y's attention, do it by bringing your messages to the places these kids congregate, whether it's the Internet, a magazine, a snowboarding tournament, or cable TV. However, don’t expect monster success by on-line marketing alone. Monster.com saw its stream of click-through hits dwindle from 30 percent to just 6 percent of the site’s traffic. Then they bought a memorable television spot during the 1999 Super Bowl. The “When I grow up, I want to be.....” made traffic leap from between 2 million and 3 million visits per month to 7.6 million just two months after the game.
No on-line advertising should be bought blindly. Every ad should result in an action: shopping, purchasing or taking part in the cross promotion. This is destined to become the future of on-line advertising. Expect accountability. Say to yourself “I’m only going to pay if something specific happens.” Targeted e-mails sent to existing customers have proved to be one of the best on-line ways to drive traffic to Web sites. For the most part, recipients have agreed to get the e-mails and are therefore more receptive to the message –– especially one announcing a sale, special offer, or a new product.
Amazon.com, CDNow.com, and Monster.com discovered that they must do off-line advertising to capture the on-line customer. Get to your customers on an emotional level and no matter what media you use, your message will be immediately accessable. If you don’t grab them and let them know what you can do for them, you throw away your money. Just look at the rash of dot com advertising on TV and other traditional media, which leaves you with no idea of even what business they’re in. Advertise like that for long and you won’t be in business at all.
Freshness and change are vitally essential to a web site’s success, and while print and broadcast will bring both new and old customers to your web site, you must refresh it as soon and as often as possible. Stagnancy will erode the size of the repeat visitor base. Refreshing it often will increase the size of the audience, bringing more people to the site when it’s time to buy.
Every aspect of the site must reinforce your brand equity. All web sites are like grab bags, the consumers decide where they will start, where they will go and what they will look at while there. They will bookmark the pages that interest them most and ignore the rest until prompted to pay attention. You can guide them but you can’t drag them. Therefore all your pages have to give them immediate access to all other pages. And they have to be able to access the shopping and buying functions from every page.
According to the Harvard Business Journal, successful web sites need three elements, Reach, Richness and Affiliation. Reach means how many customers can connect to your business. Richness is the depth of information that your customers can find on your site. Affiliation is a measure of whose interests the site represents, the customers’ or the company’s. The greater the affiliation with the customer, the greater the effectiveness of the site.
The first and most obvious means of connecting to more customers on the web is to increase the visibility of the site through conventional advertising. On the radio, in print and environmental you should increase the desirability of the web site as a place to go. The more people who come to visit, the more who can stay to buy.
Maximize the depth of information available from your site. One of the most important reasons to return to a site is the ready availability of product and related information. Link to complimentary sites, magazines and informational sites and upgrade them regularly. Actively seek out and regularly post interesting information on related news and information. Make your site not only a navigator, but a destination.
Increase loyalty of your customers by catering more to their needs. In store, catering to customers’ needs means good looking stores, friendly salespeople, low prices, and customer appreciation nights. On-line, it means much more. By offering voluntary “cookies,” customer habit-tracking software, we can get a customer information file with specific information of every customer from favorite purchases, to birthdays, graduation dates, and other information that allows us to tailor the site to that customer virtually automatically. We can speak to them on a first name basis, and let them tailor our opening page to their specific requirements.
In a phrase, e-business is business. Everything that is basic to business is basic to e-business. Everything that is true for you when you are a customer is true for all of your customers. When you walk into a store and people greet you by name, it makes you happy... Same for your customers. If you want to buy something right away, you want salespeople to tell you whether or not it’s in stock... Same for your customers. If you’re in business, you already know 80% of e business. If you want to stay in business, you need someone who knows the rest.
How much does it cost to build an e-store?
How much does it cost to build a store? Use that as a ballpark figure for your e-store. How much is a store worth that can increase your business by 10% to 20% or more? Just as you can build a decent flea market stall for next to nothing, you can build an e-store for next to nothing. Just as everything else in life, something for nothing is usually good for nothing.
