Ten Great Ecommerce Ideas for April 2011

Practical eCommerce asks industry insiders each month to share a great, innovative idea that could help an ecommerce company. Here’s what ten of them had to say for the April 2011 installment of “Ten Great Ecommerce Ideas.”

Personalize Customer Service

“Have automated email correspondence come from a designated representative in your company and allow customers to correspond directly with that individual. Provide easy access for customers to email or telephone their personal representative, and be sure that your customer service reps are available during business hours to accept all customer phone calls.”

Brina Bujkovsky
CEO
The Younique Boutique

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Offer Trusted Checkout Methods

“Make it as easy as possible for customers to pay for items by offering checkout options that people use frequently. PayPal and Google Checkout offer strong brands that people trust and one-click or low-click buying options, which means less hassle for your users when checking out (and less hassle means more people will stay on your website to buy something).”

Randall Davidson
Lead Project Manager
Audio Transcription

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Pay-per-click Landing Pages

“Create specific landing pages for your pay-per-click campaign. These will help raise your quality score and reduce your daily expenses in PPC, as well as bring home more money due to a higher conversion rate.”

Richard Potvin
CEO
WholesaleAce

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Read Into Statistics

“Don’t just look at your analytics and reports as statistical information, but rather read into them and find out how the data affects your day to day ecommerce operations. Ask yourself why certain terms are appearing at the top. Explore the search engines to see what your top competitors are getting for keyword rankings and compare them to your own. What would it take to do better than them? Do the search results make you interested in visiting the website?”

Bob Rustici
Owner
uBuyCoffee

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Don’t Ignore Complaints

“Irate customers can be difficult to handle, especially if they complain on the Internet before approaching the merchant. Research the issue. If you are at fault, go out of your way to correct the mistake. If you are the victim of an unjust or insulting complaint, state your case politely, clearly, and honestly. I’ve seen many cases where the online community defends a merchant who is honest and straightforward. Sometimes, the customer isn’t always right. Be vigilant, yet willing to correct your mistakes, when they happen. Doing nothing is the worst response.”

Mike Eckler
Owner
eCommerce Angles

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Find a Way to Offer Free Shipping

“Like it or not, free shipping is becoming the standard in ecommerce. Find a way to offer free shipping by eliminating coupons or reducing online marketing budgets. Your conversion rates will be higher, and it is a more direct way to pass savings on to your customers.”

Carlos D. Rivera
Web Administrator
Haddrell’s Point

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Have Fun with Facebook Dialog

“We use our Facebook page as the ‘voice’ of our brand. We have a fun and creative dialogue with our fans, rather than just trying to sell. This prevents fans from ‘hiding’ us and encourages others to join. When we do (rarely) promote something on Facebook, we get a great response.”

Robb Lippitt
Co-Founder and CEO
Scrapbuck

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Renew Your Domain with Optimism

“Domain name registration is affordable, if not downright cheap, so go ahead and renew your domain for at least the next five years. Heck, be optimistic and spring for the whole decade.”

Luis Hernandez, Jr.
Chief Executive Motorhead
The Motor Bookstore

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Test Button Colors to Improve Conversion Rate

“Test using different colored action buttons in key areas of your site (i.e., Add to Cart, Proceed to Checkout, and so on). You may see amazing improvement in your conversion rate just from using a different color button.”

Adam Golomb
Director of E-Commerce
SmileyCookie.com

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How To Make Product Descriptions Unique and Compelling

“The problem with republishing manufacturer’s product descriptions is that many other online retailers offer the same products with the same descriptions, so your copy is a type of duplication that lowers the product’s chances to rank well in organic search results.

“Coming up with an original product description, or at least varying it with unique information, is not difficult. Start logging all the support emails you get based on your products. Ask your staff to keep a record of any customer questions about products. Combine all these questions together and your answers can be threaded into the product descriptions. Pretty soon you will have unique and compelling content, which will increase your chances to rank well and be more likely to convert visitors into customers.”

Michelle Strassburg
Head Of Sales and Marketing
Wood and Beyond

Got a great ecommerce idea? Email Kate Monteith at kate@practicalecommerce.com.