Ten Great Ecommerce Ideas for June 2010

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 June 2010 installment of “Great Ecommerce Ideas.”

Use a Thank You Page

“An order confirmation is good, but a ‘thank you’ is even better. More than just good manners, a thank you page is an opportunity to reinforce your relationship with your customers, reward them with discounts on future purchases, and up-sell and cross-sell your products.”

Mason Wiley

Senior Vice President of Marketing

hydra

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Close More Sales Through Personalization

“Converting browsers to buyers is tough. For most ecommerce sites, as many as 97 percent of visitors leave without making a purchase, and this is often attributed to shoppers just not finding merchandise that interests them. You can improve conversions by presenting relevant, personalized product recommendations on your product detail pages, category pages, and cart page.”

Lori Trahan

Vice President of Marketing

ChoiceStream

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Engage Multi-channel Consumers with Relevant Online Content

“Retailers must use their web presence to intercept consumers online—with relevant content—before they get their information elsewhere or make a purchase from a competitor. By providing more relevant online information, retailers can successfully use the Internet to seamlessly deliver products and promotions to consumers in conjunction with the store experience.”

Rob Friedman

Executive Vice President

Digital Element

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Check Reputation Before You Deal

“If you are about to strike a deal with another company, check its reputation before making any decisions. Take time to Google its company name and search for reviews.”

Alexander Mulin

Sales Department Manager

Qualiteam

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Shipping Can Be a Profit Center

“You can make shipping into a profit center. If you have accounts with UPS or FedEx, ask them to give you a discount based on your history. (The FedEx discount can run up to 47 percent.) Then, advertise discounted shipping rates to customers, but only give half the discount.”

Richard Kuipers

Owner

Windmill Trading

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Build Virtual Relationships

“Segment your customers and re-market to them via email, based on what they have purchased from you in the past. Build virtual relationships with your customers based on their buying behavior and preferences. The stronger your customers feel a brand affinity with your company, the more likely they are to do repeat business with you.”

Manish Rathi

Co-founder and VP of Marketing

Retrevo

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PPC: Test Multiple Pages

“Test multiple landing pages for your pay-per-click ads. It’s easy to run multiple creatives in Google and point one to a category page, one to a product listing page, and one to a product detail page. Most websites have a few pages that will work for a given keyword, and this is an easy way to get more ROI out of your PPC campaigns.”

David Norris

Owner

Fourth Wave Consulting

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Use Unique Content to Increase Conversions

“Original content is critical to building a successful online business. When you regularly update your websites and sales pages with unique, search-relevant content, you not only increase organic rankings, but also provide added value to the consumer, resulting in higher conversions and a larger number of repeat shoppers over the long term.”

Bobbi Leach

General Manager

RevenueWire

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Provide a Toll-free Number

“Place a toll-free phone number in a large font in the header of your website. You will get a few more phone calls, and that is a good thing. Answering your business phone is your ticket to increasing the average revenue per sale, as the phone is one of the best places a merchant can up-sell.”

Stephanie Leffler

CEO

Juggle.com

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Basic Security Tips

“These are basic website security tips: Keep your operating systems and installed applications up-to-date with the latest security patches. And, don’t run unnecessary network services on servers and workstations.”

Ondrej Krehel

Information Security Officer

Identity Theft 911

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