Whether in-store, online, via catalog or smart phone app, consumers draw on all touch points when formulating an overall image of a retailer. Can retailers say the same about their multi-channel customers?

To provide what customers demand — a seamless experience across all channels — retailers need a unified view of their customers.

Many chain retailers have been building out their online (and now mobile) commerce efforts over the last decade. How are they doing so far with their cross-channel integration?

According to the 2009 RIS Cross-Channel Tech Trends study, over half (55 percent) of retailer respondents say they have no integration of their CRM/customer database across brick and mortar and online channels. Another 36 percent say they maintain only a loose integration. And for loyalty applications, 36 percent have no integration, while 43 percent have loose integration across these channels.

Action Items:

In the recent RIS White Paper, The Cross-Channel Imperative, the following action items are recommended for retailers looking to develop a unified customer engagement platform:

#1: Work toward a single customer view – Bridge departmental silos to create a single database that captures customer preferences and transactions across channels.

#2: Concentrate on actionable analysis - Retailers can leverage business intelligence and customer analytics to: determine which items customers are most loyal to, channel by channel; improve personalization of offers; and engage in relevant and timely conversations with customers across channels.

#3: Unify infrastructure around customer engagement data - The unified customer engagement platform can be used to map points of integration with customer touch points in the store, online, catalog, call center and the mobile channel.

#4: Provide a single view of the retailer to the customer - Standardize the view that the customer gets of the retailer across all channels, thereby improving customer convenience and ease of use.

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Quite a few factors go into website conversions, and they can be very interdependent. For instance, if you have a lot of “junk” traffic coming to your site, your conversion rate could be very low regardless of the user experience. Likewise, you could have a trickle of traffic coming in and still make money if you can turn your visitors into buyers. Naturally, most people want a lot of good traffic with good conversion. On the search engine optimization side, you can afford a low conversion rate as long as enough “free” traffic comes in to justify your SEO expenses. For traffic generated by way of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) you want to watch you clicks a lot more carefully.

Most experts will tell you that an ideal ecommerce conversion rate is about 2.5%. For lead generation sites, conversion rates can be ten times higher if you’re just collecting names and phone numbers. If you’re buying ecommerce traffic with PPC, it can sometimes be difficult to justify a significant ad spend if the cost per click is too high. For example, if you are spending $1 per click, and make 1 sale for every $40 you spend (one hundred $1 clicks divided by 2.5% conversion rate), then you’d better be making more than $40 on a sale. In some cases, you can factor in lifetime customer value to make your numbers work, but in these cases it pays to have senior management on board to ensure that your numbers don’t look like a recipe for bankruptcy.

There are a lot of ways to increase your conversion rate over time. Many of these involve testing keywords and site design changes. This is because some keywords can have a 10% conversion rate or higher, though they are usually few and far between. Website design changes are often the primary way of turning clicks into buyers, and tools like Google Website Optimizer are ideal for testing different variations on landing pages to see which one works the best. Sometimes a small or seemingly subconscious change will create a trust factor in your customer’s brain that makes the sale go through.

Speaking of trust factors, it pays to make a site that looks trustworthy. Previously, webmasters could get away with shopping processes that were very different from those of other sites. Today, it pays to mimic the shopping experience that people have learned from other transactions. Credit card logos, endorsements (like the BBB logo), security seals, and streamlined shopping pages all contribute to better conversion rates.

PPC conversion rates are often the most addressed because real dollars are lost when a conversion rate is bad. Making sure to have conversion counters in place (and goal counters if you use analytics programs) is one way to understand which keywords are worth keeping. With some keywords, it is often hard to separate buyers from window shoppers, or information seekers from active purchasers. PPC programs have ways of filtering out keywords that are not sufficiently relevant, but with a pay-per-click campaign it takes time to understand how people react to your site and its content, so it pays to start slow. If you can afford to spend a lot of money on your PPC campaign, then you may be able to write off the first few weeks as an information gathering expense. Nonetheless, PPC is one part of your business where continuous improvement is critical.

Understanding how customers convert is imperative for large and small companies alike. There are too many individual factors to define a perfect conversion rate for the web, but for your own ROI the conversion rate will normally depend on your ability to convert the visitor. If you generate leads, the online conversion rate is the first step to creating a real sale through follow-up. For e-commerce sites, the conversion may well depend upon a series of visits, after which the customer makes a decision to buy. Either way, and more so with PPC than SEO, continuous tweaking of your site pages may be necessary to make sure that your users are seeing all of the things they want to see.

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With Google recently releasing some tips for product page conversion, I thought I’d share the most useful advice with our readers below.

Product Images

• Use a minimum of 3-4 images for each product so visitors can see it from different angles and being used in different ways.
• Add the functionality for visitors to zoom in and get a closer look at the product.
• Make sure to use professional, high quality images.
• It’s common practise to place images on the right hand side of pages, but make sure to test alternative placements within your layout.

Product Descriptions

• Benefits vs Features – Customers want to buy the benefits of your product, not its features. Tell customers that the grill they are buying will cook tasty and healthy food and save them money rather than having low emissions and four individual burners.
• Test writing alternative sales copy instead of using the existing description provided by the manufacturer. This is one way to set you apart from competitors.

Delivery and Stock

• Include current stock levels on your page. If your product is running low, tell the customer to order today.
• Set expectations around delivery times and be as accurate as possible.
• Run free shipping promotions - this can be a great way to boost conversions during major sale periods.

Other Important Elements

• Reviews can be a great way to increase conversions, but make sure to only use legitimate reviews.
• Give your page a single clear call to action or add to cart button.
• Test including cross sells on your pages and see what impact it has on overall conversion/revenue.

If you’re looking for additional conversion advice, download our free conversion whitepaper today.

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“The first quarter returned the U.S. retail e-commerce market to healthy double-digit growth rates,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni.

“While these spending gains provide reason for optimism, we should note that upper-income households are currently shouldering much of the growth. Should the economy falter in the second half of the year and upper-income consumers return to a savings mode, we could still see growth decelerate. But for the time being, this momentum is encouraging.”

Other highlights from Q1 include:

*Growth in the first quarter was mainly driven by upper-income consumers, with spending among the $100,000+ household income segment up 14 percent.

*Online-only retailers continued to gain ecommerce spending market share from multichannel retailers.

*Larger online retailers continued to generate higher growth rates than smaller retailers, but smaller retailers are finally beginning to see postive growth once again.

Instead of watching our television screen, we will be able to interact like never before.

How does this new technology impact ecommerce?

First, watch the short YouTube Video below and view how Google TV works.

Then, listen to our podcast “Tips on Using Google TV for Ecommerce.”

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Hiroshi Mikitani, the CEO of Tokyo-based Rakuten had this to say about the acquisition, “We feel it has a great strategic fit with our global expansion.”

“Our goal is to become the number one e-commerce company and Internet company in the world.”

Purchasing Buy.com is certainly a good start, as they’re one of the leading ecommerce sites in the country. They were the main competition of Amazon, who they tried to ‘out deal’ in order to snag potential customers. Mikitani has some ideas to take Buy.com in new directions. Rakuten Ichiba, their Japanese site combines shopping and entertainment into its sales strategy. This difference in process allows merchants to connect with customers beyond the simple customer-merchant level.

Mikitani explains how their business model can challenge the larger stores, “If we can convert it into what we do here in Japan, then it is going to be a lot more powerful.”

“We believe that we have a very different business model from Amazon and eBay. We empower the merchants.”

Rakuten is looking to expand their market, due to the shrinking capabilities of the domestic Japanese market. With a strong yen, purchases of overseas companies is a no-brainer for the company.

It will certainly be interesting to see how Rakuten’s model will effect sales in the US. With such a large variety of e-commerce sites, Rakuten will certainly have an uphill battle. However, if they can differentiate themselves from the competition, then perhaps they could prove to be a powerful niche market.

Ultimately customers choose to purchase from a given online retailer based on their ability to trust the transaction taking place. Therefore it should be no surprise that all successful business relationships require building trust with the customer. If you can’t build trust with your potential customer you won’t get the sale.

To illustrate let me give you a brief example.

For simplicity sake let’s say you have a flat tire on your car. You need that car to get from place to place and thus you need that tire fixed. It’s not a desire but rather a need-a necessity.

Your door bell unexpectedly rings and a man in a greasy jumpsuit is standing there. He says he was driving by and noticed that you had a flat tire. He points to a rusted out old pickup truck loaded with tires heaped in the back and says he’ll sell you a tire on the spot.

He indicates that he will even install it for you at no extra charge. You glance at the truck and find no sign indicating the business he represents. Furthermore the state of repair of his own truck leaves you questioning his ability and honesty.

Would you buy it from him? I doubt it. Even though you need the tire and you need it now, the likelihood of you completing the transaction at that moment is hampered by your ability to trust the seller.

Can you trust the tire will be installed correctly? Are the tires old, new, refurbished? Why are they just thrown in the back of his truck in a big unorganized pile? Who does he work for and is his business even legit? What are his qualifications? These questions–along with others–are all examples of what would likely go through your mind.

Each question involves basing a decision upon trust and because of the lack of it in this case, the sale will likely be lost.

The above example illustrates how much of an impact trust plays in the final decision making for consumer. Now let’s turn our attention to the impact trust has online and detail numerous factors that can help you build it.

Factors That Influence Building Trust

Before we delve into how to build trust let me just state there are many ways to misconnect or disconnect with site visitors and thus break trust.

Most often it can be seen in bad design (which equates to the rusted out old pick-up truck and unorganized pile of tires in my offline example) or usability issues. A few of the most common design and usability mistakes I’ve seen include: use of pop-ups, poorly designed shopping carts, weak checkout processes, lack of customer assurance items such as ssl seals, shipping information, payment methods, returns policies, and unresponsive or unprofessional customer service.

Those are just a few of the factors that most often break trust. There are more, but I want to really focus on building trust online not breaking it so let’s get into that now.

Below is a detailed list of items you need to consider for helping build trust online.

Usability

Building an ecommerce site with a specific target audience or market in mind is critical to the ultimate success of the store. Yet, this need is too often overlooked by many-coordination and communication is they key.

Graphic designers are rarely aware of the impact their use of animation, images and graphical text can have on search engine visibility or compatibility with mobile devices. In a similar vein, programmers developing backend functionality are not frequently educated on the impact of dynamically generated content and code can have on visibility and browser compatibility.

Most importantly, the entire development team may create a site that looks absolutely wonderful on all screen sizes and types, but is, in fact, very difficult to navigate to accomplish a desired task. One answer is to involve a usability engineer and search engine optimization specialist throughout the development process.

Don’t neglect the KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid). Make your site simple and informative. Oftentimes the more information you provide the greater your chances are of customers not trusting your brand and becoming confused.

Security

Get a private SSL Certificate (vs. a shared one) and keep it up-to-date.

Clearly display the seal and words like “your transaction is 100% safe and secure” on all pages of your site especially in areas where you are asking for personal information like credit card numbers.

Uniqueness

Few ecommerce stores operate in markets where there is no competition. To stand out, it is essential that you differentiate yourself from the rest–this is often called your UVP or unique value proposition. It’s what will make a customer choose you over your competition when all other factors are closely related or constant.

When a prospect visits your site, how are you differentiating yourself from the competition?

Too often, companies use their competitors as a baseline when developing their own site. While this is not a bad idea (providing your competitors do it right and you have done your homework), make sure that when you design your site it is not so closely related to your competition that it takes away from your uniqueness.

The inclusion of key differentiators and less tangible benefits like your brand identity, culture and values all factor into the overall customer experience and are what will help you gain the competitive advantage.

Social Media

Don’t neglect social media. Social media includes things like Twitter, Facebook, and can include blogging. Taking advantage of this new channel can help give your company a personality, an identity beyond the site itself. Harness the power and you can create trust through relationship building.

Contact Information

It seems obvious to include contact information on a Web site, but far too often, companies bury this information or omit it completely. All sites should include the basics: contact form, phone, fax and mailing address. If you do business locally you may want to consider including a map to your location as well.

Don’t hide from your customers or they will hide from you.

Visibility

The presence of your site across the internet through marketing and promotion also helps build trust. The more positive exposure you can get for your business the greater the trust.

Get mentioned in blogs, get listed in search engines (using both paid and organic methods), send out press releases, run contests, sponsor events, etc… These are all ways to gain positive exposure for your business and create trust at the same time.

Respect Your Audience

Know who your customers are and respect their needs.

Any B2B company worth its salt will have one or more of the following elements on its site: industry certifications, reviews, awards, press coverage, articles, customer testimonials, case studies, product demos, free trials and white papers.

The key is to understand the benefits of each in building trust, and determining relevance to your company, industry and target audience.

For business-to-consumer (B2C) Web sites such as e-retailers, there are entirely different expectations and requirements. Some of the more important site elements include: strong brand/identity, security certifications and guarantees, shipping, return and privacy policies, customer testimonials and product reviews, merchandising, promotions and product comparisons.

Rather than get distracted by the bells and whistles, it’s critical to ensure the site functions reliably and visitors are able to find what they are looking for without the need to dig deep for it.

Anticipate Every Question

I’ve written numerous articles on answering your customer’s questions before they ask them. This is done through first understanding your customer and then placing the proper elements in the right locations on the site to address their concerns at precisely the right moment they typically would ask.

Anticipating their questions and answering accordingly helps build trust. Any impression of secrecy or preciousness, anything that makes a customer’s visit to a site difficult, can annihilate trust.

Confirm, Confirm, and Confirm

It’s often said the most important time for car manufacturers to advertise is within four weeks after purchase. Why? This is the period during which consumers need confirmation they’ve made the right choice. The principle is no different online, but the reality is more important than in the brick-and-mortar world.

Confirm orders placed with emails to the customer immediately following a successful sale. Confirm the shipment of the item when it is sent and include tracking information for them as well. Don’t forget to follow up with an email sometime after delivery (not to soon after) thanking them again and asking them if they are satisfied with the product or have any questions about it.

This type of pro-active approach builds a relationship that has trust as its foundation. Even after purchasing, customers want to feel they made the right choice. It’s your job to assure them they have.

Answer customer inquires quickly

If a customer asks a question, answer within 24 hours. Nothing can hurt your business more than not responding to a customer inquiry on time. It sends a message that they are not important enough to warrant a quick response and often leads to lost sales and bad pr.

Trust is built on a foundation with a multitude of influential elements. The fewer of the above elements included in your Web site, the greater the likelihood the visitor will go elsewhere, like a competitor’s site. By following the above recommendations, you are all but guaranteeing an increase in trust and online sales.

Got some more? Add them to the list by leaving a comment below.

Comments

Like many operators of online stores, I am constantly looking at our conversion rate.  How did our sales this week affect our conversion rate for the month?

Did our site updates make a difference in our conversion rates?  It is the figure that is always being analyzed.

My first encounter with conversion rates happened way before I become involved with e-commerce.  I had just started working at a popular clothing store, and I was told by my manager on duty to make sure that I walked around the ‘head sensor’ when coming in and out of the store.  Intrigued by all the employees walking sideways out the front door, I asked why it was so important that we all looked silly walking in and out of the store.  I was told that little head counter was the source of my manager’s quarter bonus.  She explained to me that the number of sales we have per day are divided by the number of heads that head counter detects, which equals our daily conversion rate.

When I started working with e-commerce sites, my first question was, ‘what should our conversion rate be?’  I think every person working with an e-commerce site has that thought, followed by ‘who has the best conversion rate?’

What should our conversion rate be?

Conversion rates are broken down by the industry in which you categorize site.  To help see where you should be, Fireclick offers a great breakdown of industry conversion rates by Global, First Time Visitors and Repeat Visitors.  They have industries broken down by Fashion and Apparel, Electronics, Catalog, Specialty, Outdoor and Sports, and finally Software.   You can compare what the conversion rates are for this week, last week and see any % changes, along with a graph chart shown by week, month, or yearly.

Who is on top?

The Nielson Company collects data on the top ranking e-commerce sites by conversion rates. These conversion rates can be a little shocking when you are currently working to improve your conversion rate from 2.5% to 3%.  Typically, these high ranking sites are catalog and subscription sites, and have abnormally high conversion rates.

Top 10 Online Retailers Based on Conversion Rate – Jan. 2010 (Min 500K Unique Visitors)

Fireclick offers weekly average conversion rates that are an average of all industries, and will typically be more consistant with rates of non-subscription and catalog sites.  These averages can be very helpful while comparing your conversion rates to averages.  You can take your comparison one step further and look at the average conversion for keywords, emails and affiliates.

Now that you have an idea what your industry average conversion rates are and who is on top, make sure your conversion rate is accurate, and compare your site!

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While the technology to connect buyers and sellers on the social Web is universal, the architecture for true engagement is antiquated. Customers are flocking to the social web to not only connect with friends, family, and peers, but also the brands that attract their attention. However, there is a tremendous disconnect between the volume of potential customers and the brands who truly understand how to find and more importantly, how to establish mutually beneficial connections with them.

The roadblocks that contribute to the absence of traffic on the bridges built between consumers and brands are trivial once brands understand the dynamics of social engineering and the allure of content in order to stimulate transactions.

Everything starts with an acute awareness of where existing and potential customers are discovering and sharing information today combined with a genuine appreciation for what moves them. The moment we have the insight necessary where to construct our presences, we can then engage with influencers, peers, and consumers based on a transparent foundation of contributing value, direction and resolution to each interaction.

According to research conducted by ForeSee, the opportunity for online retailers is profound. In the 2010 Social Media Report, ForeSee observed that 60% of online shoppers already use social media sites and networks regularly. And, 56% of those online shoppers friend or follow retailers, but they can only do so, if the retailer is actively engaging within those networks. The study found that only one-fourth of the top 100 e-tailers (e-retailers) has yet to create a Facebook page.

ForeSee found that of all the social networks frequented by online shoppers, Facebook consistently earned the top spot.

56% of online shoppers frequented Facebook, followed by YouTube at 22%. MySpace, believe it or not, ranked third with 15% and actually edged out Twitter by 4%.

However, pay attention to the real opportunity. While existing users are important, over 30% reported that they do not use social sites…at least not yet.

If only 25% of the top 100 online retailers maintains a Facebook page and with Facebook ranking as the most active network among online shoppers, the following data should be more than enough to change 2010 marketing plans posthaste.

Over 60% of consumers follow one-to-five brands online with another 21% following six-to-ten.  10% actually reported following 11-20 brands and 8% stated that they follow over 20 of their favorite products and services.

What motivates them?

Affinity and allegiance are of course among reasons for following brands, but as documented late last year, consumers are also motivated by receiving invitations for events, special offers or promotions.

For those skeptics who have yet to allocate funds and resources to engaging customers and prospects in social networks, perhaps this information will erode suspicion.

Your customers ultimately will engage with their favorite brands where and when possible, but eventually, your absence will eventually contribute to the insignificance of the brand as competitors will ultimately step in and capture the attention and loyalty of the very people you need to reach.

This research is testament to the rapid evolution of customer acquisition, retention, as well as defining the new landscape for advocacy.

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Ryan Hughes, Vice President of Business Development at Verizon Wireless had this to say, “Verizon Wireless strives to bring its customers services and features they want and that make their lives simpler.” He continues, “Working with Danal will give our customers the opportunity to make direct online mobile payments with the most secure, feature-rich, convenient method available.”

The BilltoMobile service doesn’t require any kind of link to a credit card or bank account. Instead, Verizon users will use a text-enabled phone to enter their cell number and zip code to receive a passcode. The passcode is then entered at checkout, and the total amount will then be deferred to the cell phone bill.

Jim Greenwell, CEO of Danal talks about the benefits of BilltoMobile, “Verizon Wireless is combining the convenience of the mobile phone and its strong billing platform to provide their customers with a convenient mobile payment option.”

“Verizon Wireless is the bellwether service provider in this space, and we see this agreement will likely be the beginning of a change in the industry’s approach to online mobile payments – one that involves ease of use and strong security for subscribers’ mobile payments, as well as robust user controls that will help individual subscribers and families manage their digital purchases and digital lives.”

The service is based out of Seoul, but Danal is getting arrangements set for US companies.

On the surface, this plan could really bring significant change to online shopping. However, starting out at least, it seems a bit underwhelming. Verizon is only allowing $25/month to be used, which barely gets you a single DVD and shipping costs covered. It’s a start though, and depending on it’s success, we could see the limit rise. For those who are too dependent on credit cards for online purchases and get hit with interest, this could be seen as a real boon.