According to research by Hubspot, 73% of mobile users are annoyed by full screen pop-ups. But we didn’t need research to tell us that. You hate pop-ups, I hate pop-ups, and everyone I know hates pop-ups. Even Google hates pop-ups and will penalize you severely in search rankings if your site is notorious for intrusive […]

Are you helping your shoppers choose? Getting users to your site isn’t helpful if they end up buying nothing. A wide selection of products is nice but there is something like having too many choices, counterintuitive as it may sound.) A famous field study was conducted on this very phenomena. Two tables with jam samples […]

Text is an integral part of design. It is used in product labels, product descriptions, and price tags. It’s easy to use and even easier to edit compared to stuff like images. It’s hard to go wrong with text though this still happens. A lot of these problems usually arise when you port the entire […]

Having UGC is a must. And the more ‘genuine’ the better – meaning real photos from your customers, not just official photos.       Over half (51%) of Americans trust UGC more than other information on a company website (16%) or news articles about the company (14%) when looking for information about a brand, […]

The world is a large and diverse place. Efforts have been made to standardize a lot of things but some still evade us. Even the very number of countries in the world remains disputed. It all depends on whose side you are on in several territorial disputes all across the globe.  This makes localization incredibly […]

Shoppers need help A study by Econsultancy from 2013 of 5,700+ online consumers revealed that 83% of online shoppers need support to complete a purchase.  They also found that 31% of shoppers expect an immediate response, and 40% expect a response within 5 min. To be more precise: 31% of shoppers expect an immediate response […]

Shoppers expect a quick response As mentioned in best practice #39, your shoppers expect a quick response when they need help. 31% of people surveyed in the study expected an immediate response. A chatbot provides an instant response, and thus gives additional time for a human service agent to jump in if needed.   It’s […]

An email a day is spammy Your newsletter is very important to you. It’s where you announce new initiatives, deals, and changes in policy. But the average customer doesn’t really care much for that stuff. Many of them opt out. 62% of those opting out say it’s because they receive too many emails. So, if […]

It’s hard to keep track of all the products you’re interested in when window-shopping in a brick and mortar store. Online shopping simplifies this with the wishlist.   What does a wishlist do? It allows customers to keep track of products they want but haven’t made a final purchase decision on yet. Wishlists are also […]

While the ideal customer comes in, finds what he wants, buys it, and leaves, this is not always the case with online shopping. The average customer may make a few store visits before completing a purchase. While a majority of these visits are always on the same device, a subset of shoppers tend to device […]

I am the number one piano player in my house. Hell, I am the number one piano player in my neighborhood. I am also the number one pencil sharpener in Canada on Friday mornings at 9.24 am. All these claims show how easy it is to claim to be number one as long as you […]

The back button is an extremely important part of web navigation. Shoppers expect to be taken right back to where they were before engaging in whatever action necessitated the use of a back button when they press it. Implementing it might sound easy but things are rarely so simple. The problem comes when there is […]

When you go shopping for furniture at your local retailer, you don’t find the sofas just stacked on top of each other. The store will organize them in a living room-like setting. Clothing retailers do this as well, putting their clothes on display hangers for more visibility instead of folding and stacking them on the […]

Returns are an unavoidable part of e-commerce. The best you can do is make them as simple as possible for yourself and the customer.   Customers prefer in-store returns Mailed returns can be taxing. First, a customer will need to read through a lengthy legal document to determine if their particular circumstances qualify for a […]

Performance and conversion are inextricably connected   Slow pages cause abandonments According to Unbounce, 1 out of 5 shoppers will abandon their loaded shopping cart if they perceive the pages as being too slow. (source) According to AnnexCloud, a slow website can increase abandonment by 75%, and loyalty drops 50% when your site is slow. […]

An “About Us” page allows shoppers to learn more about you and your business yet many sites treat it as an afterthought. A lot of “About Us” pages on the internet are practically identical once you remove the site name. They’re usually a few hastily written paragraphs that barely elicit any reactions from those reading […]

A few stats about mobile ecommerce According to Shopify, mobile traffic now accounts for 50% of visits, and about 35% of purchases. During the 2018 holiday season, about a third of online purchases came from smartphone users. On Black Friday, with 6.2 billion in online revenue, 40% of sales came via a mobile device. During […]

Extra costs cause abandonments Extra costs too high (shipping, tax, fees) is the #1 reason for cart abandonment, according to Baymard (source).   Free shipping Free shipping is the best kind of shipping. You get bonus points if it’s also fast. It eliminates a major pain point for ecommerce customers and helps you conquer a […]

People want to be appreciated and feel valued. Talking to your customers directly is one of the better ways to do that. Human contact always works best since people want to do business with other people, not soulless corporations or robots.  You shouldn’t just talk to your customers when there is a problem or when […]

Data has often been called the oil of the 21st century, and for good reason. Google, Facebook, and Amazon are among the most successful companies of our age thanks to their dominance in data. They analyze every tiny little thing visitors do on their sites and figure out how they can use that information to […]

Everyone likes a deal. It’s the entire reason why sites like Groupon exist in the first place. Your customers will always take advantage of any opportunity to pay less though implementation can cost you conversions.   Discount code fields might lead to checkout abandonment Many checkout forms have a discount code field. Customers are very […]

Repeat business is key to the success of practically every enterprise in existence. But to have repeat business, you must first keep your customers satisfied. Customers will often contact you for a variety of reasons. Some will need help to complete a purchase, a few will have specific questions (warranties, discounts, and the like), and […]

Store personality Choose a font that fits your company’s personality, such as ‘serious’ or fun’ Color increases brand recognition. (source)     Other thoughts Make it legible and memorable Incorporate the domain name and store name which should be the same Keep it simple, avoid photography and 3D graphics.  

The error 404 page is one of the most infuriating pages on the internet. Visits to this page rarely come from visitors using internal site navigation. A lot of error 404 page visits come from prospects following a search engine link that is either broken, erroneous, or has been changed.  Regardless of the cause, it’s […]

Brick & mortar store If you sell online only, it is not as important to put your physical address but it can build some trust If you have a physical retail store, add the physical address of your store(s).   Components Show a professional email address, such as info@yourstore.com. In order to reduce the amount […]

Free returns Allowing your shoppers to return for free the products they bought builds trust with them. It lowers their fear of making the wrong purchase, as they know that they can easily return them if needed, at no cost. People starting out often think that a strict and challenging returns policy will discourage returns. […]

Statistics on package theft are all over the place. One survey says 15% of Americans have had at least one package stolen from them in the last year. Another one put that figure as high as 79%. Many other surveys place the figure somewhere between those two extremes. If we go with the conservative 15% […]

What advantages does e-commerce have over traditional retail? Convenience Convenience Convenience What advantages does traditional retail have over e-commerce? Speed Human-to-human interaction Some stuff about community and the environment that people talk about all the time but keep shopping online anyway because they don’t really care. Speed E-commerce has gotten as big as it has […]

Discounts. What are they good for? The benefit of a discount to customers is obvious. But what about you as a merchant? Is the increased volume of sales worth the reduced margins and the potential dent to your brand’s identity and prestige? Whether to offer discounts or not is a divisive subject. Some say offer […]

In Title Case, the First Letter of Every Non-Conjunctive Word Longer Than Three Letters Is Capitalized. In sentence case, only the first letter of a sentence is capitalized. While sentence case is ubiquitous in the United States, it causes readability issues for your customers in other parts of the world. We all know America is […]

Video is a great way to capture a user’s attention. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video has to be worth a lot more. But you shouldn’t just play videos willy-nilly. There has to be some rhyme and reason or you risk losing your customers. 92% of users find autoplay videos […]

Buy Now Pay Later is as old as the act of commerce itself. But unlike the merchants of old, you don’t need to bear the risk of default anymore. There are dozens of companies out there offering BNPL plans to e-commerce stores and their customers. A customer who might be short on cash applies for […]

Yes, you should have a blog. At this point, it’s just the bare minimum. The best thing about a blog is that you write it once, put it out, and it will be out there pulling in organic traffic two or three years down the line. Why have a blog? There are several reasons but […]

Nobody likes doing a currency conversion when buying something. People also enjoy shopping in their own language. 76% of people like to shop in their own language and another 40% would never buy anything from a store if it uses another language. But you probably knew this already. If you operate in a multilingual market […]

As a merchant, you want to make as much money as you can, usually by selling to as many people as possible. In the old days of brick-and-mortar stores, your customer base was limited by the number of people who walked by or drove past your door. Once you maxed out the footfall, the business […]

When two researchers from Massey University in New Zealand tested coupon codes vs free samples, they came to the following conclusion: “Both product sampling and cashbacks promote incremental sales, but that discount coupons may only subsidize purchases that would otherwise be made at full retail prices.” We didn’t need a research paper to tell us […]

In 2016, Guillermo Robles, a visually impaired man in California, sued Dominos Pizza. Why? Domino’s website and app were not compatible with his screen reader. Robles claimed this was a violation of Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The ADA requires businesses and public spaces to make their goods and services accessible […]

You know the stats. Keeping existing customers around is five times cheaper than bringing in new ones. Loyal customers spend more, flake less, aren’t too price sensitive, and will recommend you to their friends far more often than one-time purchasers. But what exactly are you doing to keep those customers around? Amazon has Prime, Starbucks […]

There are a bunch of shopping holidays clustered around Thanksgiving. Blackout Wednesday, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Sofa Sunday, Cyber Monday, and Matt’s Tuesday. The last one is still in development but it’s coming soon to a Facebook ad near you. Of all these shopping holidays, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the biggest. 2022 […]

In a brick-and-mortar store, packaging is everything. With a hundred separate products jockeying for a customer’s attention on the shelves, standing out is imperative. The same kind of pressure isn’t quite there in e-commerce. By the time a customer sees your packaging, he’s already bought your product. But you shouldn’t ignore packaging because of that. […]

It’s October 25. A customer, say, Bob, finds a T-shirt on your site that says, “Bob: apple bobbing champion.” Flattered and intrigued, he buys it. You promise delivery in 3-5 days so Bob waits, assuming he’ll have it by Halloween. Come October 29, four days later, Bob still hasn’t received the T-shirt. He figures he […]

If you have ever called your cable company, then you know exactly what bad customer support is. For cable providers, theirs isn’t customer support as much as it is deliberate customer frustration. Their entire strategy seems to be keeping you on the line until you give up and stop bothering them. Sadly for you, as […]

If you ask Google that question, the results on the first page will all tell you yes. Case closed, right? No. Once you dig into these responses, you find out they come from shipping insurance companies. These companies have a vested interest in selling you their product. It’s a perfect example of: “Never ask a […]

A vast majority of your users access your site using either mobile phones or laptops. These tend to have more or less similar screen size ranges. But some of your remaining customers will also use tablets, phablets, wide-screen PCs, and even the odd smart TV. For an optimum user experience, your site needs to scale […]

Let’s say you run a clothing store. A customer, Jonah, comes in to buy a t-shirt. In the search bar, he types in: “V-neck t-shirt.” He gets 726 results. That’s a lot more than he can sift through, so he refines his search term. “Instead of “V-neck t-shirt,” he searches for “Black V-neck t-shirt.” The […]

If you have ever searched for something on Google, you may have noticed just how relevant the results tend to be. You rarely have to go to the second page or even scroll to the bottom of the first page to get what you want. The answer you seek is usually behind the first two […]

When you go to buy a pair of 399-dollar Airpods from the Apple store, Apple gives you a choice, pay the $399 in full or pay it off in monthly installments of $16.62 over two years through your Apple Card. This completely changes the conversation. Apple puts a choice to the buyer. And that choice […]