With the holidays just around the corner, now is a great time to
add some special features to your website that will likely increase
sales. There are four specific things you can do, according to the
"2004 Shop.org/BizRate.com Online Holiday Mood
Study."
The study found that the most successful website feature for
driving sales during last year's holiday period was a gift-idea
center (according to 56 percent of online retailers). The study,
which polled 1,612 online buyers and more than 100 online
retailers, also named these features as runners-up: a
suggested-items page (32 percent), a clearance or sale page (32
percent), and a featured sale-item page (31 percent). Here's a
closer look at how you can use each feature to benefit your
e-business.
1. Gift-idea center: A gift-idea center allows consumers
to browse for suggested gifts by gender, price or category.
"When an internet-based seller presents me with information
from a gift-idea center, it should increase my willingness to pay
the e-tailer, since the company is solving a problem for me,"
says Robert Kauffman, a professor and e-commerce expert at the
University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management in
Minneapolis.
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A gift-idea center paid off for Francoise Shirley, 39, who added
one to her website in 2003. Sleepyheads.com Inc., the company she founded
in 1999 with her husband, John Shirley, 39, sells pajamas and other
types of sleepwear and accessories, and expects sales of $2.2
million this year.
The Hopkins, Minnesota, business has a gift-idea section where
shoppers can choose gifts from categories such as
"Bride-To-Be," "New Mom & Mom-To-Be" and
"Boyfriend Breakup." Every month, the gift section, which
can be accessed through a link on the home page, is updated with
new items.
"So often on the web, people are looking for very specific
things, so it is nice if you can accommodate them by having [a gift
section] ready and available on your website," says
Francoise.
Since adding the gift center, Sleepyheads.com's average
order size has increased from $75 to about $100 to $125. But a
gift-idea center won't necessarily work for all e-tailers,
warns Kauffman: "It might be good for books, music CDs [and]
baby gifts, wedding gifts, anniversary gifts and graduation gifts.
But this approach may not work for computer-related equipment or
clothing, and other kinds of products where there will still be
uncertainty on the part of the gift-giver about whether the
equipment is compatible or the clothing will fit, and so
on."
2. Suggested items: A suggested-items page lets you list
multiple pieces of merchandise on a web page specifically for
cross-selling or upselling opportunities after a consumer has
selected an item. For example, if a shopper is buying a pair of
pants, she is offered complementary items that may also interest
her, such as a matching belt or a pair of shoes.
This popular feature helps drive online business because, like a
gift-idea center, it "offers consumers help from the retailer
about what to purchase," says Scott Silverman, executive
director of Shop.org, a division of the National Retail Federation
in Washington, DC. Silverman adds that this feature is important
because it replicates the in-store experience-where a customer may
be more likely to browse and be tempted by another
product--online.
3. Bargain shopping: Jennifer M. Varner, 32, founder of
BellaBlu
Maternity LLC, achieved great results by adding a clearance
section to her website. The Cary, North Carolina, business, which
sells maternity clothing and baby products such as diaper bags,
turned 1 year old in March and is on track to grow sales to $1.5
million this year.
Last November, Varner launched a clearance section on her site
after a few customers complained that they had to search through
the site to find clearance items. Now, visitors can reach the
clearance items through a link on her home page. Updated every day,
it includes last season's items, excess inventory and other
discounted products.
Varner says the clearance section was very popular during last
year's holiday season, and allows her to reach a whole new
customer base--shoppers looking for discounts.
4. Featured sale items: According to Kauffman, clearance
and featured sale-item pages "continue to be very
successful-both on the websites of internet-based sellers and when
news in HTML format is sent via e-mail to subscribers, letting them
know about specific sale items they might like to buy."
Varner features sale items on her home page in conjunction with
special sales, such as seasonal or swimsuit sales, as well as in a
weekly e-mail newsletter sent to 7,000 customers. Says Varner,
"When we send out a newsletter about sale items, sales on that
day will increase from 10 percent to 15 percent." Adding these
features to her site has paid off--about 10 percent of daily sales
now come from sale and clearance items.
Melissa Campanelli is a marketing and technology writer in
New York City.