Increase Your Conversions with Same Day Shipping at a Price

With competition so tough, many online retailers find ways to stay afloat . A popular tactic is to include free shipping of orders. This actually offers another revenue avenue:

Offer same day shipping at a price.

There are online shoppers who opt for expedited delivery and are willing to pay for it. If you are able to offer this service, they are likely to shop and buy from your site because this is instant gratification to them. They are usually willing to pay a premium for this.

To ensure that you set the right customer expectation with regard to this offer, ensure clarity on the following:

• One day shipping may include one day processing, depending on what is purchased.
• For items that are instantly available, same day delivery may only be possible provided order is placed before cut-off time. Be clear about this. You may need a disclaimer that says orders placed beyond cut-off time are bound to arrive the next day.

Managing your capacity to deliver within the same day can be quite challenging but considering the rewards, it can work to your advantage. There will be no backlogs to manage because it is a more efficient way to process orders that prompt people to work quickly thereby potentially boosting productivity.

While there are some drawbacks on your part since you have to take care of getting all same-day orders out every day, the benefits more than offset the challenges. Above all, your customers will appreciate it. Keep in mind that satisfied customers tend to be loyal and could help boost your sales through referrals.

Image source

Why to have a 'Why Shop With Us' Page

A Why Shop With Us can help you differentiate against the stiff competition out there, sometimes providing the extra reassurance that a customer needs and that will give you the edge.

Factual claims about advantages of your product and shipping service will help them choose you over the others. These benefits include getting quality services delivered on a timely manner, practical tips that work, sound advice and other services unique to your website.

It’s all about genuine sales talk and getting their trust in the process. Tell them real and reasonable facts about your services or products. The more you gain their trust, the more you get a better chance of conversions. Once trust is established, there are additional benefits through higher chances of repeat purchases and referrals. Now referrals can happen in two ways: directly and indirectly. Direct referrals are those referred by actual customers and indirect referrals are those influenced by positive feedback and reviews about your website. Either way, you win.

Here are some common “Why Shop with Us?” answers:

- Free and free shipping
- Largest selection of products
- Secure website
- Worldwide shipping
- Best prices
- Money back guarantee
- No hassle returns
- Pay with PayPal
- Friendly customer service
- Charity share per sale

Image source : efrem.com.au

Why your E-Commerce Site Needs a Sitemap?

Most of the time visitors just wanted to look around and do not stay on one site for more than 5 minutes, unless they see something interesting. Having a sitemap helps to give visitors a synopsis of what you are offering in a single glance.

To put it simply, a sitemap is a list of your pages in a single page layout. It contains specific information about the various pages that make up your web site or blog. When a visitor goes to your site they can just click on a topic to find any pages that they are interested in viewing. This gives visitors quick and easy way to navigate your site.

So do you need one? If you have a very small website, probably you don’t need it. A well structured larger site may not need one either.

Then what are the advantages in creating a sitemap? The main one is that they help search engines to index your pages and can boost search engine rankings of your site. Getting your page indexed will ensure that your site will show up in the results of searches done using the search engines. To submit your sitemap to search engines is easy. Here’s how to do it for the most famous ones:

Google:
Once your sitemap has been created, you need to go to google.com/webmasters (you need google or gmail account to continue). There are links and videos to guide you in case you needed help. Once you’re signed in click “Add a site to get started”. A window will pop asking you to enter the domain name of your website. Once your website is verified, click on the URL on your website and you’ll see a section called Sitemaps. Click the “Add A Sitemap” then path your sitemap and save.

Bing/Yahoo:
Go to http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster/ enter your windows login (Hotmail, MSN, Xbox Live). Just like Google you need to enter your domain name first. Once verified click Dashboard, then on Crawl, that’s when you will see the Sitemap section. Once you entered your site map click Add Feed.

Image source : sitemap page of Nom Living, a proud website of We Make Websites.

5 Quick Tips to Help Boost Your E-Commerce Sales

E-commerce websites are one of the best ways to sell your products or services. However, not all businesses with an E-commerce site are successful in hitting their sales targets. Here are some tips of what makes an online shop successful.

Keep It Simple. I know every merchant would like their customers to see all their wares. However, too many websites are overwhelming with product information that makes it hard for a customer to find what they want.

• Try to simplify or categorize your product listings.
• Create a “Recommendations” section where you can emphasize your best or popular products.

Visible Shopping Baskets. This is one of the most important tools that an online shop should have and with that in mind it would be best to make it stand out. Below are some examples:

• Make the Shopping Cart button visually different from the rest of the site by using color or text or both.
• A cart could get visual updates when an items is added onto it.
• Make the Shopping cart fixed and visible even when scrolling down the screen.

High Quality Images. Product images are greatly important to your e-commerce website. Customers who shops online are very meticulous on what they are buying. Provide an option to look closer at your products. Investing on the best photography you can, it’ll be worth it.

Important links or buttons can all be emphasized by making them big. However, size isn’t everything. The appearance, content and the location of a link or button should also be well thought of.

Consolidated Customer Help. Customers making an online transaction may have a lot of questions:

• How much is shipping and handling?
• Do you charge taxes?
• What is your return policy?
• Is the credit card information I give you secure?
• How do I place an order?
• What payment options are available?
• What Internet browser do I need to shop?
• How will my order be packed?
• How do I send items to multiple addresses?

You can bring together all help into a single section of the site. Conveniently put the FAQ on the navigation bar to avoid users going around the site to look for different pieces of information.

Handle Site Errors Smartly. Even with a well designed site, something is bound to go wrong. When a user is prompted with an error message:

• The message should be highly visible – This is achieved either by strong visual branding or by positioning the message next to field being edited (such as context sensitive help).
• The message should tell the user what to do – It is important that messages clearly communicate how the user can overcome the problem.

A customer may encounter a problem when searching for a product. A customer will try to search for a product and will get no results. The customer might conclude that the site does not have whatever it was they searched for. In such cases, it would be best to provide some guidance when performing a search, see our recent article on suggestive search and predictive text.

Image source : squidoo.com

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Image credit: Deniz Kumral