Internet Marketing Blog

I tried it once when I was in college I have to admit it made me laugh afterwards.  I did it on a dare for a Social Club Rush activity.  I went to the Target store on the southern edge of Anderson, Indiana, went all through 20+ aisle’s of the store filling up the shopping cart- and literally for no reason other than to fulfill my bullet point list of annoying tasks- I abandoned my overflowing cart in the middle of the store. Granted, I had no illusions that I would be purchasing the $100+ of items that was in the cart (by 1994 standards)- but to Target it could have represented $100 of sales lost on someone who may not return to buy.

With Black Friday and the whole Christmas corridor coming up, eCommerce marketers will be plugging through all of the headaches consistent with the shopping season with how to get Cyber Monday buyer from abandoning their shopping carts online- and perhaps more importantly, how to get them back to complete purchases they may have abandoned.

The number 1 reason for most online shopping carts to be abandoned is because the consumer was “comparison shopping.”  This means that while they are on the site is the easiest time to convert that window shopper to a sale.  The goal from this stand point is to make it so the shopper has as few obstacles to the checkout.

Magento has developed a One Step Checkout extension that simplified the process for their sites.   This extension’s main feature is that it takes the six normal Magento checkout procedures and simplifies it into one.  The cart totals are dynamically updated as different options are selected in the checkout process (ie- shipping).  All address, payment and delivery methods are selected on the same page as opposed to different pages for each.   As Cyber Monday approaches, this figures to be a key tool in reducing your online abandoned shopping carts.

Who goes there?

In any retail environment, a slice of your traffic will be nothing more than browsers. They have no money, no way to pay or intent to purchase. They’re just looking. The problem is, most online retailers overestimate the size of this slice. Not everyone who leaves your site without purchasing is a deadbeat. Were they scared away by your registration process? Did they get lost? Did they need to see more product details? Dismantle the barriers and watch the number of abandonments shrink.

What Environment Have You Created?

If online commerce were simple, we’d all be on a beach drinking pina coladas through rolled-up cash. Unfortunately, simply building a website isn’t enough. Thoughtful consideration must be given to design and navigation structure. Skeptical? As any sales experts will tell you, every purchase is made within an environment; great products, price and service will not overcome a poorly designed environment. In the late-90s, we recall trolling around on a government surplus auction site. The products were desirable, if you could bear to dig through the multiple levels of sub-menus, reference numbers and category lists. Because of the confusing navigation, auction closing prices on this site were usually lower than market value, evidenced by the items selling a few days later on Ebay at a much higher price. The point: an unpleasant and puzzling site will choke your stream of prospective customers, eliminating all but a brave few. What do people do when they are confused? They hesitate, they lose confidence and they begin to disengage. Intent to purchase fades with each unsure click. If your shopper is frustrated or disoriented, they’ll leave. This has been proved and quantified during the last century of brick and mortar retail but it applies even more acutely online, where entry and exit are nearly effortless.

Price functions on a similar curve. More shoppers will tolerate clumsy navigation if your prices are discounted deeply. The danger online, however, is that your bargain-basement competitor will build a more elegant site than yours. After all, building a good site does not necessarily cost more than building an awful site. However, using price to control demand is an obvious and direct hit to your bottom line.

What Are Your Elements of Design

Effective online retail design utilizes visual coherence and simplicity rather than decorative or striking elements. Many non-retail sites, for example architectural firms, generally aren’t based on use – their aim is to display and impress. Inversely, Amazon.com is an online retail behemoth for a host of reasons, but edgy site design isn’t one of them.

That doesn’t mean your retail site should be the equivalent of a pair of tan slacks. Retailers can and should build a sense of brand identity and consistency using well-chosen and applied design elements.

1. Dimensionality is one technique that adds interest and is often employed in menu bars – layering, mimicking stacks of paper or ribbons give shoppers subtle visual cues that can aid navigation by more clearly identifying different pages, functions or operational areas within the site. A light hand is best; brash or overly emphasized elements fall flat.
2. A subtle shift in a clicked element is a great use of JavaScript animation, whereas rotating menus and fly-outs could either distract or repulse.
3. Well-designed icons impart meaning, engagement and brand identification. Overuse of icons or decoupling them from text can lead to a phenomenon called “mystery meat” in which your visitors have to guess what that button does.
4. Similarly, a few speech balloons might be a good thing, but 10?

What did I click?

Good retail site design walks the line between giving obvious information and giving too much;  If a page only has two or three buttons, simply changing the color of one when it is clicked is not going to do the trick. Design for the sake of decoration leads to clutter. Web design elements are best employed when they allow your shoppers to see where they are, what they can access, how to get there. Further, they ought to find what they want easily, whether or not they have to go to another page.

Reward your shoppers with great, solid design and they will reward you in turn.

InteractOne designs and builds e-commerce websites, with a whole-site approach that emphasizes content, SEO and capturing meaningful data. In business since 1998, InteractOne scales its approach to fit the needs of a range of clients from start-ups to Fortune 500 stalwarts.

Looking to purchase a Magento Enterprise License for web development? Well look no further! InteractOne has been an authorized reseller of Magento Enterprise Licenses since 2009.

Are you a web development company that needs a Magento Enterprise License but aren’t a Magento Partner? Fill out our contact form on the right or call 1-800-447-6024 to talk with a representative. InteractOne will put you on the quick path to obtaining a Magento Enterprise License today!

The latest version of Magento Enterprise comes with a host of new features that focus on improving the shopping experience for customers, improving consumer/seller communication, and makes meeting the PCI (Payment Card Industry) standards much simpler. This upgrade highlights why Magento is the e-Commerce platform of choice for merchants who are serious about selling online. The following is a list of the the major features with a short description. Please view the video above to learn about Magento Enterprise 1.9 in further detail.

Magento’s Gift Registry Module – Now your customers can search gift registries by name, email or ID. This module allows you to glean rich customer data while giving your customers more options, added convenience and most of all another reason to shop at your store.

Advanced Attribute Management  - Customize your marketing campaigns for individual groups of customers. With this new versatile tool you can grow sales as well as improve the shopping experience for customers.

Solr Search Module - This module vastly improves Magento’s search capability. Stop words, spelling suggestions and attribute sets are all combined to help the customer find what they are looking for and the seller to make a sale.

Full Page Caching Module - Magento is taking site speed very seriously and it shows with this new full page caching module. Entire pages both on the front and back end are cached resulting in significant improvements in page load times. Any Personal information is excluded of course.

Magento Secure Payment Bridge (PA-DSS Compliant) - Magento’s payment processor meets the very stringent standards and requirements that it takes to be PA-DSS Certified. Build customer trust and rest easy knowing that the personal information on your Magento site is safe and secure.

Magento Enterprise 1.9 is a great illustration of Magento’s commitment to the continuous improvement of their product. With the Enterprise 1.9 update, Magento store owners can be assured they are using the best e-commerce platform on the market today.

Writing product descriptions in Magento can be challenging. With a limited amount of room in the short product description you must entice your target audience while also baiting the search engines. By writing good product descriptions (both long & short) you will encourage customers to sell and search engines to give you a favorable ranking in the search engine results page (SERPS).

To entice your target audience you must get to know them. Think about how you would talk to your customers in person. Why are your customers coming to you?  How would you introduce your products to them?  Most importantly,  what questions are they asking?  By doing your research (analyzing search engine data here would help also)  you will learn that your customers can be classified into segments.  By understanding each customer segment you can write copy that meets their needs, increasing your sales dramatically!

Be loud and proud about your products benefits. Don’t just tell the viewer what the product is.  Instead, tell them why it would benefit them.   Going back to the first step, focus the benefits toward your different customer groups.

Incorporate your SEO keyphrases into the product description.  Use these keyphrases in the image alt tags, product title and in the image descriptions. Remember to review your descriptions. If it  sounds like you are repeating the keyphrases then adjust until it sounds right.

After your products have been on your site for some time, review the products that are converting to sales and attracting traffic. For the ones not seeing success, tweak and adjust product titles, descriptions, images and so forth. You don’t necessarily need to rewrite the whole description. Start with minor changes and track the following changes in sales, traffic and customer perception.

Product descriptions attract traffic to your site and ultimately convince your customers to make purchases.  By taking the time to optimize your product descriptions you can turn a stagnat product into a fast selling mover.

Adding a blog to your Magento store is an excellent way to connect with your customers, increase your SEO efforts, and make your store an authority site on the products and services it offers. With a blog you can constantly add relevant content(for both your customers and search engines) making your store a destination for information relating to your product or service.

A blog allows you to connect with your customers on a never before seen level. You can publish news releases, detailed product reviews, related content, take customer comments/questions/concerns and respond to them in kind. Coupled with the latest social networking platforms you can cultivate this relationship even further. The relationship you establish with your customers is a great way to see market trends and analyze customers wants in needs. Most importantly it will increase conversions, purchases, and create a loyal customer base.

By successfully connecting to your customers through your blog posts your Magento store will become an authority destination on the product or services you sell. Along with this authority status will come an increase of traffic.  The increase will come not only from returning readers and customers but those looking for information. As your authority status grows people will link to your site from other websites further increasing traffic flow.

Connecting with your customers and becoming an authority site on subjects concerning the products and services you sell will cause your search engine rankings to improve dramatically.  You can further your SEO efforts by providing links to different pages in your Magento store in each individual post. Not only will your customers be lured in by this stream of content but search engines will use it to determine what your site is about. By keeping your posts focused you can manipulate this into better SERPS (Search Engine Results Page) rankings for your site.

A blog for your Magento store is a good idea on many levels. By becoming an exporter of fresh relevant content related to the products you sell, your blog will become an importer of customers and indispensable marketing tool.

The use of mobile devices used for internet search and purchases is on a dramatic rise. Ross Sandler of RBC is predicting mobile searches to rise from its current level 9 % of all searches today to 20% of all internet search queries by 2012 (See Techcrunch).  As our cell phones evolve into more sophisticated portable computers you can be sure that this trend will continue to increase and mobile commerce (m-commerce) will become the norm and a huge percentage of retail sales.  Is your eCommerce business ready for the change?

Enter Magento Mobile. With its full release expected later it will be the worlds first mobile commerce system. The biggest advanatge Magento Mobile has over its competitors is that is doesn’t just rebrand re-theme a merchant’s website for mobile browsers. Instead a retailer’s product catalog is transformed into a fully-functional, branded, native application.

This app makes for a great shopping experience for the buyer. Load times are fast. Purchases are secure. Navigation is easy and logical. Page functionality is great. Everything online shoppers have come to expect from Magento while shopping from their home computers or laptops can be found in Magento Mobile.

For the seller the benefits not only include satisfied shoppers but a hassle free product that fully integrates into their existing Magento store. The full list of Magento Mobile benefits include:

• Integration with Online Magento Store – The Magento-mobile admin will fully integrate with your store’s catalog, checkout, inventory, reporting, and other features.
• Magento Managed Submissions – Magento will take the worry out of submitting your online store application. The time and complexity of maintaining application standards will be taken care of for a low monthly fee. This lets you focus on selling to your customers instead of dealing with the latest upgrade and/or complicity issues.
• Build customer Relationships – How better to build customer relationships then through their smartphone? Geo-targeting and the ability to provide users with an immersive native experience are enhanced with Magento Mobile.
• Manage Multiple Devices – With new mobile devices coming out almost yearly if not monthly (droid, ipad, ect..) managing your storefronts from a single portal will be save time and improve efficiencies. Customizing and creating different reports will also be simplified.
• Fully Customizable – Device oriented features and branded themes can be added and modified with just a few clicks. You can easily and quickly update the colors and layout of your app with the new Magento mobile admin, even after customers have downloaded your app.
• Low Cost of Ownership – Bring the the high end experience of a mobile app store to your customers for a low price. By paying for the feature you only want or need saves you money.
  The Age of Mobile eCommerce (m-commerce) is here. Mobile Magento is a great cost effective way to get a piece of this quickly expanding marketplace and grow your bottom line.

Cincinnati Ohio – 04 June 2010

High Tech Systems & Equipment specializes in complex high end thermal imaging equipment. The products they carry contain a large amount of specification detail and customization.

High Tech came to InteractOne looking for a powerful yet flexible eCommerce system that could properly represent their brand and also account for complex product configurations and specification content.

We delivered a custom designed Magneto eCommerce solution that allows High Tech to feature their entire product line on the web. High Tech makes use of almost all of Magento’s product types allowing online configuration and checkout of all their complex products.

Complex, yet easy to use this website features the benefits of using Magento in combination with expert guidance from InteractOne.

Visit: htsei.com

Choosing the right eCommerce system for your business may seem difficult and challenging. As a company that has been developing online shopping carts for over ten years, the staff at InteractOne know a good system when we see it. The online shopping cart that tops all others in functionality, marketability, versatility and individual customization is Magento. For companies who are serious about their online eCommerce the choice has become much easier. The Magento platform is a proven system that continues to evolve with each extension developed and with each system upgrade.

One of Magento’s key selling points is its ease of use for both the seller and the customer. For the seller the list of benefits is seemingly endless.

Some key features include:

• Marketing Promotions and Tools (coupons, featured items, gift cards & more)
• Analytics and Reporting
• Search Engine Optimization
• Site Management
• Catalog Management
• Advanced Shipping

For customers the benefits are equally as impressive, including:

• Navigation for Filtering of Products in Categories
• Effective and Fast Search Results
• Easy Product Comparisons
• Product Reviews
• One-page Checkout Capability
• Extensive Shipping Options

Believe it or not, these features are just the beginning of what Magento has to offer. For a full list of Magento features click here. Be sure to see the sample Magento shopping carts we have built for our customers. To learn how Magento can fit into your company’s eCommerce strategy, contact us today.

You have looked into using Magento as your eCommerce system and liked what it has to offer.  In fact, you liked it so much you could only find three problems with implementing the system for your business. One, Magento Community Edition was too limiting and had no support. Two, Magento Enterprise offered way too much and was beyond your budget.  Three, these were the only two platforms to choose from.

Enter Magento Professional Edition, the middle ground between the two.  Built on the same platform as the Enterprise edition,  Magento Professional boasts additional features, full product support and a warranty. Best of all, as your eCommerce store grows, you can easily and fully upgrade into Magento Enterprise.

Magento Professional edition includes additional revenue-generating features not included in Magento Community Edition:

Data Encryption: Supports PA-DSS standards and heavy data encryption and security measures that makes this eCommerce system one of the most secure in market.

Customer Store Credits: Give your customers the option to obtain credits that can be tied to their account. This feature gives customers the convenience of refunding orders for store credit, redeeming gift cards for store credit and using their credits to purchase items during checkout.

Gift Cards/Certificates: Give your customers the ability to purchase physical and virtual  gift certificates/cards.  Physical cards will be mailed to recipient and gift card code will be emailed to recipient. Gift cards/certificates can be personalized with used to make purchases at your store.

Reward Points System: Encourage your customers’ loyalty and purchases with a Reward Points system.  Customers accumulate points based on configurable exchange rates for purchases and promotions, as well as customer actions such as submitting ratings and reviews, signing up for the newsletter and more.

Magento Professional addition is a great option for those businesses looking to make a serious step into the world of eCommerce but don’t have the inventory, budget, or customer base to justify using the Magento Enterprise system. If you would like to learn how Magento Professional Edition fits into your business strategy contact InteractOne for a free consultation.