15 Days to More Profitable Ecommerce

Following up on my 30 interactive marketing tips series, I’m starting a new regular post: 15 Days to More Profitable Ecommerce!

I will post a new ecommerce tip every Tuesday for the next 15 weeks.  These are best practices culled from my own experience, web analysis and the community of smart internet marketers.

You can expect a wide range of posts on conversion, user experience, search marketing and testing.  Catch them all by subscribing.

Tip #1 - Stop The Madness: No More Registration!

Much is made of funnel analysis for your shopping cart–examining how many people abandon at each step before order confirmation.  Some of this fallout is a natural byproduct of how people use a cart (to “bookmark” items, for example).  The rest is money you’re leaving on the table.

Many seemingly well intentioned marketing ideas get baked into the shopping cart only to trip up prospects and hinder sales.  None is more poisonous that the dreaded registration page.

The likely rationale is that you want people to register so you can continue to communicate with them.  You might also think that you’re helping them out by gathering their data once so they never have to type it again.

Wrong.

There’s a fundamental tenant of online marketing that applies especially to shopping carts: Ask for the minimum amount of information you need to complete the sale.*

You can always get more information later.  If someone abandons your site because they think your registration is too much work too soon, they’re gone forever.

My first tip for more profitable ecommerce is to remove registration as a requirement for purchase.  Don’t believe me?  Test it and tell me what you found.

Instead, when visitors click “Checkout” bring them right to the first step in the shopping cart (typically shipping info).

Now, you still want to make it easy for repeat customers to login.  In addition to automatically logging them in when they return, you should also present a simple option at the top of the first page in checkout. This can be a simple text or graphical link that reads “Already registered?  Click here to login.”  It should be obvious, but not intrusive.  Don’t distract from getting people to purchase.

Now that you’ve removed registration as a requirement, you should still give people the option.  Here are a couple of ways you can promote registration subtly:

1. Make it easy to register during checkout.  Simple check boxes like “Create An Account” or “Remember My Information” can do the trick.  You can ask for a password or email one automatically with instructions on how to change it.
2. Put a call to action after checkout.  Now that you have all of the info you want, all you require is someone’s permission to register them.  A link or button on the order confirmation page catches them right after the sale.

I’ve seen clients drastically improve results by removing registration.  Take a look at your funnel analysis and see if it’s causing a big drop-off.  Report back with your results!
*P.S.: Well, sometimes this isn’t true.  If you’re offering something for an amazing value, say an iPhone for $100, then people are much more willing to jump through hoops to get what you’ve got.

That said, these situations are in the very small minority.  Use your common sense.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

• Ecommerce Tip #2 - Punch Up Your Copy
• #18 - 3 Simple Ways To Improve Form Completion
• Ecommerce Tip #5 - Write a Less Sucky Return Policy
• #11 - Remarket To Customers After The Sale
• 30 Interactive Marketing Tips In 30 Days