Christmas is Coming! A great December starts in April

Posted on April 14, 2008
Filed Under General, Website Design, Yahoo! Store, communities | Leave a Comment

Despite the slowdown in the economy, online retail sits in an interesting spot. In fact, a MediaPost blog article goes as far to say that “innovation and e-commerce are looking impervious to economic ravages, at least, for now.” Internet spending for Valentine’s Day was up almost 8½% more than last year - reports Retail Decisions. The growth in U.S. unique visitors to online commerce sites rose 7% in January , 2008, compared to the same period in 2007. Online retail growth is averaging 21% so far this year, compared to 5.4% growth for offline retail.

Now for the interesting stuff…

A March news story from Internet Retailer reports “Retailers strive for a better customer experience.” We’re sure that online customers are keyed into this as well. If retailers are placing more emphasis this year on upgrading the usability of their online stores, then staying ahead of the competition takes on a new level. In addition to improving online usability, it has become important to add online functionality and use rich Internet applications to improve the customer experience.

What does this mean to you?

Planning for an optimal Christmas no matter what the economy needs to start now. The drive for more usability coincides with increased spending on technology and methods for measuring how well web sites are supporting a better online customer experience. Increased spending this year is planned for web analytics, customer satisfaction surveys, and usability labs.

Is it time to:

Creatively or strategically refresh your site?
Add more interactive features, like registries or reviews?
Add rich imaging?
Add social networking, such as page links to Facebook or Digg?

Not sure? Start with a Baseline Health Analysis of your site to see where you ”rank” with those who land on your site, as well as your competitive market.

Indeed, Christmas is coming - time to make your list and check it twice.

Tags:�christmas, communities, economy, General, Website Design, Yahoo! Store

Yahoo! Dating Newscorp and Timewarner… hmm

Posted on April 1, 2008
Filed Under General, Yahoo! Store | Leave a Comment

Microsoft Unlikely to Raise Yahoo Offer - WSJ.com

Very tricky corporate dating scene. Rejection, seeing other people, moving the dates around makes for drama for those of us in the business. One thing for certain: change.

Tags:�General, Yahoo! Store

And the Winner is…

Posted on November 29, 2007
Filed Under General, Website Design, Yahoo! Store, Webinars | Leave a Comment

Thank you to everyone that attended yesterday’s webcast on the Yahoo! Year-End Review. We would like to announce that the winner of the FREE Marketing Audit is Jason Striker of www.drweil.com. Contrats Jason! And thank you to everyone for your continued interested in FastPivot.com’s services.

Tags:�General, Webinars, Website Design, Yahoo! Store

The Conversion Diversion – How Important IS that Percentage?

Posted on November 20, 2007
Filed Under General, Yahoo! Store, Analytics | Comments Off

‘Tis the season when online merchants fixate on their conversion rates like a moth on a warm winter lightbulb. Even now, with Thanksgiving almost upon us and Santa villages popping up in malls everywhere, customers call asking how to improve overall conversion numbers—but are stunned when we suggest tweaking anything else.

We here at FastPivot are anxiously awaiting the summer of ’09 when the beta drops for “The Converterator”, a revolutionary new platform-independent plug-in aimed at controlling conversion with a slider. Unfortunately, it’s only Christmas of ’07—and neither The Converterator nor the company that will create it exist yet. That means we still have to entice customers, dominate the competitive landscape, and sell that warehouse full of product—the hard way.

There’s no question that a store’s overall conversion rate should not go unmonitored. However, many times we find store owners consumed by their site’s overall conversion to the point of considering it an independent metric that is unaffected by the rest of their site. If only that were true.

The truth is…conversion does not live apart from the traffic-driving, layout-changing, product-shuffling, feature-adding, and campaign-launching activities on or around your store. Conversion is a product of all of that an e-retail business is – from the industry it is a part of, to the product line it contains, the brand presence it’s earned, and the interfacing with the customer. Converting the quality visitors that you’ve worked so hard to acquire is serious and specific task, no question. However, to say that the conversion percentage is not completely dependent on all the other work you’ve done in the last year on your store - is simply false.

When fielding your conversion percentage to get a grip on how “healthy” your site really is, you must take into account every step of the shopping process and effectively measure the success of each stage to best understand the final conversion metric. And we mean every step:

Search > Enter > Shop > Cart > Purchase

Define what the ideal experience for that shopper would be-then take a close look at how each action above really works on your site. Also, if you have a product line that appeals to more than one audience—yes, you need to outline the ideal shopping experience for each.

(Nobody said successful online retailing was easy…or it at least, we didn’t.)

STILL want to improve conversion? Use the download link below and get our Improving Conversion checklist to help you scout out what your site offers consumers and the purchase path it creates. Be prepared to answer tough questions like:

Are you paying for incredibly general keyphrases in your PPC or other paid campaigns? If so, can you insert ten more specific keyphrases that can completely replace that general phrase?
Do you use “Calls to Action” to immediately get visitors to the right product?
Are the customer’s most important questions answered first?
How many “clicks” are your visitors away from a purchase?
Do your visitors have an incentive to buy?
Are you offering the visitors help in deciding what they need?
Is the checkout process seamlessly integrated in your site design?
Can you reduce the number of steps at checkout?

With so many variables that play into that vague conversion percentage, there’s no quick fix for “bumping” this metric quickly. Until that magic plug-in turns the e-retail world upside down, every store owner must

look at every step of the shopping process
dig into the metrics of each step a little deeper
shop that store of yours every once in a while!

All store owners dream of the boost in revenue that comes from simply upping that conversion percentage by a few ticks. However, simply is not always as easy as it sounds. If what we describe above sounds like work, it’s not. It’s a LOT of work, but essential if you want to really begin to uncover the true drivers of your overall conversion numbers.

Tags:�Analytics, General, Yahoo! Store

FREE WEBCAST from FastPivot.com - Yahoo Year-End Review

Posted on November 19, 2007
Filed Under General, Website Design, Yahoo! Store, Webinars | Leave a Comment

FREE WEBCAST!
Yahoo Year-End Review

Wednesday Nov 28, 2007
1PM ET / 10 AM PT (30 minutes)
(Registration Required; limited seating)
WIN A FREE WEBSITE ASSESSMENT!

Join us for free 30-minute review of the Yahoo! Store 2006-2007 platform changes that affect your site, store and business. All registrants will receive a PDF of the presentation immediately after the webcast. All attendees will be entered into a drawing to win a free website assessment from FastPivot (a $1500 value!).

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Tags:�General, Webinars, Website Design, Yahoo! Store — keep looking »