Growing Your Online Business

Subject Lines: More Than Meets the Eye

During the holiday shopping season, my inbox is full of holiday emails from online merchants—fighting for my eyes to see and open their email first. The subject line is your first (and arguably your only) chance of your email being read. I don’t open every merchant’s email that says, “Buy from me! Buy from me!”, but I do open the ones with an enticing offer.

• Avoid generic subject lines. Give them a reason to open your email with descriptive text, familiar brand-names, or popular holiday gift ideas.
• Create a sense of urgency, such as “limited-time only” promotions.
• Include discount percentages or dollar reductions. Many retailers offer shipping discounts during the holidays.

Vertical Response, an email service provider, has some examples of good and bad subject lines.

Bad examples

• Neiman Marcus: FREE SHIPPING + The Gifting Event: Great gifts for everyoneAND YOU! (Too many caps, too long, too much punctuation weird spacing. This one hurts my eyes.)
• Banana Republic: Your Holiday Offer is Here + Men's Outerwear
  (What is the offer Banana?)

Good examples

• Shutterfly: janine, 2 days to enjoy holiday cards on us
• RICHART Chocolate: Handmade French Truffles 2006
• Frontgate: Remember, Save 20% Site-wide at Frontgate.com
• Brookstone: Full-size authentic arcade games--just like you remember

Always remember the following legal restrictions: subject lines cannot mislead the reader from the content of the email. Also, beware that certain words and phrases (such as abusing the word “Free”) may cause the email to be flagged as spam. Yes, you can use “Free” in the subject; it is still very effective. Just don’t make it the first word, spell it in all caps, or immediately followed by an exclamation point.

Jenny

Are you a social researcher? Are your buyers?

We hear lots about the value of peer reviews, and it is likely that anyone reading this today has engaged in some interaction with reviews while shopping—or being shopped!  The E-Tailing Group Inc.’s “Social Shopping Study 2007,” commissioned by PowerReviews, has identified a segment of the shopping community described as the "Social Researcher."

Profile of a Social Researcher:

·         20% more likely to consult reviews

·         64% research products online more than half the time, whether they buy the product in the store, online, or from a catalog

·         78% indicate they spend more than 10 minutes in the review reading process

·         86% find customer reviews extremely or very important

·         76% find “top rated product” lists to be extremely or very important

·         76% more likely to shop on a retailer site offering social navigation than on a competing site

Not only do social researchers consume the peer-generated content, but they also create their own content—helping other buyers and researchers find the information they need.

Note: the study surveyed customers who shop online at least 4 times per year and spend at least $500 annually.

dmp

Offering Free Shipping Can Cost A Lot

A recent Internet Retailer monthly survey (http://www.internetretailer.com/article.asp?id=24246) focused the on holiday expectations of 191 online retailers showed that offering free shipping was one of their biggest holiday-related expenses. Free shipping is a customer-favorite program and a key driver for sales, but the expense of providing free shipping over the busiest time of the year could cost retailers approximately 4-12% of their total holiday sales.

In order to lower shipping costs, 84% of merchants will restrict free shipping, with 45.1% of retailers requiring a minimum purchase of $75 or more.

 

Take some time to think about your shipping strategy for the holidays and note what your competitors are offering. If you plan on offering free shipping, make sure to identify and exclude items that will cost too much to ship profitably. Like other retailers, require a minimum amount before offering free shipping. Alternatively, use a tiered spending approach to provide incentives toward lower shipping costs. Marketplace Manager supports setting up tiered spending or free shipping using the Shipping Tiers feature.

JLow

Cyber Monday: Fact or Fiction?

The day after Thanksgiving, also known as Black Friday, is typically considered to be the busiest shopping day of the year. A few years ago, a new retail term emerged calling the Monday following Thanksgiving “Cyber Monday,” the busiest online shopping day of the year.

Many eTailers have now based sales and promotions on this date such as “Cyber Monday Blowout Sale,” and pay-per-click campaigns based around this term. But research has disproved Cyber Monday as the top online shopping day. Most eTailers find that the days between December 5th and December 15th generate the most revenue.

Nevertheless, Mondays and Tuesdays are still one of the most popular days for online shopping as shoppers return to work after a frustrating weekend at the mall.

The Top 10 Retail Shopping Days of 2005:

1.   Friday, November 25

2.   Friday, December 23

3.   Saturday, December 17

4.   Monday, December 26

5.   Saturday, December 10

6.   Thursday, December 22

7.   Wednesday, December 21

8.   Saturday, December 3

9.   Saturday, December 24

10. Sunday, December 18

Source: http://holiday.icsc.org/2006/hw06_03top_ten.pdf

The Top 10 Online Shopping Days of 2005:

1.   Monday, December 12

2.   Tuesday, December 13

3.   Tuesday, December 6

4.   Thursday, December 8

5.   Monday, December 5

6.   Wednesday, December 7

7.   Friday, December 9

8.   Monday, November 28 (“Cyber Monday”)

9.   Wednesday, November 30

10. Tuesday, November 29

Source: comScore research

Jenny

Comparison Shopping Rate Increases

Back again for 2007, the comparison shopping sites will hike up their rates for the holiday shopping rush! Shopping comparison sites explain the increase in rates is due to higher conversions.  Some of the sites aren’t posting any increases, but here are the few who are:

Smarter.com	Nov 1 - Dec 31	20% rate increase for all categories
Shopzilla	Nov 12 - Dec 31	25% rate increase for all categories
PriceGrabber	Nov 1 - Jan 15	25% rate increase for all categories
NexTag	Nov 1 - Jan 2	25% rate increase for all categories
Shopping.com	Nov 15 - Dec 31	10-25% rate increase depending on the category

Cars 10%
Clothing and Accessories 10%
Computers 10%
Electronics 20%
Event Tickets 10%
Flowers and Gifts 25%
Health and Beauty 15%
Home and Garden 20%
Jewelry and Watches 20%
Kids and Family 25%
Magazine and Subscriptions 10%
Media 10%
Miscellaneous 10%
Musical Instruments & Accessories 25%
Office 10%
Sports and Outdoors 25%
Video Games 25%

dmp 

Write or Wrong: Avoiding Duplicate Content

One of the biggest problems ecommerce sites face is duplicate content problems in the search engines. Google and others really don’t like finding the exact same copy across multiple domains. It hurts their results.

If every time you went to search Google and  found that the top ten results were 80% similar, you’d probably stop using Google. Therefore, Google has devised a duplicate content penalty. If they find exact copy on different websites, they try to determine who the source of the content is and ignore the rest.

This is common in ecommerce websites (much more than you realize). Most ecommerce professionals use the manufacturer’s ad copy when setting up their products. It’s easy—the manufacturer already did some work for you, so why should you spend time re-writing it?

I’m glad you asked because I’m going to tell you.

Two reasons:

1. Many people on the web are selling the same product and using the same ad copy. Therefore, somebody is going to get hit by Google’s duplicate content penalty, and chances are it’s going to be you.
2. If you have some writing skill, a re-written description has  proven much higher conversions than the manufacturer’s ad copy. That means more sales!

I know it’s a pain in the neck, but re-write it. Add a little salesmanship to the description. Make it catchy. Make it meaningful and valuable. You are a better marketer than the manufacturer. Now get to it! Things are moving fast in ecommerce!

Jason

"Like New" Policy May Be New To You

There have been recent reports of items failing to list on eBay or being removed because they contain the words ‘Like New’ in the title. This does not appear to be a change in eBay’s keyword spam policy (http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/keyword-spam.html); however eBay seems to be enforcing it more lately.

Oddly, eBay’s keyword spam policy doesn’t mention ‘Like New’ at all. It only mentions that sellers aren’t allowed to make comparisons between items in a listing title. eBay’s Search and Browse Manipulation tutorial provides examples of comparison words that should be avoided; these include, but aren't limited to: "not", "like", "style", "-esque", "similar", "clone", "unmarked", "wannabe", "inspired", "compare to" and "look-alike".

Sellers using ‘Like New’ in the title through the eBay standard web interface will be met with an Attention Seller! error which prevents them from listing an item and explains that “like new” is in violation of the Keyword Spam Policy. Sellers posting through an external method, such as Marketplace Manager, will not see the same error but could be subject to their listings failing or being removed.

Rather than using ‘Like New’ in the title sellers might try something else: ‘EUC - Excellent Used Condition’, ‘Never Worn’, ‘Gently Used’, ‘Mint’, or ‘Perfect’. Buyers that intentionally include the word ‘New’ in the search actually care about something being new.

JLow

Another Year of Events Comes to an End

Behind us is another year of events, trade shows, and (my favorite) social mingling. Industry shows are great opportunities to learn about new technologies, listen to industry experts, and meet your fellow eTailers. Attending the eCommerce industry’s shows take effort, but they can be well worth your time and money. And don’t forget about the free parties. (Yes, I said free.)

Here’s a quick rundown of some eCommerce shows so you can get an idea if you want to attend any next year.

Shop.org Summit – This show is tailored more to the larger retailers (REI, Coach, BestBuy), but it can be a great opportunity to learn the same principles in online retailing. You’ll just have to downsize it to your size of business.

Mid Market eTail – A small event, but it’s a great show to learn how to break into that next step beyond an eBay PowerSeller.

Infopia Summit 2007 – Customers came to learn not only how to better use Marketplace Manager but also eCommerce best practices. Everyone loved meeting the faces behind the Infopia team. Dates for next year’s Summit will be announced shortly!

eBay Live! – The biggest show of the year. It’s big, it’s crazy, and it has everything you need to know/do/use to sell on eBay.

PeSA Summits – PeSA is the world’s largest group of top eBay sellers. Their fall and spring events are a great place to learn the latest about eBay selling. Last spring, Infopia offered a half-day FREE (we love that word) workshop on eCommerce best practices.

Online Market World –OMW debuted as a new show for the eCommerce community this year in San Francisco. It had fantastic panels and sessions. This show really brought out the top experts in the industry, and all the sessions were in a panel format, which lead to great discussions.

Jenny