This is part of 5 in the series The Six Principles of eCommerce 2.0
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Today we look at the fourth principal of ecommerce 2.0 – Personalised Shopping – Make it fun to shop and easy to buy – and the way Zen Cart store owners can easily follow this principle with their Zen Cart configuration, installed add-ons and more. (The Six Principles of eCommerce 2.0 can be found on Wikipedia.)
Principle 4. Make it fun to shop and easy to buy
Shopping has long been considered a recreational activity by many. Shopping online is no exception. In fact, with the sophistication and speed of online shopping tools, consumers are spending more and more on eTailer sites. The best of these shopping tools takes into account that buyers want to be entertained and pleased. Buyers also—just as in the brick-and-mortar world—do not like long checkout processes. When building your online brand, regardless of channel, remember that speedy checkout equates to happier buyers who are more likely to return and buy again.
Zen Cart Store Owner Tips
- Personalise the shopping experience
By default Zen Cart provides a personalised greeting on the home page – “Hello Kerrin! Would you like to see our newest additions?” – and most store owners include this as one of the very first things they remove. However, using a personalised greeting has been shown to set the tone for a positive shopping experience. Think about how you might customise this Zen Cart functionality to suit your store – perhaps look at personalising the checkout success thank you page, for example. - Quick Re-Order (Order History) Sidebox
This Zen Cart sidebox is a great way to personalise your store for your customers. The Quick Re-Order Sidebox provides a list of their previously purchased items are provided with a quick ‘Add to Cart’ link to help encourage repeat orders from returning customers. - Show your personality
Unless you are creating every item yourself, you may well be stocking the same products as hundreds of other online stores. What is it about your store that will set you apart from your competition? Your customer service – ultimately your personality – will be one of the key reasons why visitors will become customers and customers will become return customers. Remain professional but show who you are in your About Us and other information pages. Even something like the Privacy or Shipping and Returns pages can reflect the way your store is run and how you might respond to queries or problems if they arise. - Involve your customers
Think about ways to involve your customers and create a sense of fun and ‘buzz’ around your online store. Let’s say you sell goods relating to travel, you could set up a couple of pages in your store for travellers stories and/or photos where they are related to the items purchased from your store. Imagine a page where your unique travel bag has been photographed by happy customers on their travels around the world. For a jewellery store, encourage photos or videos of customers showing off their favourite pieces or the special day they received their gift. Always have a few ‘submissions’ ready to go so your first few customers are not looking at a blank page! - Be suggestive
Make it easy for your customers and offer solutions. For example, provide gift suggestions on a page such as “Perfect Mothers’ Day Gifts” or “Things your teenager will love” or use Zen Cart built-in tools such as the Bestsellers Sidebox or the .Also look at products you sell that would work well together. Create product sets to encourage shoppers to buy multiple products or implement an add-on such as Better Together. Also use the effective cross-selling technique of the built in Customers also purchased module as an easy way to help increase your average order value. - Write great product descriptions
Avoid using the wholesalers or dropshippers default product description. Instead use the opportunity to be unique and provide the information your customers are looking for. Focus on the benefits rather than features and look at answering the basic questions all potential buyers of the product would have. Use the following questions as a framework for writing product descriptions that will make you stand out from the crowd:
- Who is the product for?
- What is this product?
- When would I need or use this product?
- Why do I need this product?
- Where would I use this product?
- How would I use this product? - Zen Cart Reviews Shoppers like to feel confident in their product choices and reviews are a perfect opportunity to further sell the benefits and value of your items. Reviews also provide additional content for search engines and are quite often written in a way that store owners may not think about and therefore are good in broadening your store’s exposure in search engine results. Look at adding any reviews or testimonials you have received via email or letter to your Zen Cart store. These really do make a difference in converting visitors to customers, and are even better if they include comments like “my Dad loves it” or “it makes a great gift”.
- Other customers purchased Another in-built feature of Zen Cart, the Other Customers Purchased … information display on the product pages has two benefits. Firstly, it is a great method of bringing alternative products to the attention of your customers and, especially for products that work well together or are complementary products, is also a great way to up sell and encourage further purchases.
In this series we will be looking at tips for Zen Cart store owners for each of the six principles.
See you tomorrow for Principle 5: Mash-ups – Integrate and Collaborate!
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