Selling Points: Optimizing E-Commerce

A Web site that is organized, well designed and easy for your customers to use will see increased conversions, greater customer loyalty and higher customer satisfaction than those that leave their shoppers scratching their heads. Not sure how your site’s usability fares? Here are a few ways to find out. Request Comments Online stores rarely interact with their shoppers as much as brick-and-mortar stores, which have sales associates to hear first-hand feedback from shoppers. Break this silence by including comment boxes wherever you can: in the checkout flow, on your home page, in your monthly newsletters. The more feedback you can get, the more you will understand your site’s usability from the customers’ perspective. Incorporate Live Chat A Live Chat feature will not only reduce cart abandonment by offering instant support, but it can also give you insight into which elements of your site need improving. Take note of which user issues come up most frequently—these are the very issues you should fix to improve your user experience. Conduct Usability Tests The best way to gauge your site’s usability is to test it on your target market. This can be done through a usability testing company, or inside your own office by recruiting your own participants. Key areas to monitor are:

• How long it takes for participants to complete basic tasks
• How many mistakes does each participant make
• How much your participants recall about your site after a period of non-use
• Each participant’s emotional response (i.e. How do they feel about the tasks completed? Would they recommend this system to a friend?)

Implement Surveys To solicit specific feedback from your customers, utilize one of countless affordable or free online survey solutions on the Web, such as Survey Monkey, InstantSurvey and Zoomerang. Newsletters, blogs and e-mail are all great places to include these surveys. Encourage more users to complete the survey by entering survey responders in a drawing to win a prize.

IObit: Best Web Placement

Welcome to TrialPay’s Best Of Web (BOW) Awards, where we recognize the savvy online merchants that best utilize TrialPay’s e-commerce solutions. This month we’re honoring IObit for their highly effective and creative Web site banner, pictured below.

IObit’s banner, which offers customers a chance to get Advanced System Care PRO for free through TrialPay, tops 12 pages of IObit’s Web site, including the home page. Such prominent placement can significantly increase conversion rates by offering this special deal to thousands of visitors. The banner also exhibits effective communication and visual elements such as:

• Concise and compelling messaging
• A clear call to action
• Successful use of eye-catching color to bring attention to the offer
• Effective use of white space
• Incorporating a visual representation of the product
• Co-branding with TrialPay’s logo
• Complementing the look and feel of the site’s design

Are you interested in implementing these best practices into your own custom creative, provided free of charge? Contact your TrialPay account manager today.

We recently asked our premier merchants to share the most effective and least effective strategies they’ve used to increase sales. Last week we took a look at the most effective strategies they recommended that every online merchant should follow. Now, let’s see which strategies they say online sellers should stay far away from.

1. Using low-quality send lists
An e-mail campaign can be an effective marketing strategy, but it depends on the quality and quantity of your recipients. If your send list is made up of non-converting trial users, expect your results to be considerably less than the industry average.

2. Advertising without research
Several of our merchants said the least effective way to increase sales was to advertise without conducting research first. Examples include using the wrong Google keywords, overlooking less expensive keyword advertising on Yahoo! and advertising on social networking sites before discovering which ones were the best traffic sources for their niches.

3. Marketing through contests
A contest might entice customer interaction with your site or raise awareness of your brand, but that doesn’t necessarily mean your sales will increase. Our merchants reported that while contests did help increase traffic to their sites, they did nothing to increase sales.

4. Trying to sell to everyone
The most effective marketing strategies are those that are highly targeted and specific to your audience. But if you don’t define your target market and instead try to sell to anyone and everyone, even your most promising marketing strategies could fall short.

5. Reducing product prices
Some of our merchants found that their sales dramatically decreased when they reduced their product prices. This is not only because their profits were lower, but also because sudden price drops might have indicated a problem with the product. Still set on offering your customers a discount? As outlined in our previous post, try using rebates or bundles instead.

TrialPay works with thousands of premier online merchants, and last month we presented them with a simple question: What are the least effective and most effective strategies you’ve implemented in order to increase sales? Not surprisingly, they came up with smart suggestions that every online merchant should follow. Next week we’ll share the least effective strategies recommended by our merchants, but first lets take a look at the methods that work the best:

1. Offer rebates instead of discounts
Customers might be more willing to buy your product if the price is lower, but offering a discount can negatively cut into profits. Offering a rebate can give your product the same appeal as a discount, but rebates generally have a low redemption rate—meaning you make more sales at a higher price than if you offered a discount to everyone. Plus it’s a great way to add valuable names to your mailing list.

2. Promote your online business offline
Just because you do your business online doesn’t mean all of your marketing has to be. Make yourself stand out from the competition by promoting your business offline. Attend conferences, speak at events, join communities or teach a course—anything to build your network and promote valuable word of mouth advertising.

3. Use TrialPay as a payment method
We were thrilled to hear from so many merchants that using TrialPay was the most effective thing they’ve done to increase sales—by more than 50% according to one report. TrialPay increases a customer’s willingness to buy by offering thousands of ways to pay. TrialPay results vary depending on placement, but by far the most successful implementation has been the download interstitial.

4. Bundle complementary products together
As mentioned above, offering discounts can diminish your profits. But it’s OK to lower prices as long as the customer is willing to buy more. Bundling complementary products at a discounted price is a great way to increase sales and average order values. The volume potential more than makes up for the lower price of your products, and you develop loyal customers by providing a great deal.

5. Give stellar customer service
Delivering prompt and helpful customer support can increase sales by preventing cart abandonment and encouraging shoppers to become repeat customers. But poor customer service, or a lack of support for confused or dissatisfied consumers, can easily drive shoppers to make a purchase on your competitor’s site instead. In fact, several of our merchants reported a direct decrease in sales after cutting back on customer service, and cited giving stellar customer service as the number one way to increase online sales.

Last week we discussed how casual game developers can boost sales with offer completions, and this week we’re taking a look at another important component of virtual currency monetization platforms: direct payment options. Direct payments such as credit cards, PayPal and mobile SMS payments are a major part of virtual currency monetization. And there are a few ways you can optimize your direct payments in order to increase payment conversions. Here’s a look at the top five ways:

1. Offer a variety of payment options
Just like any online retailer, causal game developers must offer a wide selection of payment options. Credit cards have long been the primary tender type for online transactions, but millions of shoppers are putting away the plastic in favor of more secure, convenient or affordable alternative payment options. It’s important to incorporate several credit card choices as well a few alternative payment methods, such as PayPal and mobile SMS payments.

2. Deeply integrate payment options
As we discussed in our last post, offer completions aren’t just limited to your payments page—and neither are direct payments. Many monetization platforms can deeply integrate direct payment options throughout your game to make them a part of your in-game mechanics, which can significantly increase payment conversions. Present payment options in high traffic areas with high user engagement to maximize your results.

3. Customize your iframe
Stand-alone games and those hosted on social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace each require different visuals when it comes to monetization platforms. The same iframe won’t work for every game developer. But tailoring the payment platform specifically for your game can make your direct payment options stand out, which can help increase conversion rates. Select a monetization platform that can customize your iframe skin according to what your game looks like and where your game is hosted.

4. Set different exchange rates
Many casual games have a set exchange rate for their virtual currency, but those who set varying rates for different pricepoints can see a dramatic increase in sales and average order values. By offering more generous exchange rates for higher pricepoints, you can encourage your users to spend more per transaction. For example, if you generally sell 50 coins for $1, and 250 coins for $5, offering 2,500 coins at a special rate of $25 could significantly boost your average order values.

5. Use multiple placements
Maximize your direct payment conversions by using multiple placements throughout your payment pages. Once a user clicks from your payment page over to your offer page there is no guarantee that he or she will complete the transaction. That’s why it’s important to display direct payments on every relevant page. Presenting direct payment options as an escape hatch on your offer page will increase your direct payment conversions while saving sales that otherwise might have been abandoned.