Internet sales: Make it easy to buy

Buying products online should be easy right?



Well, if you read some of the concerns at Nice Dream, that doesn't seem to be the case.



Online retailers may not be putting the same effort, into their internet e-commerce ventures, as into their brick and morter stores. Digression: Why do the internet commerce folks always refer to physical retail outlets as "Brick and morter" anyway?



Concerns in the e-commerce failures article range from slow loading pages, to terrible site navigation, to simply making it very hard for the customer to buy anything.



Those concerns are basic to retailing. If anyone working retail in the offline world were to employ such obviously bad practices, they would be fired. How did internet retailing customers and outlets get treated so poorly?



Making the product easy to buy is basic sales procedure. Being able to find the items you are looking to purchase should be a logical first step. Make the products attractive and easy to add to the shopping cart is only good site practice.



I would suggest that before launching any internet sales site, that you actually test shop it yourself. Have some staff, friends, and family try it. Select as many testers as posible, and don't choose the most internet savvy among them. Find some testers who are new to the internet, as they will find obvious problems, sidetracks, dead ends, and bottlenecks almost immediately.



Stand near the test buying people, but don't influence them in any way. Merely have them shop around your site, select items, and attempt to purchase them.



You are there only to observe. Write down where the test buyers click and where they go from one page to the next.



You might be surprised that your ideas, of how people navigate a site, may not be anywhere close to how real users click around. Keep track of how many mouse clicks it takes to actually complete a real world purchase as well. A buyer won't stick around for a fifteen click buying marathon.



Think of your internet sales department as another retail branch and treat it like one. After all, it's a round the clock sales staff for you and your business.



Treat your customers well, design a sales friendly site, and watch your internet profits grow.