eCommerce 201: 5 Strategies & 15 Best Practices You Need to Know to Grow Your Revenue

2eCommerce 201: 5 Strategies & 15 Best Practices You Need to Know to Grow Your Revenue
About this eBook.................................................................................3
5 Executive Strategies.........................................................................4
Strategy: Merchandising..............................................................................5
Strategy: Integration.....................................................................................8
Strategy: Promotions....................................................................................11
Strategy: Microsites......................................................................................14
Strategy: Tablet/Mobile................................................................................17
15 Best Practices..................................................................................20
Analytics ........................................................................................................21
Singular, Interpretive, and Relative Analytics.....................................21
Data Data Everywhere and Not a Drop to Drink...............................23
Checkout ........................................................................................................24
Web Counter Top Displays...................................................................24
Converting Maybe to Yes......................................................................25
Design ........................................................................................................28
Most Desired Response........................................................................28
CTA and Eye Paths.................................................................................39
Don’t Use Auto Pop-Ups.......................................................................30
User Interface................................................................................................31
Get Negative Product Reviews.............................................................31
Relevant Results....................................................................................32
3 Clicks or Less.......................................................................................34
Customized Banners on Navigation Pages & Landing Pages
from Organic Search.............................................................................35
Development.................................................................................................37
Well Formatted, Organized, Maintainable Code...............................37
Own Your Data......................................................................................38
Test, Test, Test.......................................................................................38
“Trap” and Review All the Error Messages Your Site
is Giving to Your Shoppers...................................................................40
Do What You Want, When You Want.................................................41
Table of Contents

What you have in your hands is the exclusive beta edition of this “text book”. This eBook will grow
as eCommerce evolves and the content will be updated and refined to bring you the latest, most
relevant strategies and best practices.
This eBook has two main parts, one on executive strategy and another on best practices. The
strategies and best practices in this eBook stand out as stories and can be read individually.
Read this eBook however you like; start from the bottom or skip to the section you’re most
interested in and cover the rest later. We hope you enjoy reading the eBook and if you have any
questions, comments, suggestions, or strategies of your own that you would like to include in
this eBook please email:
your.partner@kaliocommerce.com.
About this eBook

5
Executive Strategies

Merchandising is the single most difficult thing to master when selling online.
There are many aspects of selling products in the “bricks” world that people outside professional
retailing don’t recognize as intentional skills. From the exact way in which merchandise is
displayed, to training salespeople to guide customers correctly, to point of purchase displays –
successful retail is both science and art.
The big reason why successful traditional retailers have so much difficulty selling online is
because they have problems converting their “bricks” skills to “clicks” skills.
With great regularity these frustrated merchandisers conclude that the real problem is that they
need to “learn” the online customer and world. This may have been true in the early days of
online selling when a limited number of folks shopped online and those that did had a specific
demographic profile, but it isn’t anymore.
Today the vast majority of people shop online and it has become a regular part of our lives. As a
result, notions of the “online shopper” being so very different from the “bricks” shopper are no
longer valid. In 2013 you can randomly select 100 people in a grocery store and you’ll end up
with a pretty good representation of online shoppers.
So if the online shopper and the bricks shopper are demographically equivalent we need to look
to the other core reason why merchandisers become frustrated online – store operations.
It is absolutely true that online shoppers have specific – and difficult – expectations for their
shopping experience. They want to be able to find things very quickly, they want to be able to
checkout easily, they expect you to answer every question about a product and do it very well.
This leads merchandisers to focus on photography and compelling product descriptions – which
is also definitely critically important to online success.
But what happens when we examine the overall process of merchandising and the online
world today?
We know that merchandisers need to learn about their customers constantly and be connected
to what they desire. Demographic mastery.
We know that merchandisers need to acquire the correct products that have a solid value
proposition and compelling psychographic buying factors. Selection mastery.
Strategy: Merchandising
5 Executive Strategies: Merchandising

We know that products need to be priced correctly and that while there is substantial value in
service and support, respect for extensive comparison shopping is required. Margin mastery.
We know that online shoppers demand excellent photography and they need product
descriptions that answer all of their questions while at the same time providing compelling
reasons to buy. We might even put together a great video to support these goals. Content
mastery.
So what about the merchandiser that has mastered the core disciplines? They have excellent
demographic knowledge, selection, margin, and content? What is happening when all of that is in
terrific shape, but they aren’t achieving online success?
The trouble is in store operations.
Many merchandisers struggle for years convinced that they have failed to achieve mastery of the
core disciplines – or that the issue is that they “can’t” learn the online world.
If you go take a look at their online stores you’ll find that they are “waiting on IT” to code or
otherwise fix their eCommerce platform. You’ll find that promotions are badly managed and
may not follow any type of overarching strategy. You’ll find that they have a meeting at least
twice a month where a great idea is discarded or delayed because they have a store operations
problem. You’ll find that they are unhappy.
In many cases it isn’t so much what the eCommerce platform can or cannot technically do -
but that it takes so much time to make it do something new that the merchandiser is unable
to learn. Just imagine what it would be like if it took 2 weeks to change your point of purchase
displays in the bricks world, how effective would your sales
be if that was the case? Talented merchandisers need to be
able to change things like that in hours – not days, weeks,
or months.
We believe there is a better way.
The first thing merchandisers need to do online is help
their customers find what they need – through search and
navigation. This is what leads stores to be constantly “re-
categorizing” and adjusting whatever aspect of the product
description their search engine uses to generate results.
Merchandisers need to be able to fully control how their site search works – they know the
demographics of their customers and they need to be able to help them.

If my customer types in ________________, I want them to get ________________.
Please don’t explain to me that they will also get 87 unrelated products unless I go change
the description of those products in a way that will make people who want to buy those things
unhappy. Please don’t tell me that the site search has a complex “brain” and that we can’t
change it.
Merchandisers must be able to have full control of their site search and navigation. They need
to be able to quickly and easily create “filtered” navigation, which many people refer to as facets.
They must have operational control.
Merchandisers need a platform that allows them to control and organize products by groups
that provide universal attributes, and intelligent correlations.
If you are a merchandiser that knows your demographics, your selection, your content, and has
margin mastery you deserve to succeed online. To do that you must have a platform built to
support your needs.
When you can do what you want when you want you’ll make your sales goal.
Executive Highlights
–– Why you need a platform that makes it look like you have 27 IT people at your
disposal
–– When merchandisers can do what they want when they want = more $ for you.
–– When online mirrors real life - groups, attributes, correlations – you can really learn
–– Site search control = more sales as a result of your personal knowledge of your
customers
Actionable Insights
• Operational needs must match your eCommerce platform
• The chronological duration of modifications has a major impact on overall success
• Product category presentation control must include groups, attributes, and
intelligent correlations
• Granular control of search results without product modification is a requirement

Many people are familiar with the plaintive cries:
“We received 17 orders today for products we don’t have – but our website told the
purchasers that the items were in stock and ready to ship.”
“The inventory we’ve “allocated” for the site means our cost of goods sold has
increased dramatically.”
“Accounting says that we need to resubmit all of our information to them in the format
they initially specified, and I don’t think we have the resources needed to do that.
They asked why we do it this ass backwards way anyway.”
“The warehouse in California is complaining that we keep asking them to fulfill orders
for merchandise that is in the NJ warehouse and they want to know why we can’t just
put it into their system in the regular way like everyone else does.”
Most people have heard this sort of stuff before, but what they might not be aware of is that all
of the above problems – and many many more – share the same root cause.
Integration, data bridging, and API communication protocol – they all basically mean the same
thing. When systems talk to each other in an intelligent way they become connected and when
executed correctly that is a wonderful thing.
People are all created equal, but integrations most certainly are not.
The problem for web site operators is that integrations are highly technical animals, and so the
problem is approached as a pass/fail course by people that are not technical experts.
Will our eCommerce platform “talk” to our accounting system? The response being sought is
usually yes/no or pass/fail – but the reality is a lot more complicated than that.
We usually see the quality issue reveal itself a month or two after new systems are implemented.
That’s when folks discover that the data bridge has significant problems. A common example
is the flow of shipment tracking information and if that is available for the warehouse, the
operations folks via the ERP, and the end user via the website itself. Customers expect that to be
there at all levels but getting all those machines to talk to each correctly is quite a trick.
For website owners, the second major issue is to understand how these systems interact and
Strategy: Integration
5 Executive Strategies: Integration

what might have gone wrong and when.
To put it another way – when you send an email to your IT folks that says “please help me, I don’t
know what’s wrong” that is a great demonstration of the fact your integration sucks.
The final piece that is important to have a successful website is to know what is going on –
integration system notifications. Some folks are familiar with this when they encounter well run
data centers – those people call you and tell you the system is down before you even realized it
was.
So the three core problems with integrations are: data interchange quality,
understanding what is happening when things go wrong, and being alerted
when systems fail to perform as expected.
This means that to succeed online you need an eCommerce platform that can handle those
tasks – and that is a tall order.
The key element to quality integrations is accurate system mapping and understanding. In the
land of KalioCommerce that element has been directly connected to knowing what is going on
and where, the same system that provides the needed alerts.
Here’s a secret that most non-technical people are unaware: when systems are broken the
hardest part and the most time consuming part is finding out what went wrong and why. When
we know what’s wrong it is relatively easy to fix the problem.
kaliocommerce.com image
See all the geeky junk under error description? The quality and clarity of that information is
enough to bring a typically non emotional IT person to tears. It tells them exactly what went
wrong, where, and when. This power makes fixes easy.
This type of functionality has the power to radically alter implementation times and system

troubleshooting realities. Every Internet Entrepreneur who has a system like this lives in a world
where things “just work”.
–– The end of “Please Help me, I don’t know what’s Wrong” emails to IT
–– This tin man has a brain
–– What life is like when it “just works”
–– When you know before they know: notification joy
Actionable Insights:
• Integration is not a pass/fail test, the quality of data interchange is critical.
• Problem determination is the most difficult aspect of ongoing operations,
effective problem identification tools dramatically increase the speed and ease of
operational problem processing
• Proper alert systems are now a requirement of web success

In 1887 Asa Candler had an idea to sell Coke. He created a paper ticket that entitled the bearer
to a free glass of Coca-Cola. It is estimated that between 1894 and 1913 one in nine Americans
had received a free Coca-Cola, for a total of 8,500,000 free drinks. By 1895 Candler announced
to shareholders that Coca-Cola was served in every state in the United States.1
Image Note: Public domain as per Wikipedia
We’ve been selling merchandise with coupons and promotions ever since. Every talented
merchant knows how to promote their merchandise in a way that will create the buying
behaviors they desire.
Th online world has added a layer of complexity to this issue - today we issue promotions
to individual customers based on their past buying behavior. The number and types of deals
available continues to increase as online merchants gain more sophistication and knowledge
about the best ways to incentive their shoppers.
The online world is fiercely competitive – as you expand the customer base you also expand the
number of other retailers that wish to serve them. This means that handling promotions can
easily become more complex than ever.
The possibilities presented to web merchants have empowered them to create incredibly
complex promotions.
They want to offer the usual’s: percentage off, flat dollar fee discount, and perhaps a free product
1
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Coupon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 30 April 2013. 30 April 2013.
Strategy: Promotions
5 Executive Strategies: Promotions

gift with a qualifying purchase. Today that standard mix has had numerous possibilities added to
it: a discount on additional products when buying a specific qualifying product, a percentage off
an additional product, a category discount that may or may not include discounted shipping, or
perhaps a shipping upgrade.
It is easy to spot the online merchant that has their hands tied by their platform. The promotions
don’t make much sense and include strange hoops customers need to jump through – and
in those situations we find frustrated site owners noticing that since their platform could not
execute the discount as they had imagined it – the efficacy is very low.
The core expectation is that you are able to execute any promotion your team can think of.
A tall order. But then go ahead and add to that the realities of personalization and customer
relationship enhancement – we want promotions to be controlled by our existing relationship
with a customer. We want to use promotions to deeply connect us to new customers without in
any way eroding the relationships with the customers we have.
The online world has allowed talented merchandisers to “shepherd their sheep” in ways
that were never possible before. That’s exciting. But the reality is that the vast majority of
merchandisers have serious problems with their platforms in this area. The merchandiser wants
to use promotions in an effective way, but if they are in any way restricted from executing their
idea the customer – and the sales – suffer as a result.
Online merchants need courage to compete; they are excited about a massive customer base,
but worry about how to beat all the other merchants who are trying as hard as they can to get
these customers too.
When the oppressive chains of insufficient promotion systems are removed the online merchant
thrives and grows. When it takes minutes to setup a new promotion instead of days they can
experiment, learn, and improve.
When you can execute promotions as the online shopper expects, you’ll make your sales goal.
–– Shepherding your sheep your way
–– Yes, we could do that and we don’t need 3 weeks to code it
–– Exclusivity and the club: how promotions can enhance customer relationships
–– The courage of the lion

Actionable Insights
• Alignment of core promotions principles with online selling is key
• Online promotions are often highly sophisticated and technical, the minimum
option set required to allow your site to offer promotions in the way customers
expect is substantial.
• Online incentives requires ongoing testing and monitoring

Microsites are one of the most well proven concepts in web site merchandising and sales – and
yet they remain very difficult to implement on the vast majority of systems.
Microsites work so well because their origins are found within long standing marketing and
sales tactics. They provide brand management possibilities, they allow people to organize
merchandise, and they allow advertising to be highly focused. The dozens of brands of the
Coca-Cola company has are a great example of what can be thought of as “microsites” in the
bricks world.
A microsite is an individual web page or a small cluster of pages which are meant to function as
a discrete entity within an existing website or to complement an offline activity. The microsite’s
main landing page can have its own domain name or subdomain.
Microsites are used for many different purposes – the most common being editorial, commercial,
and web marketing.
Editorial microsites function to create thought leadership – and they often have an .org vibe.
Common examples include educational information that relate to products – sites that provide
the “why should I buy this” reasons.
Industries often use this type of mechanism when they encounter perception problems about
their product – blood diamonds is a great example. “Blood Diamonds” are rough diamonds used
by rebel movements or their allies to finance armed conflicts aimed at undermining legitimate
governments. The entire jewelry industry is impacted by this issue and the “Kimberly Process”
was their response.
Commercial microsites focus on collections and types of products – so to extend our jewelry
example a microsite might be used to feature only wedding bands so it can fully focus on people
that are engaged. Anytime you see a “store within a store” concept you are experiencing a
microsite in bricks world.
The last common microsite purpose is marketing – this is best thought of as spin off brands.
There are numerous questions about the best way to manage these sorts of efforts over time,
but there is no question that mastery of brand includes lots of activity in this area.
So if Microsite’s are so spectacular, how come they aren’t a “go to” web tactic?
They cost too much and they are too hard to create and manage.
Strategy: Microsites
5 Executive Strategies: Microsites

Effective microsites are based on the common business principle: fail fast, fail cheap. For
microsites to be an effective tactic they need to be easy to create and simple to manage.
This is why so many entrepreneurs end up believing that microsites are ineffective – if they cost
too much to create they just aren’t worth it.
So what do you need from a platform to be able to utilize microsites?
The first and most important thing is that it be easy to create one.
kaliocommerce.com image
Well that looks simple enough – and a system like that could truly empower a methodology
where your ideas can be outputted as microsites quite easily.
When you have the power of microsites at your fingertips you can truly connect with your
customers – people love specialization and expertise. They want to buy cakes from “the cake
store”, not the bakery.
The other important thing to be aware of with microsites is the “be careful what you wish for”
principle. When microsites have not been setup as part of your broader system (often because
that cost too much), they become a nightmare from all the success: getting orders in, shipments
processed, and all of the other operational activities web sites need to perform on an ongoing
basis becomes more and more difficult.
You must have your microsites within the same management interface as your “main” sites – that
is the only way to be able to succeed with this tactic over time.
–– The joy of let’s try that
–– Sites as an organization tool
–– Controlling customers emotions through mini stores
–– Why people love “specialty” expertise

Actionable Insights
• Microsites are a viable tactic only if they have a low initial cost and are easy to
manage
• Connectivity of bricks merchandising principles based upon brand with online
tactics is very effective
• Microsites are one of the most effective ways to establish thought leadership and
take proper advantage of inbound marketing opportunities.

There is little doubt that the mobile revolution is in progress and web merchants know it. There
are giant piles of statistics that support the fact that folks are “going mobile”, but let’s take a trip
down memory lane to one stat the TV experts put out long long ago, also known as 2009.
57% of TV viewers use the web simultaneously 2
.
If that was the fact in 2009, what do you think the % is today?
Mobile has become embedded in our society in a way we don’t often consider.
Imagine if a time traveler arrived from 1950 and we needed to explain mobile. We might say that
everyone has a device in their pocket that contains the total amassed knowledge of humanity
and works wirelessly everywhere – and mostly they use them to look at amusing pictures of cats
on Facebook.
So we know that mobile is key, we know that consumer behavior is shifting rapidly as we
embrace an on the go all the time lifestyle – but how do we execute with our eCommerce
platform to properly take advantage of this trend?
We need to be there for our customers when and how they want – which requires you being
able to do what you want when you want with your platform.
Mobile and tablet sites must properly integrate with your overall eCommerce platform – but
that’s just the start.
2
Nielson. Americans Using TV and Internet Together 25% More Than A Year Ago. 22 March 2010. 30 April 2013.
Strategy: Tablet/Mobile
5 Executive Strategies: Tablet/Mobile

It may seem obvious, but stare at a tablet for a minute and recognize what is missing – the
mouse. When computers went from the F Keys (remember when we hit the F1 key for help?) to
mice it was major. The move from mice to touch is even bigger.
Touch, stretch, pinch, and swipe – that’s how users expect things to work on their mobile
devices. Their mobile devices have incredibly high resolution screens and they support changing
the form factor on the fly – when you turn a mobile device sideways the web site orientation
changes to match.
In addition we have the issues that
surround user interface and our new
“tap” world – many things that are
absolutely big enough to read clearly are
too small to tap. This is known as read/
tap asymmetry and it’s a critical factor
for effective mobile sites.
The last major issue for Internet
Entrepreneurs is the expectation of a
connected experience. If I shop your site
on my desktop and leave items in my
cart I expect that they’ll be there when I
log in on my tablet or phone.
It can be argued that mobile is where folks buy stuff they often researched and considered when
on their desktop – leave it in my cart, go to a local bricks store, and while I’m there decide that
the smart thing to do is just checkout what is already in my online shopping cart. That’s show-
rooming in action. If you have a fully “separate” mobile site you won’t be able to get your fair
share.
The other big issue is the way that people have an emotional relationship with their mobile
device. They often think of the desktop as part of their work world, but the tablet is a toy. They
are having fun and enjoying themselves, shopping as a recreation. We see this reflected in the
buying behavior of folks on tablets – they are squealing with shopping glee in a way the web has
never allowed them to before.
So to create a wonderful tablet and mobile site the web merchant has to have a single
management interface and must have the built in interface capabilities that support touch,
stretch, pinch, and swipe.

Make sure your eCommerce platform supports what you need – one backend interface and
real support for the revolutionary way in which mobile works today.
–– On the go all the time
–– Our mobile way of life and shopping
–– The multiple device shopping experience
–– Being there when and how they need you
Actionable Insights
• Mobile correlates to a change in consumer lifestyle and buying behaviors
• Tablet and mobile sites must support the mouse free user interface
• A connected shopping experience with cart persistence across devices is the key to
mobile success.

15
Best Practices

Best Practice: Analytics / Singular, Interpretive, and Relative Analytics
There is an old joke among web professionals:
Do you know why web developers send their clients links to stats reports?
Because they can’t read them either.
One of the most difficult things about web analytics is knowing what data is important and what
data should be discarded. The core reason for this is that these systems have been designed
to help many different types of businesses, which is wonderful for your own growth and
problematic in terms of system usability.
As your site changes and grows it is great that different types of metrics are available – you’ll
start measuring stuff you didn’t before and drop the importance of metrics you’ve been using –
that’s nature’s rule and not ours.
So the end result is that what is “useful analytics” is different for everybody – except that
it’s not. There is a specific methodology for determining what analytics are important to your
business – and that is actually an activity you need to perform regularly to improve your web
success. Here we go.
So let’s start with the principle and the three kinds of web metrics that there are: Singular,
Interpretive, and Relative.
The first type of metrics is the stand alone single viewpoint numbers. Many stats geeks refer to
these as the hard (most accurate) set of metrics.
There is but a single way to think of unique visitor increases. They are good. Period. More is
better, no question. There is no interpretation of that data. The most popular page on your site
is the most popular page. Stand-alone single viewpoint numbers are the core numbers.
Any metric that you can reasonably set specific goals for, that stands alone, that is not open
Analytics
15 Best Practices: Analytics / Singular, Interpretive and Relative Analytics

to interpretation – and when you find your activities impact those metrics over time – those
are the first set of numbers that are useful to you. Those are the numbers that are the most
important to you.
Typically they include: sales, unique visitors, traffic sources, and most popular content.
The second type of metric is interpretive – metrics where there is more than one way to look at
them. Bounce Rate is good example – a bounce is also known as a one and out visit, folks who
come to your site and just leave again.
Most people think this is bad and they ask their designers to reduce their bounce rate. But what
about when we get a good search index on a phrase like “company name locations”, and what if
you were smart enough to have a site that had awesome content and the question the person
had was immediately answered. They close the window, boom, done, thank you very much XYZ
company for doing such a great job of kicking ass.
Well that’s a bounce too – and how do you tell the difference between the person who thought
your design sucked and went right back to Google versus the person who got the answer they
wanted right away and exited?
You can’t.
Interpretive metrics are those that can be looked at in more than one way – stats geeks say
these are soft. This second type of metric goes on your useful stats report and is often where
the deep dive analysis work is done. This is the spot where you need a trained professional to
help you process the data, but it is also the spot where the greatest gain can be found.
The third type of metric is relative – numbers that are directly impacted by other factors that are
combinatory and they usually work in reverse effectively as well.
The number of pages on a website directly impacts the page views. If we split the about us
section into 10 pages we’ll increase page views. When you grow sick of click “next page” on
a news website article you are experiencing direct manipulation of web metrics – they are
increasing their page views with the primary objective of increasing ad inventory.
Stats geeks call this last type of metric squishy – they should be viewed with caution and not
truly trusted. They can be situationally manipulated; these are the metrics you need to discard.
Executives should focus primarily on singular metrics. Advanced users should
dive deep into interpretive metrics as this is where they can find the gold.
Relative metrics should be viewed with caution and a circumspect viewpoint.
15 Best Practices: Analytics / Singular, Interpretive and Relative Analytics

Best Practice: Analytics / Data Data Everywhere and
Not a Drop to Drink
The purpose of analytics is to help you make a to-do list – any analytics report
that fails to do that is a waste of resources.
When you understand this principle your profits will increase, it is the core motivation to look at
your numbers on a regular and constant basis. If you properly respect what the numbers can
teach you – you’ll find yourself turning to them in the hard times, knowing that they can tell you
what to do. You’ll find yourself turning to them in the good times, knowing that they can tell you
the best way to make hay while the sun
shines. The analytics contain both solace
and the answer for the businesses that
want greater success.
How often your company looks at
financials is how often your company
should be look at analytics: once a
quarter, monthly, weekly, daily for many
enterprises - especially if they have a busy
season.
Start every trip to analytics land by
shooting the fish in the barrel.
Look for 404’s, review for errors; look for products with zero conversions and kill the poor
convertors, paid ads that generate zero visitors need to be cancelled immediately. Take out the
trash. Do the obvious. Don’t screw around.
Then work on your regular chore work – the stuff that needs to be done every week. Find your
best performing search terms and adjust. Look at traffic quality by source and do more of what
works and less of what is in the bottom third of the results. Check the split test and adjust. Setup
next week’s split test. Chug along and keep the trains moving.
The last activity is the visioning, the experiments, the deep thinking analysis where we consider
what we want to do this quarter, this year, this decade. These are the types of projects that
require time and sustained effort. Blue Sky. Big Picture. Let’s get a million new customers.
Shoot the fish – items fly on to the to-do list fast and furious.
Do the chores – update the to-do lists and keep everyone and everything chugging along in an
efficient manner.
15 Best Practices: Analytics / Data Data Everywhere and Not a Drop to Drink

Vision – plan your projects for the long haul and think strategically about how the web can fulfill
your vision. Big chunky projects go on to the to-do lists.
Any time you spend in analytics land can be judged by the quality and efficacy of the outputted
to do lists.
Enjoy.
15 Best Practices: Analytics / Data Data Everywhere and Not a Drop to Drink

Best Practice: Checkout / Web Counter Top Displays
Merchants that have physical bricks stores have been working on the issue of how to increase
the average sale for hundreds of years.
In the last half century or so that entire art form is often referred to as “point of purchase
displays” - the impulse items, the extra’s, the stuff that folks just “throw in” without thinking about
it. Merchants know these are usually the high profit margin items, which is why they pay so much
attention to this area.
For web merchants our “point of purchase” is the checkout sequence.
Let’s get the basics out of the way quickly – good checkout systems allow purchase with the least
number of clicks. You should measure the steps in your checkout funnel for abandonment or
do something better: use a one page checkout. Eliminate all unneeded input fields (do you really
need their fax number?) and focus on simplifying checkout as much as possible.
All of these basic activities stop what folks refer to as “leakage” - and if a web merchant is
unaware of the basics fixing that stuff can add to the bottom line substantially.
What if you are doing all of those things already?
How do you develop sales tactics that mirrors the brilliance of bricks Point-of-Purchase display’s
(POPD’s) and perhaps even surpass them?
That’s where up sells, cross sells, sharing, and review requests come into play.
Those are the activities that are the equivalent of POPD’s.
Checkout
15 Best Practices: Checkout / Web Counter Top Displays

Up Selling is the simplest of these advanced tactics and the core of it is based upon the question:
would you like a bigger one or a more deluxe model? This can be difficult because sometimes up
selling requires advanced product knowledge – a “large” model A is actually a model B and things
like that there.
Mastery of up selling means you’ll ask every customer if they might like to spend more which is a
proven tactic: “would you like fries with that?”
Cross Selling requires more advanced product knowledge than up selling because it is based
upon adding items buyers need to complete their overall task. This goes beyond adding “needed
supplies” like cartridges for a printer. What is the relationship between garden hoses and grass
seed? In what way are air filters related to cleaning products? It takes time and effort to develop
excellent answers to questions like that for your online store.
Mastery of cross selling means you have deep awareness of your customers persona based
buying profile and the activities they use your product to engage in. You’ll know you’ve got this
right when your site seems “almost spooky” when it correctly suggests additional products that
orient around a single product buyer objective.
Sharing is best thought of like the bags that leave bricks stores – the money spent on a gorgeous
bag is intended so that when that person leaves your store and walks down the street everyone
who sees them knows they just made a purchase with you. Make sharing easy and simple, that is
the same thing as spending money on an excellent physical shopping bag.
Product Reviews replace the word of mouth portion of business generation – and talented
merchants know timing is everything to generate this sales enhancing buzz. Your shopping cart
checkout sequence is the first “timed event” - they make a purchase. Using that as a base from
which to properly ask for reviews is the same as a skilled bricks merchant replying to a delighted
squeal from a happy customer with “tell your friends”.
Mastery of up sell, cross sell, sharing, and product reviews commonly results
in overall sales increases in excess of 10% or more.
Best Practice: Checkout / Converting Maybe to Yes
Human buying behavior is a fascinating field of study – and it reveals our habits, tendencies,
and preferences.
For many years online stores have tried to understand this behavior and have offered assorted
options that relate to the considerations inherently contained within the online buying process.
15 Best Practices: Checkout / Converting Maybe to Yes

Wish lists, save this item for later, and many other experiments have attempted to get folks to
not leave things in the cart that they don’t want now – but the realities of human buying behavior
have triumphed over all of those efforts. We’re left with a complex situation in which a 50%+
shopping cart abandonment rate is not unusual.
We then get into all of the issues that surround the word “abandoned” and exactly how we want
to define that. If someone leaves items in the cart for an hour, have they abandoned it or are
they just eating lunch?
A programmer would ask: exactly how many minutes are items in the cart before they
are abandoned?
For people that want to make more money
online many of these unanswerable questions
are just distractions – put them out of your
mind, they don’t really matter.
You need to focus on making sure you have a
proper program in place to capture as much of
the sales volume as you possibly can, that is your
objective.
The first thing you need to do is aggressively collect the email address – this might seem simple,
but it is something so many merchants forget about. If your intention is a robust program of ACE
(Abandoned Cart Emails) you can’t send them until you have the recipients email address.
You can offer to email them their cart, you can point out they should sign up for your other
marketing programs, you can feature the benefits of being signed into your shopping cart –
until you have the visitors email address they are just an abandoned cart, not an
opportunity to recover the sale.
Once you have a properly aggressive address collection systems in place you then move
on to establishing your workflow and the messages you intend to send to visitors who have
abandoned their cart.
Abandoned cart programs that send a single message are horribly ineffective
and in many ways they are doomed before they begin.
You need a minimum of three messages and they should be planned programmatically. When
the cart reaches that initial chronological threshold of abandonment you want to have a very soft
message that is almost timid in tone.

“Did you Perhaps Maybe Forget?”
“Is there something we can help you with, Sir?”
The next message can be more direct – you’ve left these items in your cart.
The third level of messages can contain (friendly) aggression – items in your cart may increase in
price, items in your cart may not be available later. It has been a month since you left these items
in your cart – you get the idea.
The key to successful ACE programs is testing and optimization – you want each email message
to be very carefully crafted and timed. You need each message to be correctly connected to a
stop sequence – you don’t want to be “reminding” customers of something they in fact bought
last week. Finally you must measure the results on an ongoing basis.
The key metrics are:
• Overall cart abandonment rate
• ACE opportunities (the % of people where you successfully got the email address)
• ACE Message Group 1 Sent / Opened/ Clicked / Success
Properly executed ACE programs have the potential to increase bottom line revenue by
more than 15%.

Best Practice: Design / Most Desired Response
Great website design is like a mirror; your goal is to “mirror” the customer experience. To cause
prospects to “get it” quickly and with few words - to cause customers to say “Yes, that’s the
company I know and love”.
Essentially these are subtle visual cues that support the overarching messages.
The interesting thing about website design from a management perspective is that the principle
many graphic designers live by – more gorgeous always – can be an error.
Think about the chairs in the waiting room for a legal professional; let’s focus on attorney’s who
create wills.
Some of them target customers who are interested in the lowest possible price - those folks
actually want squeaky folding metal chairs in their waiting room and a bit of rust is an advantage.
On the other end of the spectrum we have attorneys who refer to themselves as estate planners,
and they focus on helping people who are debating about their legacy and what charities they
may choose to support upon the time of their passing. For those legal professionals they require
not only a fancy comfortable chair, but coffee service on a nice silver tray.
These “chairs” or props support notions of the service level and value proposition – a good look
at a lawyer’s waiting room should give you an idea of their hourly rate.
The core website design question becomes one of a good match, are the “chairs” in your waiting
room correct – and you must be driven by the principles of profitability, not pride.
Great website design is always based upon the principle of MDR and SDR – most desired
response and secondary desired response. The successful Internet Entrepreneur clearly defines
the most desired response for their team – typically a completed shopping cart sale – and drives
all design activities based upon that metric.
If a site visitor isn’t ready to buy right now the design must drive them to SDR – typically a signup
box for email marketing.
The site must be “beautiful”, there is no question about that – but the very best way to do that is
to focus on what is profitable.
Design
15 Best Practices: Design / Most Desired Response

Make sure your waiting room chairs match your principles, and constantly question design
efficacy through an ongoing testing program.
Best Practice: Design / CTA and Eye Paths
The study of human buying psychology is a fascinating endeavor – and there is a direct
correlation to this body of knowledge when we examine CTA’s (calls to action) on the web.
The first thing to be sure and understand is eye path – the direction in which our visual attention
naturally drifts. Some design layouts push people right, some push people down the page – and
so on. If models are used in your photography and they are looking off in a specific direction, site
visitors will follow that eye path to “see” what they are looking at.
This phenomenon of eye path focus happens so rapidly
that very few web site visitors are even aware they are
doing it – but it is a core principle that can put money in
your pocket.
Once you understand the eye paths on your site and
where the visitors’ attention is naturally drawn you want
to place your CTA’s with that in mind.
A strong call to action is based upon two elements – leading words (copy) and
contrasting visuals.
Leading words are action words like “Learn,” “Click,” and “Buy” to motivate readers to pick up
the phone, go online, or perform some other activity. This is one of the most testable aspects of
CTA’s and you should regularly split test specific CTA copy to see what is most effective for your
site visitors.
The next key is that your CTA have a high degree of visual contrast without violating your
brand standard.
Select contrasting colors and unique shapes. CTAs need to stand out from the rest of the
content on the page or screen, so use colors that contrast with the overall design. You can
also get creative with shapes that will get the reader’s attention rather than the traditional
boxes or rectangles.
Strong CTA’s increase conversion rates and enhances sales. Make sure you understand the
natural eye paths of your design so you can place CTA’s in effective locations. Regularly test
15 Best Practices: Design / CTA and Eye Paths

and make use of compelling action words. While respecting your brand standard use contrasting
colors and unusual shapes.
CTA success depends on knowledge of eye path, action words, and contrasting
shapes & colors.
Best Practice: Design / Don’t Use Auto Pop-Ups
We have no doubt that there must be excellent products offered by salespeople that go
door to door, but how do you feel when your doorbell rings and someone is trying to sell you
something?
Over time door to door sales has become associated with poor quality products, rip-offs, and
attempts to convert people to a particular philosophy. The end result is a proliferation of “no
soliciting” signs and some of those can be quite amusing.
It is important for you to understand that
auto pop-up windows are just like door to
door salespeople – the underlying method
may make lots of sense, but they have become
corrupted and are now useless as a result.
Pop-up windows are regularly utilized by black
hat web marketers, sites that sell unsavory
products, and the sorts of business practices
no one wants to be associated with.
The reason we point all this out is that there are many circumstances where auto pop-ups seem
like a good idea, just like it might seem like a good idea to go knock on a prospects front door if
you had no idea how many folks had done that before and pissed them off.
Auto pop-ups reduce conversion in the long run and damage sales over time – don’t fall into the
trap of forgetting who else uses them and what the inevitable long term results are.
15 Best Practices: Design / Don’t Use Auto Pop-Ups

Best Practice: User Interface / Get Negative Product Reviews
Recently we’ve been chatting with lots of folks about online product reviews - this topic often
comes up when discussing social media because it elucidates the fear entrepreneurs have in
that area as well.
Web site owners are afraid to let people comment - on their blogs, as part of product reviews -
and the first question they always ask is how they can control the conversation to prevent any
“negative” opinions.
There are plenty of folks who will skillfully rant and rave about how the web has changed
everything and the days of brand control are long gone - the customers are now in charge.
Those folks have a valid point, but we’re not going to talk about that here.
Today is about profits, profits from negative reviews - and what you need
to know about that.
Long ago and far away in web history (ok, at least 5 years ago) there was quite an uproar around
the ethics of creating fake positive reviews since many folks did just that. In response to that, the
FTC got involved and issued “guidelines” for bloggers to fully disclose if they have been in any
way compensated that might prompt or influence reviews.
Back in eCommerce land there have been conversations about the ethics of seeding a site with
fake reviews, but this time - bad ones.
Many Internet Entrepreneurs get confused right here, why would you want a bad review of
your product?
What those folks don’t know is that in last few years, heavily reviewed products have been
significantly analyzed and all the little number crunching web geeks have learned something you
need to know.
Products with a few negative reviews sell better than products that have
all positive reviews.
User Interface
15 Best Practices: User Interface / Get Negative Product Reviews

As people become more and more dependent on product reviews for information, they know
that the information can be inaccurate. They trust Wikipedia to a certain degree, but because
anyone can edit that online encyclopedia, folks know that sometimes information there is not
reliable. This is the web’s version of the “Trust, but verify” idea.
So image a major purchase - like a Flat Screen TV. Take a trip on over to the Amazon’s electronics
store and you’ll notice something interesting about the top 5 bestselling products - not a one of
them has 100% positive reviews.
We’re not saying there aren’t products that have an average 5 star rating - go ahead and sort by
customer review and they pop right up.
A previous study was on a bestselling panel at Amazon, a Panasonic Viera - an awesome
machine, and here’s a bit of disclosure: several of us own them. One of the reviews for the
product is titled “This TV Sucks” and in addition to the overall lousy opinion the reviewer says:
“Another problem is that POWER BUTTON on TV is not working for some reason, but the remote
works perfectly.”
He’s right. The power button on that TV is a crappy button - we’ve pushed lots and lots of
buttons over the years and can speak with authority on crappy ones. Panasonic saved a buck or
two on the production cost right there, no doubt.
But because we almost never ever use that button - we shut the TV off with the remote control
we don’t really care that it has a lousy power button. This little bit of genuine trouble - along with
the moans about viewing angle, delivery problems, difficulties setting up the unit, picture quality
concerns - all of these things not only drag the average review down to four and a half stars, but
they assure the site visitors that they are getting a real world, genuine picture of this product.
Most people are much more likely to purchase this TV when they know about its minor known
problems. This makes more sense than the leap of faith required to buy one where every review
is positive and glowing.
Here’s the bottom line - as an Internet Entrepreneur you might be afraid
of people providing negative reviews, but some negativity is in fact positive
and will boost sales.
Best Practice: User Interface / Relevant Results
When eCommerce began most sites focused on the benefit that they were open all the time –
find us online 24x7. That was fun for a while and we all felt a little bit like we lived in Manhattan
15 Best Practices: User Interface / Relevant Results

and were able to order Chinese food at 3 in the morning and have it delivered.
When you see someone still promote this benefit of online shopping you can be sure they are
way out of date and quite clueless.
The next phase of online shopping was about selection – this was driven by the sheer quantity of
SKUs that were available. A site with 100 TV’s to choose from was “better” than one with 10 – and
we even measured eCommerce sites based upon the number of items they carried.
That ended in about 2010 as a significant benefit – and again we find hapless marketers still
focused on this today and wondering why their sales don’t increase.
Today online shoppers don’t want to be presented with thousands of choices at one time – they
become paralyzed and buy nothing. Today’s online shopper expects for you to provide them
with true online service – guidance about what they should buy and what you’d recommend.
If anyone in your organization wants to talk about how the website is “open 24 hours a day” that
alone constitutes good reason to terminate them. If they talk about you “vast selection” that isn’t
going to work either – but you should perhaps educate that unfortunate soul instead of simply
firing them.
Today good eCommerce platforms allow for both complete search control and facets. Facets are
ways in which we narrow our product choices – by brand, size, color, and many other options.
Search control gives us the power to specify that when a site visitor types ___ in the box they’ll
get specific products.
Think of your service in the same way a museum present art – people expect that you will
“curate” the collection and help them find what they need. That is the core of great online service
today.
Here’s the bottom line – success in the eCommerce world has always required
forward thinking. It is unreasonable to believe that a site that does not make it
easy to find products by utilizing facets and refinements options has a solid chance
of succeeding. It doesn’t.
Now what about your hunters?
When website visitors are in a hurry that’s a good indication that they are in hunting mode and
they are ready to buy now.
Some business verticals experience a tremendous number of these types of buyers naturally – in
15 Best Practices: User Interface / Relevant Results

2012, 1-800-Flowers.com had a conversion rate of 16.90%. You read that right; they make a sale
every time 6 visitors show up.
The high conversion rates for specific verticals are driven by buyer type – many folks visiting
florists online have made some sort of social error that creates an urgent need for flowers.
For Internet Entrepreneurs that are not working in those sorts of verticals they need to identify
site visitors that are in a similar mindset – hunters.
Hunters are in a hurry. Hunters buy quickly and speed is what they seek.
Hunters want it now – give it to them.
The first thing a hunter seeks is the search box, which is why you need to place it big and bold
above the fold – typically a prominent position in the header.
When the hunter enters their search query they expect your eCommerce platform to rapidly give
them what they want so they can buy it and get on with their day.
This is why you need your site search to provide relevant product related results rapidly. Those
results should be sortable and refine-able – so the hunter can “stab” the items of their choice
and carry it home with them.
When you tune your eCommerce site to accommodate the hunter you are working to gain
ground with a special group, folks that convert at a significant multiple of your average site
visitors conversion rate.
Make sure your site search mechanisms support what hunters want and your CEO will be
glad you did.
Best Practice: User Interface / 3 Clicks or Less
If you ever hear yourself say the phrase “but we do have a link to that” it is important to realize
that means you really don’t “have” a link at all.
15 Best Practices: User Interface / 3 Clicks or Less

Check with the folks who respond to customers and see if they have some items that they
frequently provide the location of. Anytime someone who takes customer phone calls for a living
easily rattles off something like “two thirds of the way down the page on the left hand side under
the yellow block you’ll see the link”, we know there is a significant usability problem.
If a site visitor doesn’t see something right away – it might as well not exist.
Site navigation needs to be clear and consistent – it must be possible to reach major pages
of your site from any other major page without forcing users to navigate additional pages
in between.
Many eCommerce veterans refer to this as the “three clicks” principle – the notion that
everything on your site should be accessible in three clicks or less.
Right now you might be thinking “I know all this, it is basic stuff” - but do us a favor and go take
a look at your site with fresh eyes. Can you in fact reach every significant page from any other?
How does your site respond to the three clicks test?
If your site is brand new it probably does pretty well, but if it has any age on it the number of
problems might surprise you. This is the same way that people know they should “eat healthy”,
but open up their refrigerator and you’ll see it is full of junk food.
This speaks to the importance of being able to make ongoing adjustments – your eCommerce
platform must allow you to make changes to the navigation easily as your products and
customers buying behaviors change over time.
You need to go back to your site with these principles in mind on a regular basis. A good rule
of thumb is to schedule a “three clicks” test at least once per quarter; the results will probably
surprise you.
Fixing these sorts of issues will make your customers happy, and happy customers mean orders
in your shopping cart.
Best Practice: User Interface / Customized Banners on Navigation
Pages & Landing Pages from Organic Search
When a visitor arrives from a search engine result page, customize the product page to
include other relevant or popular items in banners above the fold. They have either told you
exactly what they want, which means they’ll buy the product on the page, or their query term is
more general, which means they’re browsing for items.
15 Best Practices: User Interface / Customized Banners on Navigation Page & Landing Pages from Organic Search

Therefore your product landing pages should contain multiple offers above the fold so that
shoppers are less likely to bounce from just seeing one product, and more likely to look into
other products that fit their needs.
Similarly when a visitor is window shopping and clicks on a navigation category page: have
large colorful banners with different clickable areas leading to multiple unique landing pages.
These areas could include use cases, groups, brands, calls to action to sales, and accessories.
This “recommendation” further refines what buyers are looking for with large call to actions
above the fold.
15 Best Practices: User Interface / Customized Banners on Navigation Page & Landing Pages from Organic Search

Best Practice: Development / Well Formatted, Organized,
Maintainable Code
(Allows your developers to work faster and pages to load quicker)
Have you ever seen a bunch of people gathered
around a piece of amazing American engineering at a
car show? They comment on the quality of the parts,
they praise the beautiful assembly, and they admire
the growl of the engine.
Perhaps you are like most geeks and you’d be clueless
about how to appreciate a kick ass big block motor
– and if you are, you understand the perspective of
most people when they see code.
Code has a wide variety of quality levels – and some claims of “quality” are based upon factors
that are beyond merely how well something works. The low cost car manufactures are justifiably
proud of what they have done with limited resources in the same way NASA Engineers are proud
of vehicles they have sent off to explore space where there is no tolerance for anything but
flawless engineering.
Even if you are not someone who appreciates the elegance and gorgeousness of well-designed
code there are a few things you should be aware of.
Great code has been very well organized – it is easy to find what you need.
Great code has been properly formatted – no shortcuts were taken and proper valid syntax has
been used.
Great code is eminently maintainable – the need to make updates has been anticipated by virtue
of the way it was constructed.
So if you aren’t a lover of code how can you spot great code?
Developers work with it quickly and easily. Your site loads rapidly and it doesn’t brain fart.
Great code is the basis of a great eCommerce platform.
Development
15 Best Practices: Development / Well Formatted, Organized, Maintainable Code

Solid, stable, dependable machines simply work better and cost less to run.
A rock solid code base is the key to your online success.
Best Practice: Development / Own Your Data
Most Doctors are skilled professionals, but there are some bad ones.
Some used car salespeople are wonderfully ethical, but most aren’t.
In the land of eCommerce platforms one of the hallmarks of a bad platform is that your data is
not really yours, it has been “captured” by the system and it is difficult to extract it.
This makes it difficult for you to change providers when things are going badly – and some
systems are in fact engineered intentionally with this in mind. It doesn’t matter how bad our
system sucks because they can never leave, it might hurt them to stay with us, but it would hurt
them worse if they left.
Executives run into this scenario more often than those of that are web professionals would
like – it would be wonderful if there were no systems designed to trap people, but the fact of the
matter is that there are.
It is critical that you truly own your own data – this means it’s easily extractable.
We believe in you doing what you want when you want – that is the path to web success.
We believe that you own your data and that you have the right to extract it
at any time.
As you consider eCommerce platforms make sure you understand who truly “owns” the data and
what it would take to get it out of a system.
Best Practice: Development / Test, Test, Test
Most people aren’t familiar with the brilliant merchant who said it – but they know the quote
they learned in advertising class:
“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, if only I knew which half.”
15 Best Practices: Development / Your Own Data

John Wanamaker (July 11, 1838 – December 12, 1922) was a United States merchant, religious
leader, civic and political figure, considered by some to be the father of modern advertising and
a “pioneer in marketing.” 3
Simpler – this is the guy that “invented” the department store.
The internet is John Wanamaker’s fantasy come true – we know which half is wasted. We
know how to make it better, we know how to do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.
Start with the rule of thirds – rank your marketing activities based on the return with the
secondary dimension of overall volume generated.
Whatever is in the top third – do more.
Whatever is in the middle third – leave that alone.
Whatever is in the bottom third – drop it like a hot potato.
The web is the world’s biggest popularity contest – every click teaches you. Site visitors tell you
what they want, what products they think are excellent, and which of your value propositions
convince them.
Successful web merchants know this and they live and breathe it every day.
If there is one single thing that separates the winners and losers in the race for
web sales it is whether or not they understand this – you must test, test, test.
From a management point of view you must insist on constant testing – because the fact of the
matter is that when your employees say they “can” test something or that they will “if needed”
that usually means that no testing is going on.
Without testing constantly you can’t make serious sales happen dependably.
Every time you make a major site change you should split test it. There is no other way to
understand the true impact of your actions any other way.
You should be running at least one split test every week. Every single week.
Respond to those tests in the same way you do when dealing with a/b email sends.
You should be testing your checkout sequence at least once a month.
3
John Wanamaker - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2 March 2013. 30 April 2013.
15 Best Practices: Development / Test, Test, Test

Rearrange the facets on your site; test what works and what doesn’t.
Develop usability tests and multivariate tests. They are the hardest to execute but they also offer
some of the greatest possible sales gains.
Your employees are responsible for running the tests and reporting back to you – but you
are responsible for the testing strategy. Failure here is unacceptable.
Use a calendar and plan your test for the next quarter, and keep up with the calendar as time
marches on.
Best Practice: Development / “Trap” and Review All the Error Messages
Your Site is Giving to Your Shoppers
Some websites have very charming error messages:
Whoops, we’re sorry to inform you that something has gone wrong. Our apologies.
Our system administrators have been notified and 1,000 flying monkeys are descending
upon the issue to fix it as we speak. It shall be fixed momentarily.
Now this is wonderful customer service language and for some brands this sort of cheeky
playfulness can increase sales – but the objective you need to worry about is making sure that
this is true for your site regardless of whether or not you tell your customers flying monkeys are
working on it.
Great eCommerce platforms “trap” (record) errors and keep a log of them.
You need to regularly review these errors and make sure they get fixed – this is a key to
maximizing your online profits.
15 Best Practices: Development / “Trap” and Review All the Error Messages Your Site is Giving to Your Shoppers

Do What You Want,
When You Want
Dream, develop, and deliver. Your revenue increases much faster when you can do what you
want, when you want. If you’re waiting on a third party for the next action or if your “box” doesn’t
let you customize it to your needs, we still wish you the best, but really, good luck.
Unlock your potential and see how you can improve your eCommerce machine -Talk to one of
our experts today and see how to optimize your eCommerce platform for sales.
CONTACT US

eCommerce 201: 5 Strategies & 15 Best Practices You Need to Know to Grow Your Revenue

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