Chapter 3
IN THIS CHAPTER
Revealing your store’s unique identity
Organizing your store so that customers can find anything
Designing a site that convinces your visitors to become customers
As a bricks-and-mortar retailer, you probably gave a great deal of attention and thought to your store’s appearance — the selection of paint colors, the placement of shelving, and even the way each product is positioned. You probably agonized for days, if not weeks, over each decision — and for good reason, too.
Major retailers spend a substantial amount of time and money sorting through the same details. And when they find that perfect look, it becomes a blueprint for every store that follows.
Why go to all this trouble? Your goal in creating a positive shopping environment is to increase sales. That process begins with the look of your store. The way products are arranged contributes to an overall feeling or mood. Customers will buy more if they’re comfortable shopping in your store, can find what they need, and are treated well. Retail merchandizing experts have shown that careful attention to in-store displays can have a direct (positive) effect on your sales.
The same concept holds true for your online store. In one e-commerce case study, a global online retailer experimented with how they featured a group of lighting fixtures on their website. They claimed to see an increase of 30 percent in their online sales for one particular product grouping. Similarly, other functions or features of your online store can make a difference in sales. For example, enabling additional product views and providing the capability to zoom in on product images for a closer look contribute to sales increases of as much as 15 percent, according to industry research.
The result is clear: The way you position or feature your products online could mean earning several hundred dollars (or more) a day in online retail sales. That’s worth it, in our opinion. With that result in mind, in this chapter, we show you how to map your very own online-store blueprint.
Imagine for a moment that one of your customers is blindfolded and brought into your offline store (without knowing where she is being taken). After the blindfold is removed, the customer should be able to tell that she’s in your store. For example, do you carry specialty products or a line of signature items? Do you use bright, unconventional colors on the walls?
Transferring your physical image, or identity, to your online store is a major part of creating the right look for your site. Plus, you want to convey a consistent brand experience wherever your products are being sold. When it comes to the design of your online presence, we recommend starting the process by choosing a single element that you believe customers most readily identify with your store. The main factor that makes your store special may be one of these features:
Your offline store identity gives you a starting point for your website design. As you build your site, this element gives you a clear place to return if you get off-track from the image you want to project. Your store identity is a guideline.
The right image is just the beginning. The look of an online store can be nearly flawless, but after you open the door (or enter the website), you may find a different story. Regardless of your store’s image on the outside, if customers have difficulties with the actual shopping experience inside, you can quickly lose those customers.
As a shopkeeper, you have to make great strides to carry your complete image from the outside in. For an online store, that inside image is all about organization.
For example, any large bookseller probably has thousands and thousands of books packing the shelves and tables of its store. Yet every book has its place. Each one is neatly categorized according to subject matter, release dates, clearance items, sales, or even product type (books, magazines, greeting cards, and gifts, for example). With all this managed chaos, the store still has room for wide aisles, chairs and sofas, and an entire coffee shop.
When you visit the online version of the bookstore, you should find the same strategy at play. The navigation should provide clear choices that mimic the categories you find in the store.
To achieve this level of detail online, start by taking a tour of your bricks-and-mortar location. Think about all the ways that you categorize products to make shopping (and inventory management) easy. These categories often include
However you categorize products, carrying your retail store’s organization through to your online store isn’t difficult. It just takes some, well … organization.
You may not realize (or may have forgotten) how and why you placed your products the way you have in your bricks-and-mortar store. Follow these steps to refresh your memory and come up with a plan to organize your online store:
Draw a diagram of the inside of your retail store.
Your diagram doesn’t have to be drawn to scale. But the drawing should clearly show the layout of your store, including shelving units, display cases, and doorways.
On a separate piece of paper, make a corresponding list of all the items you have displayed.
This step helps you make an inventory of everything that’s placed out on the floor (where customers shop) and detail where it’s displayed. Label shelves and tables in your store diagram with numbers or letters. The corresponding list should indicate which products are stored where; note why you organize them that way.
Create a list of top-selling items.
Pull this list from your store’s inventory and sales reports. When you have your list, look to see where those top-selling items are located in your store. Do you see any noticeable patterns?
Identify your merchandising hot spots.
Your merchandising hot spots are the places that receive the most attention because of their physical location in the store. Items next to your cash register, in your front window (if you have one), and near the front door where customers can see them when they walk into the store are all examples of merchandising hot spots.
Group products into categories that you want to use online.
Take your preferred product groupings and incorporate them into your website’s site map. Basically, you’re merchandising your online store by using the identifiable trends from your offline location.
In addition to creating a plan for the layout of your online store, you can offer customers another critical organizational function: a web-based search tool.
You’re probably familiar with using Google, Bing, or Yahoo! to search the Internet for keywords. Well, online stores have found that the same kind of tool is a true boon to business. Think about search tools in comparison to your store: A customer can come in and ask a sales associate where something is located in your store. Online shoppers, however, have to depend on using the clues on your site’s menu bar. Including a search function on your home page eliminates customers having to guess in which category they can find a certain product.
Look for a search tool that
www.macys.com
allows customers to further search or filter by such things as price, brand, color, customer product reviews and ratings, and even special discounts or offers. The additional sorting function prevents a large number of results from overwhelming customers.A good site design makes attracting buyers to your site much easier. The aesthetics of your site matter, but you also need functionality. These elements can keep your site’s traffic flowing (and, you hope, convert that traffic to sales):
Simplicity: Keep both the graphical design of your site and the information you provide simple. A popular design trend for making e-commerce sites more appealing is a simplified color scheme. The phrase “less is more” is one to take to heart when selling online.
Even if your offline brand is funky and full of color, you can still make online design decisions that keep visitors from feeling overwhelmed when they first visit your site. A good example of this approach is the online niche retailer, Caron’s Beach House. Specializing in coastal home décor, the site is filled with beach-inspired products. It would be easy for the large amount of bright and colorful products to overwhelm the site design, but the company found an aesthetically pleasing point of compromise for the e-commerce site (www.caronsbeachhouse.com
). As you see in Figure 3-1, the site has a neutral white background to balance the vibrant product photos. The site is still true to the colorful beach theme, but it doesn’t overwhelm visitors or interfere with the online customer experience.
Having good design and the right image for your website isn’t that different from what you already do in your bricks-and-mortar store.
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