Remember the promise of Internet retail, where you could
access a world wide audience and offer thousands of products
at incredibly low costs?
Now read the sentence above and picture in your mind exactly
what this means. Can you put a face on a world wide
audience? Can you see thousands of products, or just
thousands of boxes stacked high in a warehouse?
Even if you can, your customers cannot. It is proven.
Offering thousands of products to faceless people yields no
sales. Now look around the Internet and guess what you find?
Perfectly intelligent people are making the same mistakes
over and over, then blame the Internet for their lack of
sales.
As the old saying goes, those who don’t learn from the past
keep repeating the same mistakes. This is part of the
confusion of Internet retail and it is also the key to your
opportunity. Consider the experience of a retail store, how it
is designed to introduce the customer to the products and
how this can benefit you.
Give Them One Product and a Comfortable Place to View It
If you have ever been shopping for apparel in the United
States, then you already understand the design of an
effective retail system. For years retailers have been
testing the placement of products, where to put the best
pulling products and how to introduce you to the overall
purchase.
For example, take the experience upon entering an apparel
store. Usually you have about 5-10 feet of open space after
entering the door, like a walkway to the store, immediately
available before you start seeing products. For years
retailers tried to pack products into this entry point,
figuring that people would want to buy most upon entering.
Now you have an open entry point with one specific product
line. Here’s why: 1. Retailers discovered that customers
entering the door were in need of relaxation. Coming from a
busy highway or parking lot, rushing around with friends and
family, the customer simply needed some time to orient
themselves. The open path is a place to greet the customer,
not overwhelm them.
2. Customers who did stop and look were disturbed by other
customers brushing up against them, talking, and speeding
by. It was like shopping in a busy tunnel; all the noise and
commotion irritated people.
3. Retailers discovered that placing one product line at the
end of this entry path helped introduce the customer to the
buying process with a suggestive lead item. For example, I
go to Men’s Wearhouse to buy a suit. Upon entering the door
I have my open entry point, and at the end are a selection
of ties. Ties are the lead product for the entire suit; if I
see a tie I like, the salesman can then guide me to the suit
that fits that tie. Or if they offer a pair of shoes, we can
then proceed to tailor the entire suit to those shoes. The
entry point gives the customer a place to start the buying
process, introduced by small, low price products (i.e., lead
items) which they like.
4. The entrance to your storefront is a critical place to
create comfort and give people specific products to buy.
Ties, and shoes, lead to the suit. The small decision leads
to the bigger buy, by gradually working the consumer into
the right state of mind. It is a passage to the sales
process.
How To Offer Products and Get People to Buy
Imagine if you could take the same lessons learned in retail
and apply them to your online storefront. Instead of a huge
physical store, you have an entry point called a Web Page.
Most people crowd this page with products, and force all
their visitors to first go through this entry point, or home
page, to enter the site.
They design the whole customer experience around that home
page. It is crowded with products, and since everyone has to
go there, the Web Page may be slow to open because of
traffic. They are making the mistakes of retail, and
ignoring the consequences.
Customers come to your store for a variety of reasons; they
come based on the season, based on a life event like a
birthday, or even just to browse. Each one of these people
want a specific entry point, a specific Web Page with a
specific product, to introduce them to everything you offer.
You have a choice; do what the majority of people are doing
(which fails), or create an entry point and process for your
customers to get comfortable, and to buy.
You can be different. Now that you know the real secret of
retail, apply what you have learned to your online
storefront. Focus your customer on that specific product,
like Men’s Wearhouse focused me on the tie, in order to buy
the whole suit.
About the Author
Patrick Anderson is the founder of Active Marketplace and
author of "Right On The Money", from which this article
is excerpted. You can find out more about the book at
http://activemarketplace.com/righton