26
Jan
5 Mistakes Online Credit Card Users Make
Below is a guest post from Instabill, an online payment processor specializing in high risk merchant accounts.
The e-commerce industry has grown exponentially throughout the years. Statistics show that total e-commerce sales in the United States alone were $165.4 billion. In 2011, the United Kingdom spent a record-breaking £68 billion — a 16% increase from 2010. Consumers feel confident in their online purchases, but they often make incredibly stupid mistakes.
Here’s a glimpse of the top five mistakes consumers often make when using credit cards online.
- Clicking the “Pay Now” button multiple times.
Consumers often click on the “Pay Now” button multiple times when trying to check out. When a new page doesn’t load right away, they assume their request to process the transaction hasn’t, well, processed. Instead of waiting for a timeout or “404″ error page to load, they continue to click on the “Pay Now” button until the new page appears, resulting in multiple unintentional purchases. - Ignoring the fine print.
Many consumers don’t bother reading the fine print, especially on websites that offer free trials. Think about it: If a website advertises a product or service as a “free trial,” why would they have to provide payment information? The fine-print details explain that they will be charged for continued services once the trial ends, and to cancel their services if they do not wish to be charged. - Lack of communication among consumers who share credit cards.
When a consumer shares their credit card with another person, it’s vital to communicate new purchases to all who see the billing statement. We receive phone calls from cardholders who forget they’ve let their children use their cards, or employees who forget a co-worker has access to their credit card as well. - Ignoring the billing descriptor.
A lot of merchants include their customer service telephone number right in their billing descriptor. However, many consumers overlook this and call their credit card issuing bank. While issuing banks are able to help resolve discrepancies, it’s always best for unsatisfied customers to contact the merchant first. When a cardholder contacts their issuing bank first, they initiate a chargeback, which costs both merchant and payment processor more money in the end. - Not reviewing billing statements as they arrive.
When consumers receive their monthly credit card billing statement, they need to review it. This will allow the cardholder to catch any discrepancies. They also won’t wonder why they were charged $600 three months ago.
23
Jan
3 Must-Know Shopping Cart Abandonment Facts
There’s is much to be said about cart abandonment .. and we have! We recently wrote about some interesting facts and figures here, and also in our 3dcart university, as well as posted an interesting infographic here . While there is much to be said, there are 3 facts that every merchant must know to understand cart abandonment.
FACT: Price is crucial.
09
Jan
90% Of People Believe Brand Recommendations From Friends
Inbound marketing focuses on getting found by customers and not forcing them to look at you through advertisements (outbound marketing). Inbound marketing is permission marketing centered on relationships and natural SEO.
As an inbound marketing software, Hubspot is obviously all about ‘inbound-marketing’ but they have good reason to be. The impact word-of-mouth and customer reviews on online sales is immense! Just check out some of these facts:
PPC: Only 41% of people believe that ads ( Google Ads etc) are a good source of product information & 75% don’t accept ads as ‘truth’.
SEO: 61% of consumers use search engines to research products before a purchase
SOCIAL MEDIA: 90% of people believe brand recommendations from friends. Thats 20% more than those who believe general consumer opinion
CUSTOMER REVIEWS : Products with over 50 reviews create greater return, 65% more than products with fewer than 5.
09
Jan
Adding The 3dcart Shopping Widget To Your Blog
SEMSEOWizard.com is one of our favorite bloggers for ecommerce SEO and social optimization tips. The Wizard is a big fan of 3dcart and has some awesome tutorials worth checking out.
One of which is this awesome tutorial on how to add the 3dcart shopping widget to your blog like this:
20
Dec
Choosing Buyer Keywords
Customers search for products in different phases of the purchasing process. They be browsing, considering a purchase, comparison shopping or they could be ready to buy NOW!
Conversion Funnel
Unfortunately PPC doesn’t allow the “only show to purchase-ready searchers” option, so if you aren’t careful and strategic you can end up paying a lot for users without any purchase intent.
While you can’t know for certain a user’s position in the purchase process, you can choose keywords that are indicative of their placement. Consumers’ searches follow a pretty standard pattern as they move down the conversion funnel.
You have to find the keywords that accompany the purchase-ready stage or the buyer keywords.
For example:
- Betty’s looking for a laptop. She searches:” best laptops” or “laptop reviews”
Those keywords can be good, but for the most part users are just beginning their purchase journey. Lets say Betty went to those review sites and realized she she was probably more interested in a Macbook.
- Armed with more specific inquiries, Betty has further moved down the conversion funnel – she knows exactly what she wants and shes ready to buy. She searches: “Buy Macbooks” “Buy Macbooks Cheap” ”Macbooks under $100″ ”Budget Macbooks”
Without knowing Betty’s journey, you These keywords are indict
Matt Carter lists some great examples of buyer keywords on his blog.
- buy
- purchase
- review
- best
- cheap
- new
- bargain
- budget
- economical
- inexpensive
- low cost
- low priced
- reduced
- compare
- model numbers
- brand names
19
Dec
Where Are Your Customers Looking For Information?
According to M Booth and Beyond, consumers consult different information sources for different types of purchasing decisions. Their infographic shows what source of information consumers turn to for each product category. While obviously not comprehensive enough to be conclusive, their findings can definitely help you focus your marketing efforts on the platforms that matter most to your business.
12
Dec
How Does Loading Time Affect Your Online Store? #Infographic
Loading time is an important part of any website’s user experience, but it is vital in eCommerce. Sometimes we can get caught in the aesthetics of a site and end up sacrificing speed. Unfortunately slow loading time, not bad design, is a leading cause of site abandonment. Check out KissMetric’s infographic below to learn more about the affects of a slow site. Then use our 3 tips to help better your load time and your conversion!
Check your Speed: The first thing you want to do is check your current speed. Luckily there are some great free tools that let you do this:
Rearrange your HTML Document: It’s important to place the Stylesheet References at the top of your HTML document and the script references at the Bottom.
Only two components per hostname are downloaded by browsers at a time. By placing the <head> of your HTML document st the top of your page, your site will load faster because it allows your pages to render the styles progressively. Thus by choosing to place the script references at the top, you block other mor essential elements from loading of the page.To quicken your load time, place script references before the closing <body>.
Optimize Your Images
File format can greatly affect your page load so it’s important to know when to use each file format:
- PNG: Use for high quality transparent image.
- GIF: Use for images with few colors like logos
- JPEG: Use for images with lots of color and detail like photos.
Use free services to help you optimize and shrink your images:
Tip: Avoid changing an images size using the width and height attributes of <img> elements in HTML. Use an image editor like PickNic to decrease load time.
infographic by KissMetrics
29
Nov
How To Deck Your Online Store With Bells and Holly
All right Scrooge, it’s time to get in the spirit. While you can’t keep the bells jingling and the eggnog flowing year round, a little festive cheer is a great way to make an emotional appeal to your shoppers because let’s face it: candy canes and reindeer evoke happy memories for most Americans.
Brick and mortar retailers have turned holiday marketing into a work of art – literally! Macy’s attracts thousands of customers to their stores just by making their shopping experience a whimsical holiday journey. Big retailers know that when their customers are ‘in the holiday spirit’ they’re also in the ‘spending spirit.’
Luckily, online merchants don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on window displays and Christmas trees to spread the holiday cheer. Putting your shoppers in the holiday spirit is as simple as incorporating some holiday-themed content and imagery into your storefront. If you need a little holiday inspiration, here are 10 ways you can spruce up your site.
- Create holiday landing pages for promotions, gift sets and major brands you represent.
- Post a “holiday countdown” application on all of your pages to encourage people to buy sooner.
- Offer a free or inexpensive gift-wrapping service.
- Feature special categories for holiday shopping like “stocking stuffers”, “gifts for mom” and “great Hanukkah ideas” to direct relevant traffic.
- Make sure your phone number is displayed prominently so shoppers know you take the holiday rush seriously.
- Add little holiday design cues throughout the site (like Santa caps and candy canes) to make your store more festive.
- Upload pictures of products under the Christmas tree to product pages to help shoppers visualize their gifts.
- Stock holiday greeting cards and give shoppers the option to include them with their orders.
- Develop a “Holiday Gift Guide” to include on your homepage with plenty of content on the season’s hottest gifts, ideas for friends and family and more.
- Give back. Add a quick link to a charity of your choice on your homepage and encourage shoppers to give or give a portion of each sale to a charity.
01
Nov
3dcart Store Lukiegames.com to Reach $5 Million in 2011 Sales
We’re so excited to announce that 3dcart store LukieGames.com sales jumped 27% with help from 3dcart and SearchSpring:
“3DCart’s forums were open, and that was the kind of honesty, transparency and customer appreciation we were looking for.”
In 2009, Jessie Cover and his wife Sara turned a lifelong passion for video games and a hobby business selling games on sites like Ebay and Amazon into a company that would eventually reach $5 million in 2011 projected sales.
The secret to their success? Lukie Games is powered by 3DCart ecommerce software and SearchSpring faceted site search, a partnership that helped Jesse and Sara save big on per-sale fees and boosted sales 27 percent in August 2011. SearchSpring, a faceted navigation service, logged a 434 percent total ROI for the month.
Lukie Games sells more than 45,000 new and used video games, systems and equipment monthly online for brands like NES, SNES, N64, Sega, Playstation and Gameboy to a customer base of more than 250,000 shoppers. Prior to starting their own online store with 3DCart, the couple incurred $28-38,000 in monthly fees through other online stores.
Part of what drove Lukie Games to sign up with 3DCart was the software company’s visibility in contrast to competing software suites.
“At that time, Volusion had a tight grip on their customer forum, so we couldn’t access it. Actively trying to hide potentially negative feedback was a huge red flag for us. In contrast, 3DCart’s forums were open, and that was the kind of honesty, transparency and customer appreciation we were looking for.”
The web offered a lot of buzz about both products, but Volusion received another blow in LukieGame’s decision process as a result of site downtime. “Customers raved that 3DCart was one of the most stable platforms out there, and other online store owners criticized Volusion’s uptime—with some customers going as far as to complain of once-a-week downtime. In our eyes, that was simply unacceptable for an ecommerce company.”
Lukie Games eventually launched on 3DCart, and Jesse found that built-in features were a huge part of the software’s appeal.
- Built-in SEO – “We automatically popped up in the top ten search results.”
- Customizability – “From tweaking SEO to implementing layout changes, the software doesn’t lock you out the way competitors tend to do.”
- Autoresponders – “The ability to have ‘order received’ and other automated emails controlled by the system is a great time-saver.”
- Wish Lists & Waiting Lists – “The “wish list” and “waiting list” features, coupled with the autoresponders, simplify the process for customers waiting on back-ordered items.”
- Rewards Program – “It offers us the kind of repeat business we might get with a 15%-off coupon.”
- Shipping Integration – “Between domestic and international shipping, we can run organized shipping campaigns through each unique service provider.”
In the end, Jesse considers 3DCart and SearchSpring extensions of the Lukie Games team. “We chat with a lot of fellow business owners, and we’re constantly recommending the services,” Jesse said. “You simply don’t find businesses that care this much about their customers every day.”
To read the full case study, visit http://www.3dcart.com/ecommerce-case-studies.html.
About SearchSpring
Developed by B7 Interactive and a team of veteran E-Commerce software developers, SearchSpring’s E-Commerce site search and faceted navigation solutions empower online retailers to unleash findability. Delivering the latest in search and AJAX technology, SearchSpring enables merchants to provide a rich and engaging online shopping experience. For more information, visit http://www.searchspring.net or call 888-643-9043.