I Love It When You Read My Mind

Don't you love it when you are thinking about something and it magically appears? Me too. Of course I like it best if it is brownies that I'm wishing for and they appear, but now I digress.

What I am really talking about is that feeling of accomplishment you get when you put in a full string of words in your Google search bar and accurate and relevant results are instantly returned. Now of course Google, and the many other browsers get a lot of credit for this too, but so do the web sites that do a great job of search optimization. From great product descriptions to relevant and timely content, sites that are continuously working to improve their content get high marks and great conversion rates.

I recently ran across this article that helps websites to improve SEO and customer satisfaction too. How to Generate Content Ideas For Your Site provides concise tips and and useful tools to help you make small changes that provide customers with better ways to find just what they are looking for.

My favorite is a great site called Wordtracker Labs. They have a Wordtracker Keyword Tool that lets you put in one single word and find out the most popular search strings that are relevant to your topic. It helps you identify trends and new ideas with just one quick search. Talk about easy!

Now I am going to try my luck with wishing for those brownies. Happy searching!

I Want to Buy "Good"

Everyday the news is filled with things we should be concerned about. The toys we purchase for our kids, the food we buy at the supermarket, even the water we drink. It becomes overwhelming to try and sort out the hype from the truth. As a time starved mom and consumer I would like to make good buying choices, but who has the time to do the research.

Yesterday I ran across a site that does just that, they aggregate the information on products and the companies they come from to help you decide. The Good Guide is a site run by Dara O’Rourke, a professor of environmental and labor policy at the University of California, Berkeley. See the full article in the NY Times.

Not only is the site easy to use, it also has an iPhone app to make it portable. This is definitely as site to feel good about!

Oh, How I Wish...

The days of the wish list have really advanced from the bridal registry kept at the local jewelry store. Today many online retailers host not only registry options for brides and babies, but also wish lists for those of us who really dread getting another sweater (you can insert your most expected gift here!)

Today's wish lists are even advancing to the point of being able to add items from other retailer sites. Amazon launched this service a few months ago, and today Best Buy announced that it too was launching a new registry feature called Giftag. This not only allows future grooms to choose PCs instead of place settings or big screens instead of bakeware, but couples will also be able to look for great items on other sites and add them to their Best Buy list.

So as a retailer, or even a manufacturer selling directly to the public, you have to ask yourself, "Why are these guys doing this, and what does it mean to my business?" Here's the scoop... registries or wish lists help your business in three important ways:

• First, they hook consumers and make them spend more time on your site. As online retailers know, more time on your site and more page views usually turns into more $$$. It also makes shoppers more aware of your full online assortment and encourages them to come back in the future.


• Second, people with wish lists tell other people! This form of viral marketing is better than most forms of advertising you can buy. These consumers email links, talk at showers, tell family, friends and co-workers. Most importantly come back to your site repeatedly to see what is being purchased!


• Third, sales. Having run a wedding registry program for a Fortune 100 Company for 5 years, I can assure you that the registry sales are higher per transaction than your store or site average. The average sale of a wedding registry purchases was 3 times the value of the normal home store purchase at the company where I worked. Guests don't go cheap when they are sending gifts they won't be able to touch and see first, so they opt for stepping up the purchase price.

The spending doesn't stop there either. People with registries and wish lists often "complete" their lists by buying the rest of the items for themselves. Many retailers give an incentive to do so, but after all the marketing and sales this person has generated for you, it is a small investment.

Finally, registry consumers who have a good experience during this time in their lives, are usually hooked as a long term customers shopping consistently with that retailer for the next 5 to 10+ years. What would you spend to generate that kind of loyalty?

Maybe it's time to start wishing for a wish list on your site.

Love to Shop

Some of my favorite memories are of shopping. I love to shop for the everyday and the special occasion. I love to shop with my mom, my sister, my friends, my husband, my kids. I even love to shop for groceries!

How lucky that I ended up with a 15+ year career in retail and Ecommerce. Maybe that is no surprise given all the shopping I have done over the last three decades.

I started my retail career in store operations and a lot of the mystery of the shopping experience was suddenly revealed. It is kind of like looking behind the scenes at Disney World. A tremendous amount of work goes into every single detail to make the experience friendly, exciting, enticing and rewarding. While much time is spent on merchandise presentation, up-selling and spend per transaction, the real payoff comes in the form of customer loyalty.

As my career progressed into more of a systems and Ecommerce focus, I began to realize that all of the details become infinitely more important on line. Most importantly, customer loyalty makes or breaks your business. While online marketing efforts, direct mail communications, email blasts and banner ads, drive customers to your site, the real test is in the follow through.

For any online business, retail or manufacturing, your biggest opportunity is providing your customers with all the services they need 24/7 and making sure they are working. It is also equally important to ensure that your operations, systems, distribution and demand planning teams are tied in to the overall goals of your organization. Seems simple, but the failure to do so can cause the biggest service failures.

With the curtain pulled back, many of my future blogs will focus on tying in-store and online together and discussing back end solutions to make your front end function most effectively.

That's it for now,
Gotta go shop!