Everything online usability, marketing, and measurement
eCommerce Usability
Rethinking Category Page eCommerce Presentations
As eCommerce platforms have evolved over the last 10 years, one thing has stayed fairly constant – the presentation grid used within category and sub-category pages. As a definition for “grid based”, I am referring to the type of product presentation that shows numerous products for a given category, provided in a table format.
These tables vary by retailer in terms of default numbers. Some retailers may have 4 products across and 6 rows vertically before a user has the opportunity to scroll to the next page. Other retailers might have a much more deeper product showing on the page – for example the retailer may present 10 rows of products.
Interestingly enough, in all of my years of working in this sector, I have never seen available research relating to tests within this site aspect. Many of the leading platform providers offer standard default numbers with their category grids, and their clients are likely not pressing hard enough to alter the status quo within their systems.
Limiting cognitive processing within eCommerce
Site usability often relates to human cognitive processing and how this guides user behavior. This question of “what type of merchandising grid size works best” is in direct correlation to this theory.
What we want to know is are users scrolling down the page to fully absorb the offerings for which the retailer is presenting and at what number do they most likely take “browsing” actions.
At Trinity we have recently conducted site tests that changed the number of products presented within a key site aspect in the transactional funnel. Within this test we found that a substantial increase (20%+) in conversion happened when we reduced the number of offerings that were being presented to the user.
What we did within the test is reduce the cognitive overload within the page and assist the user in digesting information. Ultimately this increased the ratio of users who took the desired action and created sales growth.
So where do you begin if you are looking to drive optimization within this site element? First, conduct some user tests that are highly focused on tasks that are realted to finding products on category and sub-category pages.
Observe how users progress through your products. Are they scrolling below the fold? Are they progressing forward to the next page of products? Understand what percentage of your test executed these two site actions.
Ask verbal questions to the respondents after and during the test. Ask questions that focus on the location of products and how easy it was to identify items during the test scenarios. Often the verbal responses that you receive can uncover unthought “nuggets” that are correlated to cognitive overload.
You see your website daily and these respondents may be seeing it for the first time. This new set of eyes is invaluable in understanding how new visitors interact with site elements.
Now you have some primary research relating to your site which is going to help your decision making. The next step is to evaluate your current abilities within your eCommerce system and if you have the ability to change the default grid attributes (the number of rows and columns of products).
Executing this type of experiment within a split test could be difficult depending on the flexibility of your code base. A more realistic approach would be to try an alternative layout on a week per week basis to assess the difference. When considering the KPI’s that are going to be used to identify success, consider the following:
Number of carts started
Number of product page views
Progression ratio of category to sub-category pages
Average dollar value per visit
These four metrics can provide the intelligence and data to see if an alternative default layout for your category page works better for your customers and makes their site experience easier.
Try testing your default merchandising grids and see how the numbers impact performance within your eCommerce store. To learn more about Trinity Insight and our eCommerce optimization services, please contact us online.
Conversion optimization through “smart” targeting
So each and every day we evaluate eCommerce websites at Trinity. As part of our initial processes, we discuss with potential clients the opportunities that exist relating to usability, UX, and search. In conducting the conversations, and discussing with retailers the technologies that are being embraced by their organizations, I am extremely surprised that the targeting technologies that are available on the market are not being leveraged by 50mm + online retailers.
What online targeting solutions do is let you tailor a piece of content, messaging, creative, or promotion by a parameter that exists in the users browser. Ok, that seems more complicated than it really is, lets put it within a real life scenario.
Lets say you are HomeDepot.com and the month in our example is February. You obviously have stores across the entire USA and a variety of customers to serve. In this case, a plethora of visitors are going to be coming via the homepage as they do with most large consumer brands.
So lets say you have customers coming from Denver. Your core messaging and promotions should be tailored to cold weather needs. You want to show snowblowers, specials on rock salt, a buyers guide on generators, and other content that would provide value to a user who is coming to the site from a cold weather destination.
On the flip side, say a visitor is coming to the site from Miami. Obviously this user has different needs than the one in Denver. You want to show this user patio furniture, deck maintenance content, and maybe the latest grills for sale. In eCommerce, one size does not fit all and content should be rendered in an intelligent manner.
We will explore this topic in much greater detail within a new screencast and position paper, but the options are limitless as it relates to targeting.
You can target by:
Search term
New versus returning
Clickstream milestones
Geographic IP (the example used above)
All of these scenarios allow an eCommerce business to be proactive in conceptualizing a user experience that is in the best possible position to do two things – ATTRACT, PERSUADE, and CONVERT.
With bounce rates at homepages exceeding 35% for most retailers, its obvious users have fleeting attention. By providing an approach of personalized content, you can capture their interest, and then work to make the sale. Most of the solutions on the market that optimize in this manner are based off of JavaScript and are usually simplistic to implement and test.
Its a matter of being proactive to “beat your control”. Whatever your conversion and bounce was last week, it needs to be exceeded to the positive side this week. This theory of continuous improvement, or stated “Kaizen” by Japanese manufacturing processes, is the best way for your business to take the next step with conversion.
To learn more about conversion optimization and our eCommerce consulting services, contact us when you are ready.
Speed and its role in the user experience
Even with the increase of bandwith that is made available with new cable and internet providers, I still frequently experience high load times for eCommerce businesses and Content Management Systems. You would think that the extra bandwith would start a downward trend in terms of load times, but it seems to not be the case.
The reasoning? Design practices and code pushes that are not completely optimized. Most open source systems, such as Magento for eCommerce or Joomla for content management, are preset with numerous elements of Javascript and database calls that are really not necessary. By disabling these components and by properly configuring compression settings on a server, you can get through the initial performance hurdles of these awesome applications.
Lets not forget how important speed is within the conversion equation. Between site search, checkout, product page design, promotions & mechandising – SPEED can be overlooked in site improvement efforts.
Sometimes all it takes is a great tool to assist an IT team in isolating improvement areas and driving metric increases from speed.
Here’s the best free one so far. Its called Pingdom, and literally provides a visual chart, almost like a poor mans GANTT Chart, of all the page elements and the time to load. This tool will show you the total number of URL calls that your page will make, the size of each call, the total number of objects and the breakdown of those objects.
No tool that I have ever seen, at least for free, provides this great information. Definitely worth 5 min of your time for a review…
Dropping the ball with cross browser testing
Today I felt like I was in 2000. As I navigated the web looking for a solution to a current need, I came across a website that was just technically unable to do what I wanted it to do.
Even though I was a member, and had previously interacted with the site many times before including conducting transactions, I was LOCKED out of the ability to use the site all because of the browser I was using.
This experience used to happen all the time in the history of the web, but now it happens rarely. I was assessing the video media at IStockphoto, a business that offers imagery and video for license.
In this case, I was browsing Istockphoto through Safari, a well known browser that is provided with all new Macs out of the box. Safari is third in the browser wars (maybe even 4th with the advent Chrome) but still is a distinct and sustainable player.
When finding the video I wanted to buy, I tried logging in numerous times with ID info that I knew was correct at Istockphoto. Nothing happened each time and there was no type of error messaging whatsoever. What a great user experience.
This just reiterates the need for your business to conduct cross-browser testing in the development and designing of new web properties. This need becomes even more paramount, as companies use client side scripts to manipulate and render content.
When crafting your next design, insist that your designers test all HTML versus the following browsers:
Internet Explorer (last 4 versions)
Firefox (last 4 versions)
Google Chrome (Current version)
Safari (Last 3 versions)
Following this practice will ensure that your site is not losing visitors from basic performance issues relating to functionality, it could drive your conversion rate upward if you have existing problems.
The killer app has arrived…
So not sure if you have tried it yet, but I must say that the new Netflix technology that allows the integration of a user playlist/movie queue with your Xbox live, for live home streaming, is one of the best recent achievements that I can think of within the Internet business world.
Seriously, how cool is this? At work I can go through Netflix’s offerings for “Instant” choices and coordinate content to be rendered through my Xbox Live account (which in most times is already owned) and streamed at my leisure. The content comes through crystal clear and there are a plethora of HD titles to choose from.
Netflix does two things here to really stand out. One, they offer a HUGE selection of movies and TV shows for people to choose from. Doing that, and doing it at no cost, was a great way to help the consumer in an economic downturn, and will ultimately build increased loyalty from their customers.
Also they made it EASY. So easy. This is something that a non-techie person can do fairly easily. Like the 40 something Mom with the 10 year old son who already has an Xbox live account.
Kudos to Netflix for their great application. What a great and innovatove partnership with Microsoft. Going back and seeing season 1 and season 2 of The Office is going to be a good time…
Human Psychology and Consistent Naming Conventions
Its amazing how everyday occurances that happen within interactions in the physical world, can accurately reflect concepts that mimick it in a digital one. Take for example the concept of providing clear and consistent naming conventions, better described as providing clear visual cues for users to complete tasks and follow a path.
So every day, or almost every day, a person arrives at our office looking for the county courthouse that resides in the same building. And typically, we let the person know that they missed the sign for the courthouse and it was located on the first floor.
Now this physical sign is very visible. Its just missed by 1 out of every 35 people or so. But it proves the point that instructions and persuasion has to be clear and VISIBLE. Make sure to clearly tell your users the pathways to the tasks that they are trying to achieve.
Path Analysis and Dynamic Funnel Generation for Ecommerce
In a previous post, I discussed the new Google Analytics and how this version has placed a greater emphasis on path analysis. For those who may be new to the topic, path analysis is the practice of reviewing website behavior relating to browsing tendencies, in an effort to better understand the effectiveness of copy, content, and information architecture.
One of the most important tools in being able to conduct effective path analysis is the ability to generate uder defined “funnels” for processes that exist on your current site. For instance, as an eCommerce merchant, you may have the following processes that you want to track.
Cart – Checkout Transaction process
Search Results to Order Process
Homepage to Email sign up process
Key landing page conversion funnels within PPC advertising
In these instances, when conducting path analysis, you want to create page progressions that replicate how a user will shop your store and identify the pages that are creating the most leakage. Omniture, a web analytics software leader, provides the capaibilties to do this exercise by dragging and dropping pages within their PathFinder report module.
By creating these page progressions for path analysis, you can identify the pages within the progression that are losing high numbers of visitors. By taking new approaches to layout, copy, creative, images, etc on these pages – you will be taking the steps necessary to be proactive in positively impacting convesrion rates through concrete web analytics data.
Changing usability mindsets…
Was doing a random spin around some of the eCommerce giants when I noticed the unique layout of Zappos.com’s homepage. Zappos has broken new ground before with there “all the time” free shipping and free returns, but now they were attempting new approaches with eCommerce web usability that I found very interesting.
The most obvious was a two boxed approach to on-site search in a unique location within their homepage. Typically, on-site search has always been at the top of a homepage or eCommerce template due to the fact that humans read vertically down as that is what we are trained to do.
Zappos takes a different approach with their new design. Zappos has embedded TWO on site search boxes near the bottom of the fold. Breaking all rules of eye tracking studies and delivering the user to the search box as quickly as possible, Zappos seems to want the user to read the promos before looking for the shoe they desire.
Its an interesting approach and Id love to see the data relating to goal progressions with the search tool.
Behavioral Targeting and why it is eCommerce’s most important trend…
I was in heavy notebook shopping mode this afternoon. as Ive been sick of my heavy Toshiba dragging me down at every airport and tradeshow. I was in full research mode looking for the lightest laptop I could get with enough power to run my vital apps.
In doing so, I went to many web properties. I entered ” light laptop” numerous times. Now, when I went to Circuit City (directly, not through an ad), I was provided a enticing “promo” in the homepage of the primary real estate of the site for a notebook computer.
Almost automatically, I clicked the spot and was being merchanised to on the sub-category level. Data shows that once a user has progressed to this point in an eCommerce transaction, chances of conversion dramatically increase.
The question is – did Circuit City have some type of tracking software set in place and a program with other web entities so to present RELEVANT CONTENT AND PROMOTIONS to my needs at that current time? If they did, it worked and I was fully engaged in the user experience.
This is what I feel is the next big thing in eCommerce, not flash based merchandising designs which seem to be the hot thing at eCom trade shows.
My opinion, in this instance it was completely random. Circuit City did not have the processes in place to have their site present so intelligently. But you can replicate this type of targeting on our internal site and create a much more engaging experience for your visitors and customers with current technology available today.
The importance of path analysis…
Happy Easter everyone. As I have a few moments here, I thought I would blog a little about path analysis and how it can be such a powerful driver for conversion improvement. For those who are new to the term “path analysis” – essentially is the tracking, monitoring and strategic planning related to the primary online processes within your web site.
Any website that is established with the goal of monetizing traffic should conduct path analysis to properly gauge site performance. In conceptualizing a monitoring plan, the business should first outline the goals or scenarios that are to be monitored. In a basic eCommerce business – the following four processes should be monitored:
1. Cart to Conversion process (ie. after someone adds to cart, what percentage of visits are converting into sales for the business)
2. Search to Conversion (ie. after someone receives a search result, what percentage progress to the cart and then finalize the order process)
3. Site to Email (ie. What percentage of overall traffic that visits through the homepage is progressing to the email sign up option)
4. Spotlight Products to Conversion (ie. eCommerce sites usually “spotlight” 3-8 products within the homepage – how are these products doing from a conversion perspective?)
By seeing the percentage of traffic that progresses through these processes within your site, your business will be able to identify areas of the site that are causing visitor confusion or inhibting conversion rates in some form.
Knowing this data can set improvements in motion to hopefully reduce that leakage and drive incremental improvements.
Remember, if your conversion is 3% today – just getting one more person out of the 97 who didnt buy will impact your sales 33% on the upside! Optimize those sites out there!
Google Checkout
I was recently asked by thestreet.com to provide my perspectives into the new Google Checkout Service.
After taking a look at a variety of different eCommerce sites that had Google checkout, it seems to be be a seamless integration within an existing platform infrastructure and provides a clean and user friendly transactional experience.
Google’s main effort here is to make the actual “purchasing” portion of the conversion funnel quicker and easier for consumers. The problem is that users must make an account with Google and input their credit card information within their system to get up and running. My perspective is that this additional step will cause a roadblock in penetration, at least initially, as consumers will be slow to adopt to the extra step.
Ebay is already defending their turf by banning Google Checkout within their site. Smart move as the Paypal unit generates a substantial amount of profits to the ebay enterprise and is the business that is most impacted by Google’s new offering.
Although Google’s solution is not a stored value system, it still is an alternative payments processing solution that stores credit card data. Very similar to the convenience offered by Paypal and their direct debit processing form a checking account.
Google’s carrot with adwords (every $10.00 spent on adwords gets $100.00 free processing within Google Checkout) should make more retailers take the time to integrate the payment alternative on their site. Now will consumers embrace it in the way Paypal was embraced? – only time will tell…
<a href=http://www.technorati.com/google+checkout rel=”tag”>Google Checkout</a>
What makes great web copy…
In my conversations with online retailers, I frequently get asked about web copy and my perspectives into selling site visitors.
I think in most scenarios, the depth of web copy correlates to the “selling variables” of the product. To effectively sell online you must sell to a vistor’s “head” and “heart”. By outlining emotional benefits such as “A picture so clear that you feel in the first row” and intellectual benefits such as “a best in class 19 inch LCD viewing area, wide enough to handle any illustrating application” you cater to both parts of the human decision process and increase your chances of making the sale.
What you must remember though is that eCommerce shoppers dont read for long – they scan. Hit your emotional points first in a paragraph that is no more than 4-5 lines long. Then hit your viewer with the key specifics in bullet form. There’s a reason why leading etailers such as dell and amazon use bullets – follow their lead…
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