Merchandising - Smart Insights

E-commerce merchandising examples

By October 29, 2013

Merchandising

7 examples of online merchandising

Online merchandising is an ever-changing task and the following examples highlight some current methods but are by no means exhaustive. Central to most of them is the idea of giving the customer the opportunity to choose the direction their visit will take; whether that might be choosing a trend, narrowing down the products they see or choosing their own add-on products. Or in other words: Personalisation. Using browsing history, trend data or customer data, these retailers are able to deliver a different experience for different user groups or indeed users. With so many different options available it would be easy to be overwhelmed; so here are 7 examples from great ecommerce websites of online merchandising execution.

1. Collection pages - example from Dunelm

A common problem faced by lots of retailers selling online is how to sell multiple products from the same range. This is especially true for …

Best practice for using Buyer’s Guides for Ecommerce SEO

By Mel Henson June 18, 2013

Internal linking strategy Merchandising

Guidance and examples for Buying Guides relevant for other sectors too

‘Buying Guide’ or 'Buyer's Guide' content are a common SEO tactic particularly amongst retailer ecommerce sites, but they can be used in other types of site too such as financial services. They're popular since they tick many of the boxes for effective on page SEO. They're naturally rich in keywords, dense in character count and recognisably original, it’s an easy target to hit on your SEO checklist. They also enable you to link to your main target category and popular product pages with relevant anchor text, so boosting their effectiveness.

Potential customers also love Buying Guides, since, done well, they’re a great research resource in the early ‘information gathering’ stages of the purchasing decision process.

If they provide great advice and a good experience in navigating them,…

Examples of effective landing pages for Ecommerce sites

By James Gurd May 7, 2013

Landing page optimisation Merchandising

What makes a good ecommerce landing page?

So, what does make an effective landing page for an Ecommerce site? Well, I’m going to give a typical consultant’s answer – "it depends"; on the campaign and your goal for the landing page. That’s not being evasive, it’s the truth; not all landing pages are born equal. For example, some marketers invest in prize draws and competitions as marketing tactics to drive data capture for their eCRM programs, so the landing page needs to focus on making it quick and easy to enter. Typically ecommerce landing pages are used for tactical marketing campaigns (e.g. from AdWords, Display Re-marketing or Email marketing) and are designed to drive sales making use of existing site page templates. A good ecommerce landing page should satisfy the following criteria: The creative design is consistent with the marketing campaign that generated the visit. The copy and CTA are consistent with the marketing…

How Video marketing helps customers choose and convert

By Susanne Colwyn April 9, 2013

Merchandising Video marketing

Mystery shopping survey on consumer sentiment towards videos

In our new guide to video marketing we show how video marketing can help support marketing goals using examples from across B2B and B2C sectors. In consumer retail it's recognised that videos can have a dramatic impact in some categories. For example, the well known Zappos video conversion test that saw employee demonstration videos yield a sales impact of +6 to +30%. But how do consumers perceive video marketing and what are they looking for? There are useful insights in this research from Etailing Group and Invodo who carried out a Mystery Shopping Survey to draw out ‘consumers use of sentiment towards video with delivering superior shopping experience via video'. It probed questions to look into video consumption, what consumers expect from videos, how it affects their purchasing, where they…

How best to use Email Marketing to support Ecommerce?

By Dave Chaffey February 22, 2013

Merchandising

An example of the learning on Ecommerce available from #EcomChat

Value: [rating=5] Even if you can’t always make the chat, I really recommend the summaries if you work in Ecommerce as a consultant, in an agency or for a retailer. Recommended link: #EcomChat This was the question discussed at the latest #EcomChat, a regular Monday "Tweet-up" = Twitter discussion arranged and hosted by @danbarker and @JamesGurd . It’s a great format for stimulating ideas on different ways to approach Ecommerce, often touching on different areas of Ecommerce Merchandising. You can see the type of learning you get on the summaries by Dan and James on the #EcomChat homepage.

55 Email tips for Ecommerce

As an example of the insight available, I enjoyed scanning these Email marketing tips summarised in a PDF. Here are some examples…

Using video to increase conversion from product pages

By Paul Rogers January 17, 2013

Merchandising Product page optimisation Video marketing

5 real-world examples showing the value of rich media in Ecommerce

Ecommerce professionals and conversion rate experts have been lauding the benefits of rich media like video and 360 degree views for retailers more and more over the last couple of years. Yet a huge range of high profile ecommerce businesses are still yet to adopt product video, high resolution imagery or 360’s. A number of the clients I work with have benefitted a lot from adopting rich media and have seen big increases in engagement and conversion. I’ve been talking about how rich media can add value to your proposition and general user experience for ages (such as here on SEJ and here on my personal blog) but I thought it would be useful to feature some quotes from expert retailers who have reaped the benefits. Thanks to…