5 ways to use the service integrating with Amazon

You will know that reviews and social proof are an essential strategy to maximise the appeal of an online retailers proposition in order to incentivise a would-be customer to make that purchase and turn prospects into customers. Furthermore, online reviews are more trusted with consumers than bland, manufacturers product descriptions. It's also recognised that to get customers to review a product or service requires a reason or purpose to make the effort.

Enter Hugdug - a product review site with a mission to get millions of us to write reviews of our favourite books, music or whatever takes our fancy. The incentive is to drive people to write reviews through the site where 50% of revenues generated will be going straight to selected charities.

So how does Hugdug work?

Hugdug is part…

Research shows purchase uplift from social sharing and reviews

What is the value of social sharing online? How does it impact sales? Can I charge more if my product has a highly perceived value?  Sharethis and Paley Centre for Media conducted a research stud research sharing behaviour amongst 6,000 consumers, that helps answer these questions. It's a piece of companion research to the infographic we shared recently, asking what prompts online sales? It gives more evidence of the impact of social proof where social sharing and reviews of products or of a brand as a whole give reassurance to purchasers about buying a product or service. This new research shows that the impact of social proof on retail buys is significant, it concludes that: 'Content sharing can influence consumers more than price and brand, and motivate people to spend 9.5% more', according to the research.' In this…

Research showing how social media influences retail purchases

Shopping prompted by social media is on the rise, as we know from research on increasing use of  mobile devices - research and the use of social media. But this research reminds us that there are many other more important communications that first influence purchase. Bizrate's trend tracker survey demonstrates how shoppers are using social media, when buying products or services, researching online or engaging with retailers. Findings show that Facebook still ranks high for 'shopping related activities' for consumers and Pinterest follows for inspirational ideas.

In terms of purchase, Shopzilla's trend tracker shows on average 78% of consumers 'did not look at the product in a store before buying' and females…

How online retail brands can benefit from video commerce

Consumers today want a visually engaging online shopping experience that is personalized at the same time. According to a recent study, 52% of consumers said that watching videos makes them more confident about their purchase decisions. As one of the most share­able forms of media, videos not only boost your brand’s voice, but also help you build an emotional connection with your cus­tomer. Thus, including it as a part of your marketing strategy will not only help you drive conversion, but also increase average order value, differentiate marketing campaigns, increase margins and reduce return and development costs.

6 ways for video engagement

Here are six ways suggested by MobStac on how to make videos work for your e-commerce store:

1. Feature engaging product videos

Not only does engaging video content improve the look and feel of your e-commerce website, but also has a huge…

New research: The SimpleUsability Online Experience Index for UK Fashion E-commerce sites

This article summarises our review of the clothing retail websites for Marks & Spencer, Hobbs, Karen Millen, French Connection, Boden, Oasis and Fat Face. Reviews were performed in the week of 10 March 2014. The aim is to highlight best practices and areas for improvement that can be applied by retailers. You will see from the Radar charts for the retailers that there are substantial differences in experience of each of the customer journey and overall.

Understanding, measuring and improving the customer experience is a pretty fundamental part of everything we do at SimpleUsability.

Whether we’re working on competitor or comparator testing at the start of a project, multi-platform testing across a number of devices, or an expert review, our research and the resulting recommendations help our clients to improve their customer experience and benefit from the associated commercial gains around…

6 Best Practices for increasing conversion for retail E-commerce websites on mobile devices

Recent research by IMRG and Capgemini on Ecommerce sales trends in the UK stated that 23% of all online retail sales in Q2 2013 came from mobile devices. And of these, tablets accounted for 85%. The dramatic headline was:

"Sales via Desktop flat-line as sales via mobile devices now account for all online growth"

However, an interesting turning point here is that, 2013 saw smartphones go through a greater rate of growth in terms of mobile transactions. This being the case, you will know that it has become  critical for online retailers to optimize their e-commerce websites for mobile.

Improve your e-commerce website for mobile usage

Here’s a list of issues to consider, or best practices, based on our experiences, that will help you provide a better shopping experience that meets the expectations…

Lessons on using the right e-retail incentives at the right time

'Should we use discount codes in a our abandonment emails?' is a question we’re often asked by retailers at Triggered Messaging. On the surface, incentives look like a great idea because you can recover more carts and gain more sales you wouldn't have otherwise. Most of our data supports that point. HOWEVER, when considering profitability, cart abandonment programs can be dangerous. You can give discounts when you didn’t need to. In this article we share this case study of one retailer we worked with who discovered that they were needlessly giving away discounts costing over $3,000 a month. What’s more, we’ll show how it appeared to be a success, even though it damaged profitability. Then we’ll tell you how you can make your abandonment incentive programs more intelligent and strategic to increase customer acquisition and lifetime value. Here is the analysis we…

A tutorial with examples and ideas of what to test

Prominently displaying why users should buy from you rather than a competitor is extremely important for any business look to increases online sales, particularly in retail, but it applies across many other sites. As Bryan Eisenberg, author of Always Be Testing can Call To Action explains in this punchy clip, testing value propositions can have a massive impact on conversion. [youtubevideoembedder id="ps7bB9-ksMY"] Bryan Eisenberg On Unique Value Propositions (1m45s) >> As Bryan says: "If you're not doing this, you're wasting your time" Given this, value propositions are something that I love to test. Smart Insights have covered the importance and examples of value propositions in other posts on their hub page, here I'm going to focus on testing, looking at retail Ecommerce examples.  I will looking at testing and optimisation point of view, starting with a review of…

A summary of 'add to basket' techniques from 50 retailers

The checkout process is crucial for e-commerce sites and a holistic approach is best to improve retail website conversion rates, for example using abandonment campaigns and analytics to review the online buying journey. At an earlier stage in the customer journey, reviewing design and messaging practices around the 'add to shopping cart' or 'add to basket button' can help move shoppers further down the funnel. We thought this was a useful infographic from Volusion based on reviewing the "Add to Cart" practices of US 50 shopping sites considering its shape, colour, size and design. The infographic is not providing a 'one size fit's all solution' and shows commonalities and tips on what is important to support conversion; it's tailored to the shopper, layout and branding of your website. It's interesting to look at examples…

10 last minute Christmas retail conversion hacks

Christmas is days away, but there may still be options to drive your your conversions and revenue per visit higher. Despite development lock-downs and short timescales, there’s still time for these types last-minute conversion hacks to give the gift of a higher conversion rate to your marketing team. Here are 10 I've seen used.

1.  Promote any gift wrapping or customisation options

Customers who are buying gifts will appreciate options like gift wrapping or personalised messages since it saves them time and money. Promoting these options on product pages and at the checkout can give a quick revenue boost – plus it gives customers an extra reason to buy from you. Selfridges offer a beautiful gift-wrapping option at checkout which includes their signature box:

However,…