Posts Tagged ‘best practices’
We’re committed to changing the way we do things around here. A lot.
One of the changes on the horizon is to push our design services in a direction closer to a human-centered approach. That’s a tall order when we practice a medium that is roundly criticized for doing more to make people anti-social than anything else. Adopting design methods historically reserved for industrial design and product development won’t be easy in interactive design, but we’re committed to it as a path for Gorilla.
Aren’t you just talking about user-centered design?
I get that question a lot. In some ways yes, but Chad Camara has a post on his blog that encapsulates the differences very well in my opinon. We’re striving to focus on real, human improvement in our offering, not just improving efficiency. I will be challenging all of Gorilla’s clients to consider how their product or service improves the lives of their customers. Focusing on holistic design concerns in addition to efficiency is something we’re seeing as critical to the mutli-channel environment. People are smart enough these days to know when you’re trying to sell to them versus have a relationship with them. For a lot of our clients, user-centered just isn’t going to cut it anymore.
We’ve got a lot of work to do in this respect. The ephemeral nature of digital media is going to be an advantage and a drawback. The technology moves far too quickly to be mired in research for too long, but the relative ease of deployment means when you consider the long view, you can take a cyclic approach that will put human concerns first.
It will be interesting and challenging no doubt to see where this direction takes us in the years to come.
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Part 1 of a 2 part series on ecommerce personalization.
At Gorilla, we see ecommerce is quickly shifting away from one-to-many conversations where retailers can submit massive communications to all customers and expect the best results. Customers today expect personal one-to-one conversations between consumers and retailers like they receive in brick-and-mortar stores. Your business and customers are unique. Your shopping experience should be too. One of our driving mantras is to create authentic shopping experiences that connect brands to the right customers. Ecommerce personalization can be a powerful tool to help retailers speak more relevantly to their customers.
Until recently, ecommerce personalization was only accessible to big retailers who could create their own personalization algorithms in their R&D facilities. What ultimately drove Amazon to the top of the internet retail hill was its ability to recommend products that users would find interesting in dynamic ways across their site. If you searched for a book on traveling to Italy, you might also see other books on Italian cuisine or lightweight travel backpacks. Ecommerce personalization is quickly becoming accessible to mid-market retailers as companies learn to scale complex algorithms into usable elements that make sense for the mid-market, both from an implementation and financial perspective. If you are unfamiliar with personalization, here is a quick overview of what it is and how it can impact your business’ bottom line.
What Is Ecommerce Personalization?
Ecommerce Personalization is a one-to-one interaction or one-to-one many interactions (site versioning for different visitor segments). A one-to-one personalization is custom web pages delivered to individuals based on explicit or inferred inputs. A one-to-many personalization is a finite set of web pages delivered to customers based on how these customers map to predetermined segments. Generalization – or one-to-all – is a single clickstream path or set of items appearing to all customers, regardless of their previously exhibited behavior or intent. 52% of consumers who experienced personalization like it according to a recent Forrester Report.
Personalization matters because shoppers value recommendations. Shoppers are often persuaded by recommendations because it helps them discover products and solutions they might not be familiar with otherwise. 77% of customers say they find recommendations in general extremely useful and 1/3 of consumers report having purchased products based on recommendations they were shown.
Personalization tools are able to drive key metrics such as revenue, conversion, average transaction value, time on site or margins, providing measurable ROI for marketers who have to fight for their marketing budgets.
How Personalization Works
Ecommerce Personalization is driven by shopper inputs, the engine algorithm and the resulting outputs.
• Shopper Inputs are data points implicitly gathered about the customer during their browsing session by observing customer behavior and then evaluated to extract commonalities, associations and cause-effect relationships. Common inputs are the time spent on site, keyword searches, customer reviews, location ID, product attributes, merchant-driven rules, clicks, sales and margin.
• The Engine Algorithm is a separate formula for determining which recommendations are most appropriate in a specific scenario. Common approaches include collaborative filtering, Bayesian reasoning, choice modeling, and simple data mining.
• Resulting Outputs are how marketing efforts are displayed onsite. Simple outputs can be cross-sells, upsells or mboxes (targeted marketing info) appearing on product details pages. Whereas a more complex result will come from landing pages or home pages changing, dependent upon the creation of different experiences retailers create for each cluster of shoppers.
But this is only the beginning of a topic that deserves some deep exploration. In part II of this post, we’ll go into detail about the functional requirements for personalization, the challenges common to retailers and the potential ROI for merchants who get it right.
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On a recent web exploration, I came across a write-up featuring “50 well designed apparel sites” and took note of something. Their ‘purchase this item’ buttons were all considerably different. But, among the variety pack of buttons (image at end of post), there were some distinct similarities.
Color
First up is the obvious – color. Of the 16 I randomly chose to write about (very scientific), 7 were gray-scale, 7 were red or pink, and 2 were oddballs. Red is an attention grabbing color, which helps the button stand out in a crowd. Most of the gray-scale buttons use high contrast to increase their attention grabbing abilities.
Function
Secondly, let’s talk about function. There are two main ways to label this type of button. One of which being, “Add to Cart” and the other being something like, “Buy Now.” Surprisingly, the trend with this set is 13 out of 16 featuring some form of “Add to Cart.” I think this detail, the function, is the most important part of designing any button. There’s a very clear distinction between “add to cart” or “buy now,” and the button should reflect that.
The other interesting trend that pops up here is ‘add to cart’ functionality by way of size selection. This is new to me, and although I appreciate the innovation, I’m not sure leaving off an ‘add to cart’ or ‘buy now’ button is a good idea.
Continue reading →
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1. Requirements Definition. Clients need to spend time internally and/or with their agency partner to outline their business, functional, brand, design, platform, and integration objectives.
2. eCommerce site should be your flagship store. Concentrate on your brand positioning and exceptional design as this is the store 70% of your consumers will view prior to a purchase in any channel. You should also ensure you have a Customer Support strategy online that your customers expect.
3. eCommerce Design. Next generation eCommerce solutions should be enjoyable shopping experiences that keep it simple and clean. Gone are the days of putting as much information as possible on a single page. Navigation and messaging should be clear so the customer knows exactly what they are ordering and don’t abandon the purchase anywhere in the process.
4. Ensure your products are findable. This can be done in several ways including design, catalog design, click path to sell, strong site search, faceted navigation or search.
5. Product Information. Provide enough product information to keep your client informed. In apparel its imperative to provide sizing chart that is consistent along with color/style configuration so clients can see on screen their actual item. There are plenty of rich media options if applicable.
6. Integrations. There is a long list of potential integration points, but all eCommerce channels should be fully integrated and automated to improve customer experience and process efficiency.
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