Creating the ideal online shopping experience


The feel of an online store could be nearly flawless, but once you open that door (or go into the Web site), you might find another story. No matter your store's image on the outside, if customers have problems with the particular shopping experience inside, you can quickly lose those customers.

Like a shopkeeper, you need to make great strides to transport your complete image externally in. To have an online store, that inside image is about organization.

For instance, any large bookseller probably has thousands and thousands of books packing the shelves and tables of their store. Yet every book has its own place. Each one is neatly categorized based on subject material, release dates, clearance items, sales, as well as product type. With all of this managed chaos, the shop continues to have room for wide aisles, chairs and sofas, as well as an entire cafe!

Whenever you go to the online version of the bookstore, you need to discover the same strategy at play. The navigation provides clear choices that mimic the categories you discover in the store.

To do this degree of detail online, begin by going for a tour of your brick-andmortar location. Consider all of the ways that you categorize products to make shopping (and inventory management) easy. These categories can lead you to

Brand name: People shop by designer labels along with other recognized brands.

Product type or style: These distinctions can also be product categories within categories. For instance, a drugstore might carry makeup, books, and school supplies. You can divide the categories further by lipsticks and eye shadows, bestsellers and bargain books, and pens and notebooks.

Price: While it's more hard to do in your offline store, you can allow online customers to sort products depending on price (from high to low or from low to high).

Sale or clearance items: Everybody likes a good deal. Your company is exactly the same, plus they appreciate whenever a bargain is simple to identify.

Discontinued items: These items will not be produced any more, and particularly with collectibles, customers need to know that they will not manage to find these things on the shelves (real or virtual) any more.

New releases: Dvd's and books aren't the only real items that are classified by doing this. Goods are continually being updated, or new merchandise is introduced inside a product line. Even when a product isn't hot from the press for that manufacturer, it might be the first time it is in your store.

Solution: Increasingly, goods are categorized by the problem they help customers solve. In books, you can find a whole section of selfhelp categories, for instance. You can probably categorize your products in an identical fashion.

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Note: This article was sent to us by: Timothy J. Walker at 08082011

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