If you run an e-commerce site, you want visitors to become buyers. Panelists at SES San Jose suggested making those visitors feel secure while you make your call to action.
SES: The Almighty Conversion
(Our on-scene murdok staff has passed along this latest news from SES San Jose 2007. If you can’t be there, you need to be here with murdok this week, for videos and reports.)
Potential online customers have seen the numerous stories about online break-ins and identity theft in the news. It’s created wariness in many who could be served well by an e-commerce site with products those shoppers would normally wish to buy.
ScanAlert’s Nigel Ravenhill said this lack of consumer confidence restricts e-commerce growth. His firm tested this in 2005 on an e-commerce site where consumers would either see or not see ScanAlert’s ‘Hacker Safe’ image.
As might be expected, this A/B split test showed better conversions with the ‘Hacker Safe’ displays. Cautious shoppers want reassurance that their transactions will stay secure. Listing contact information and hours where customer service will be available for questions helps with this.
Ravenhill also noted that extending a cookie to a 30-day life, to allow people to come back to their shopping carts, gives the site a second chance to gain a shopper’s business. If the person leaves and comes back, and doesn’t have to shop a second time, that could lead to a sale.
Bryan Eisenberg talked about his concepts for calling shoppers to action. He listed a hierarchy of optimization as rules of thumb for the e-commerce webmaster:
1. Functional – does it do what I need?
2. Accessible – can everyone access it?
3. Usable – is it user-friendly
4. Intuitive – does it feel natural and doesn
