.MVC Madness - A Community for Miva Merchant Store Owners

2008 Miva Merchant Conference

bheyde1 — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:15:27 -0600

By: Brennan Heyde

Published On: 2/28/2007

The 2008 Miva Merchant conference has finally arrived. Tonight was the opening event of the 2008 conference. It consisted of check in and a cocktail mixer upstairs in the Sunset Room of the Marina Village Conference Center in beautiful San Diego, California.

All conference attendees were given a Miva Merchant bag with promotional goodies as well as a name badge and a conference t-shirt.

The cocktail mixer was upstairs in the Sunset Room. There were over 175 people in the room and the atmosphere was alive and buzzing. With Miva Merchant in such a transitional phase and with the release of Miva 5.5 looming, there was definitely some excitement in the air.

The attendees consisted of Miva Merchant store owners, Miva hosting partners, module developers, and Miva Merchant web developers. I think most people were interested to see the details of Miva 5.5 and the new features it will provide.

Tomorrow is officially the kickoff to the 2008 conference with the keynote address beginning at 9:00am.

I will try to get some pictures and give a brief rundown of events and new features of 5.5 as the conference unfolds.

About the Author: Brennan Heyde is an e-commerce consultant working in San Diego, Ca. He specializes in online marketing and SEO for e-commerce. Have a struggling e-commerce website? – Contact Brennan today for a site analysis.

Rate My Site Skyesterling.com

bheyde1 — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 13:34:16 -0600

By: Brennan Heyde

Published On: 1/30/2007

Once a month we will pick a Miva Merchant site to analyze. We will go through every aspect of the site and give it a 1 – 10 ranking in each of the following categories:

Design / Layout
Ease of Navigation
Product Images / Descriptions
SEO (search engine optimization)

We will give the site a ranking and comment on ways the site can improve its overall performance.

If you are interested in having us rank your site, you can submit your site here.

This month we have chosen Skyesterling.com – They are the internet division of one of the largest United States based sterling silver designers, prime manufacturers and distributors. The online division launched in May 2007 and they carry around 3000 different products. Currently they are using Miva 5.

SkyeSterling launched on Amazon as a seller at the end of September 2006. "We saw such success so quickly, we knew we would continue to grow our online brand. So far the big thing I have learned is that Amazon was easy - and launching just in time for Christmas season helps a lot. Selling anywhere else online is hard, takes a lot of work, and has a much steeper, ever changing learning curve."

Here are some basic stats of their store:

Average Monthly Visitors: 7500 uniques
Average Monthly Orders: 100 - 125

Skyesterling.com is a very well made Miva store. It has great graphics, and great functionality. You can tell in just a few minutes browsing the store they spent a lot of time and a lot of money developing this website. This is a real business and it shows. Instead of rating this on the four main categories like I usually do (Design/Layout, Ease of Navigation, Product Images / Descriptions and SEO) I am going to examine some ways this store can increase their customer conversion rates and also increase their average order size.

It is all about the Traffic – It is really hard to convert someone into a purchasing customer if they are not really interested in your product. I don’t care how good your site looks, or how easy it is to use, if the traffic you are bringing into your store is untargeted then you are going to have very low conversion rates. You need to identify your target consumer and target them with you marketing efforts. Since this site sells jewelry, women are obviously the biggest target group. You also want to find out which traffic sources are bringing in customers who are actually making purchases. Use Google Analytics with e-commerce tracking to see which traffic sources being in the most revenue. This allows you to further optimize your marketing efforts. Take a look at the following data. Imagine what you could do for your store if you had this information:

It tells you how much money each traffic soruce brings in. From the chart above Google is a great source of revenue. This would tell you to foucs your efforts on SEO.

Add Product Reviews – People love to hear feedback from others who have already purchased the product. Add Sebenza’s Ultimate Product Reviews and Ratings module to allow your customers to rate the products you sell. If you have a good product, people will respond well and these testimonials will entice others to make a purchase.

Add Gift Buying Guides – Jewelry is commonly given to women as a gift. However, most men don’t know a thing about jewelry or how to buy it. Create easy to use gift buying guides which explain which items are right for certain occasions. Valentines Day is coming up quickly and this can be a very busy time for online stores selling gifts. Gift buying guides not only showcase certain products, but also allow you to up sell by showing that most jewelry come in sets (earrings, necklaces, and bracelets)

This “handholding” will go a long way and will make people feel more comfortable when buying gifts at your store.

Don’t Forget About Repeat Customers – It is much easier to get a customer who has already purchased from you to make another purchase than it is to convert a new customer. Take advantage of this by sending out e-mail campaigns and well as coupons to entice previous customers to come back and make a purchase. Run holiday promotions (Valentines Day) and offer discounts. People love to feel like they are getting a deal.

Skyesterling.com does a really good job of pushing their free shipping offer for orders over $40. This is a great way to increase order size. However they can also do a few other small things to increase order size.

Gift Boxes are a great example. Allow people to purchase a nice gift box for an additional price when they are checking out. Even though this may only bring in an addition $5 or $10, it can really add up quickly.

Another way to increase order size is to create gift sets. Create a new category which has easy to buy gift sets. Pair a necklace with its matching earrings and include a free gift box. This allows most people (guys) to quickly and easily buy that gift they have been putting off purchasing until the last minute.

Upsell – Find ways to add value added services / products to each order. This includes things like gift boxes, jewelry cleaning products, jewelry storage boxes, or jewelry engraving. These are things which are easy to upsell (especially engraving) and they are an great way to increase your average order total.

One last suggestion is to be creative with your marketing. Really focus on getting repeat orders. Put coupon codes in each order you send out. This will entice them to come back and make another purchase in the future. Always be testing and you will eventually find some marketing strategies which really work for you and your customers.

For more infomation about customer conversion rate, please read the article, 10 Tips to Increase Your Customer Conversion Rates

10 Tips to Increase Your Customer Conversion Rates

bheyde1 — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 23:06:39 -0600

By: Brennan Heyde

Published On: 1/28/2007

So you have launched your new website, done some search engine optimization and now you are getting some pretty decent traffic - however you are just not getting any sales. If this sounds like your site, then you need to work on increasing your customer conversion ratios. This percentage is determined but taking the total number of orders and dividing by the total amount of visitors. Say for example you had 10k unique visitors, and 100 orders, then your customer conversion ratio would be (100/10000 = 1%). The industry standard for e-commerce is about 1% to 2%. If yours are lower than 1% then you should really focus on finding ways to increase it. After all, if you can get your customer conversion ratio from 1% to 1.5%, you just increased your sales by 50% without any additional traffic.

Here are 10 ways to help increase your customer conversion rates.

Focus on Quality Traffic – Customer conversion rates all start will quality traffic. If you are driving traffic to your site which is untargeted then you are going to have a hard time converting them into customers. You need to focus on bringing in visitors who are interested in your product and who are looking to buy. Now this is obviously not an easy task but it is essential to the success of your e-commerce store. Use an analytics program to view and set up conversion tracking to see which sources of traffic are actually converting into purchasing customers. Maybe they are coming from a related informational site, or from Google. Whatever the case, an analytics program will show you where you need to focus your marketing efforts.

Optimize Your Website – This includes optimizing your navigation to make products easier to find and also optimize your category and product pages to SELL your product. Add new features such as related products, wish list, product sorting, email to friend functionality and bestsellers. Combined all these features will greatly increase the overall user experience.

Use the “Related Items” Feature – It is always good to show your visitors similar items or related items on each product page. This will allow them to easily add them to their basket. Perhaps you sell individual items which are part of a larger set. This would be a perfect reason to show the related items for each product.

Incorporate Product Reviews – I shop at amazon.com for two reasons. First, they have good prices, and second they always have great product reviews written by customers who have already purchased the product. Product Reviews really do help consumers make a decision. Your goal as an e-commerce store is to give the customer what they want. Provide them with all the information they need to make a purchase. Product reviews allow the customer to hear feedback from others, and if it is positive it will drive them to make a purchase.

Entice Visitors with Free Shipping and Coupons – Lets face it, everyone likes to get a deal. Offer your customers something to entice them to make a purchase. Free shipping is a great method and so are coupon codes. Run sales and promotions throughout the year where you give away free coupons such as 10% off certain products, or buy x get x free. These really do work and they provide that extra push to entice customers to complete the sale.

Optimize Your Checkout Process – Your checkout process is one of the most important aspects of your store. It needs to be easy, clean and streamlined. Remove any unnecessary elements and make sure it is easy enough your grandmother could complete it. Always make your customers feel safe and secure when they are checking out. Remind them that your site is protected by a 128 bit SSL and that their credit card information is safe.

Offer Multiple Payment/ Shipping Options – Always give your customers options. Some people like to use Paypal online, some like to use Google Checkout and some will just use their credit card. Offering multiple forms of payment is easy to do and caters to the needs of your customers. Also make sure you have few types of shipping options for those customers who want expedited shipping. You don’t want to give your site visitors a reason not to make a purchase.

Great Photography and Detailed Descriptions – Product photography and product descriptions are what sell your product. In a real store the customer are able to try things on and pick them up and hold them. Online is a totally different ballgame. In order to connect to your customers you must have great images as well as detailed descriptions. Combined they will sell the product. Use multiple views as well as a product zoom if possible.

Buying Guides – A lot of times people will come to your store to buy a gift for someone else. Say for example a husband is buying his wife a piece of jewelry for Valentines Day. Most likely the husband doesn’t know a thing about jewelry. Create an easy to follow buying guide which will help your visitors make an informed decision. These buying guides provide great information about the product and allow people who are not knowledgeable in your product to make a purchase without feeling overwhelmed or confused.

Don’t Forget About Your Repeat Customers – It is much easier to get a customer who has already purchased from you to make another purchase than it is to convert a new customer. Take advantage of this by sending out e-mail campaigns and well as coupons to entice previous customers to come back and make a purchase.

These are 10 great ways to increase your customer conversion rates. Constantly try new things and you will find a solution which works for you and your business. Don’t be afraid to ask your customers for feedback. Most likely they will have the best suggestions to make your site easier to navigate and more functional.

Use Your Product Page to SELL!

bheyde1 — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 14:02:30 -0600

By: Brennan Heyde

Published On: 1/18/2007

As an e-commerce consultant, I’ve seen, and worked with hundreds of different e-commerce websites. One area which a lot of do it yourselfers don’t put much thought into is the product page. This is where you are supposed to sell your product to your visitors. In order to do this you need great photos with multiple views, detailed descriptions and copy which grabs your customer’s attention, and other features like related products, and product reviews. All these features really help to convert your visitors into purchasing customers.

Most Miva Merchant store owners just use the default layout Miva provides for the product page (PROD). While this is a good starting point, it is simple, and lacks essential features and creativity. If you really want increase your sales, you have to spend a lot of time and effort perfecting your product page. Because of Miva 5’s Store Morph Technology virtually any layout can be achieved using Miva Merchant.

To better understand what makes a good product page lets look at some examples of some of the bigger online retailers.

Office Depot

Take a look at a product page for Office Depot.com It is simple uncluttered and straight to the point. It has a nice product photo, with the option to view a larger image. It also has a detailed description with the size specifics as well as its speed, power and warranty information.

Some of the other features to notice:
Related Items
You might also consider
Customer Reviews
Mini Cart with Free Shipping offer
Add to wish list

Now someone might argue that all these features are too complex, however every single one of these features can be recreated in Miva using the Store Morph Technology and external modules.

Here is another example: Anthropologie.com

There product page is even simpler than Office Depot, however it offers some really nice features.

The best feature on the page is the product zoom. They have great images with the ability to zoom in and out as well as pan left and right. They also have multiple product views: Front, Back, Left, Right, Toe, and On Model. This is a great selling feature. They also have real time inventory if you hover your mouse over the sizes, and simple but effective related products.
My best advice for anyone who is interested in optimizing their product pages is to look at your competitors. See what others are doing and try to do it one step better. There are thousands of e-commerce website out there to get ideas from. You know your products and your customers best. Try to implement features which will benefit them the most. The changes you make will really have a positive effect on your bottom line.

Shopping Comparison Websites - What are They and How to Use Them

bheyde1 — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:18:58 -0600

By: Brennan Heyde

Published On: 1/15/2007

Any experienced e-commerce store owner will tell you the hardest part of this business is driving targeted traffic to your website – customers who are actually interested in your products and who are going to make a purchase. As with any website online, e-commerce or not, traffic is the driving force behind revenue. You must find ways to get targeted traffic to your website. This is done through SEO, PPC, magazine advertising, word of mouth, affiliate programs, and Shopping Comparison Websites. While all these methods might not be profitable for your niche or your products, the only way to find out what works and what doesn’t is trial and error.

One area I see which is under used by most e-commerce store owners are shopping comparison websites.

What are Shopping Comparison Websites?

Shopping Comparison Websites include sites like Shopping.com, Nextag.com, Shopzilla.com and Google Product Search. There are a wide variety of different shopping comparison websites out there. Most are PPC based. This means you bid for a certain spot in the search results similar to how Google works. A potential customer will go to a site like Shopzilla.com and search for a specific product. Most likey they are doing research for something they are looking to buy and are looking to find the best prices. These websites allow you to upload a feed of your products and bid for certain keywords. Say for example you have a website which sells wetsuits. When someone searches for any wetsuit related keywords your products will show up. When someone clicks on the product it takes them to your website and you get charged for the click.

One reason why shopping comparison websites are valuable to e-commerce store owners is because the traffic they bring to your website is very targeted since they are usually looking to buy.

One reason why a lot of store owners do not use these websites is because they require constant work. You have to set up a customized feed for each website and constantly monitor and tweak bids so you aren’t wasting money on non-converting products. Usually to start out with is not a good idea to use your entire product database. This will result is high costs and a wasted money.

A good strategy is to start with a few of your best selling (and most profitable) products. This will allow you to limit your budget and also find out at what bid amounts your campaign will be profitable. Once you have a profitable campaign with a few products, slowly start adding more and more products, constantly monitoring ROI to make sure you are not losing money. You must be constantly be testing and monitoring your bid amounts. Also it is essential that you are using some sort of analytics program (we recommend Google Analytics) to track conversions. You need to know which products, and which keywords are actually converting into sales. This will allow you to optimize your campaign and remove and keywords and products which are not performing well.

Which Shopping Comparison Website Should I Use?

With so many to choose from, the only real way to find out is trial and error. I would start with the bigger ones first and slowly test each one. Maybe your products don’t convert well with Shopping.com but do well with Nextag.com. The only way to find out is to test and track. Here is a list of the most popular Shopping Comparison Engines:

1) Shopping.com
2) Shopzilla.com
3) Yahoo Shopping
4) Nextag.com
5) MSN Shopping
6) Mezi Media sites
7) Froogle
8) Shop.com
9) AOL Shopping
10) PriceGrabber

Below is an excerpt from The Sitepoint Forums:

From a consumer perspective online comparison shopping sites are the best choice for their time and money. These sites allow shoppers to quickly see products with prices for multiple online retailers all on one screen. It's no wonder that they have increased in popularity in the last couple of years (Google Trends analysis). The 2008 holiday shopping season will no doubt bring more shoppers to those sites than ever before.

The major players in the comparison shopping space are Shopzilla, Yahoo Shopping, Shopping.com, NexTag, Google Base, and PriceGrabber.com. It's completely free to list products in Google Base (Froogle) which makes it an easy choice for enterprising retailers. Most other sites charge merchants on a pay per click basis. The minimum click charge varies depending upon the types of products a merchant is selling, but typically ranges from $.10 to 1.00. Merchants also can spend more to get higher ranking listings.

If a merchant has a professional looking store that yields a solid conversion rate, these pay per click channels can be lucrative. The key is measuring the success from each marketplace. If a merchant spends $500 on clicks at Shopping.com which results in $5000 in sales, the merchant need only have a 10% profit margin to break even. If the merchant's profit margins are closer to 20%, the merchant would see a 100% return on investment. Merchants that don't measure their return on investment (ROI) are bidding in the dark and essentially rolling the marketing dice. With online marketing and analytics, there is simply no need to market blindly.

Each comparison shopping site accepts data in a different format which can make getting data into the comparison engines difficult. However, there are ecommerce platforms available that will create data feed files for the merchants for each marketplace. There are also ways to automate the data feeds for Yahoo Shopping, Shopping.com, and Google Base to ensure product listings are up to date.

By searching for the comparison shopping brands on Google Trends (www.google.com/trends see link above) one will notice that there is consistently a spike in queries for the comparison sites during the holiday season. As the holidays approach, online merchants serious about capitalizing on holiday orders should surely consider the comparison shopping sites.

Here is another excerpt from The Sitepont Forums talking about how to optimize your feed.

A lot of the times a low conversion rate in the channels (Comparison Shopping Engines) can be attributed to a data feed that is not optimized, or worse, is representing your business poorly. Let me explain:

There are usually four factors that go into a conversion when you come off the channels (CSE's).

1. Price, Price, Price = Bid, Bid, Bid...

Since its 90% about the price, then to get that click you better be either the lowest price (if people are comparing that), or be on the top of the list (bidding). If you're not in the top 5 on the bids, its likely you'll never get the click, but if you ARE getting the click through, and the conversion is not happening, see #2. If you are in the top position and not getting clicks, then you might be looking at a situation where your displayed terms (the information that the CSE shows the visitor about you) is just not right, or not favorable, see #3.

2. Shipping costs.

The first thing that you'll notice when you go to these CSE's is they try and setup shipping costs for you (to me they shouldn't bother). This is where 99% of the conversion failures happen. For example, Shopzilla now says that "anything with a $0.00 price on the product will be considered 'free shipping', where as most of the other engines see $0.00 and think 'no shipping charge for that product', which is different than free shipping.

I can almost bet that if your product price is the same or lower, but your shipping terms are not favorable, you WILL lose the sale. Check your shipping against the crowd. Make sure its clear, concise and make sense.

3. When the click happens, make sure you're presenting the product, your business and you professionally and favorably.

Remember, the point here. The customer is comparing you with a crowd of people who are selling the same thing.

If traffic is coming to the site in droves, and you're not converting. You better check your site against your competition. I bet you'll find that someone out there is getting the sale because they are offering the product cheaper, or with better overall terms, or just that they look better.

4. You can't improve what you don't measure.

If you can't measure whats happening and why things aren't working, and believe me, don't trust the comparison engines with reporting that information to you, its not something they put a lot of effort into because they make money on clicks, not conversions. Yes, if you're getting conversions, the customer is happy, but lets face it, they want the click money, if you're not converting, its not their fault. Measuring is tantamount to succeeding, and if you're not measuring, why bother.

These are two great posts, which can help you optimize you feed for the different Shopping Comparison Websites.

Don’t be afraid to try new marketing channels. This is the only way to see what works and what doesn’t for your store and your products. You might just find a diamond in the rough and find a channel which really skyrockets your sales and revenue.