According to a recent study, retailers are losing more than 45% of potential buyers due to inefficiencies in their website and operations.
Here are 10 points to consider when evaluating your current or future eCommerce website:
1. Pricing
The Internet allows shoppers to quickly compare prices. If you are in a competitive market, you need to make sure there is a good reason for your customer to visit and then stay on your website.
It’s been more than half a century since Philip Kotler first published his principles of marketing, which has defined the practice of millions of professionals worldwide ever since. It’s no stretch to say that before Kotler, there was no marketing profession.
What made Kotler different than what came before is that he took insights from other fields, such as economics, social science and analytics and applied them to the marketing arena. Although it seems basic now, it was groundbreaking then.
Make a list of the 5 leaders you most admire. They can be from business, social media, politics, technology, the sciences, any field. Now ask yourself why you admire them. The chances are high that your admiration is based on more than their accomplishments, impressive as those may be. I’ll bet that everyone on your list reaches you on an emotional level.
The ability to reach people in a way that transcends the intellectual and rational is the mark of a great leader. They all have it. They inspire us. It’s a simple as that. And when we’re inspired we tap into our best selves and deliver amazing work.
How many pages have you liked/followed on social media? Personally, over 100. Does that mean I interact with all 100 of these pages on a daily basis? Not even close. In fact, there’s only a handful I bother paying attention to… or engaging with.
Why?
Well, because they have something special — something that keeps me interested, commenting & clicking Like/Follow. For lack of a better word, I’d say they have charisma.
Can you get better at spotting the most promising opportunities? How does anyone know it when they see it?
If you’re like most people, throughout your life a few great opportunities will land on your doorstep. And again, if you’re like most people, you’ll ignore these rare opportunities because you won’t recognise them as great chances for success.
Don’t feel bad; even people in the opportunity recognition business – including prominent venture capitalists – miss out on great opportunities. Everybody misses a few, no one gets them all.
The trend toward investing abroad has been gaining popularity since the 1990s. Companies choose to invest in foreign markets for a number of reasons:
Market seeking
Firms may go overseas to find new buyers for their goods and services. The top executives or owners of a company may realise that their product is unique or superior to the competition in foreign markets and seek to take advantage of this opportunity.
Recently, researchers asked a group of 12-year olds if they typically listen to music on YouTube, radio, or a CD? Not surprisingly, the majority answered “YouTube”. However, the second most common response was, “What’s a CD?”
Researchers also asked a group of high school students how they most often use email. Their responses?“To communicate with old people.”
And therein lies one of the most daunting challenges facing today’s companies – the need to reinvent their entire business model rather than just a new product or service.
After all, there’s no point in coming out with a newer and better CD when people no longer use them (much less know what they are). And anyone operating an email-based business might as well get in line right behind the post office because extinction is already knocking on the door, and it won’t take “go away” for an answer.
Sometimes, bad publicity is inevitable. Even when you and your organisation behave responsibly, you always run the small risk of an unexpected PR disaster. In the information age, bad publicity can reach the masses before you can even mount a defense.
The only thing worse than having your image tarnished in the public light after you’ve done everything within your power to protect yourself is to find out you’re the one who caused the disaster. For every rogue employee saying something stupid to the media, there’s a poor senior-level decision being made.
What to do when your business gets bad publicity
Respond quickly, honestly and decisively. Don’t get defensive. If you are in the wrong, it’s vital to own up and apologise. Never say “no comment” – it sends the message that you are in the wrong but feel no remorse – and the press may keep digging for dirt. Face up to the situation and you can begin to restore the reputation of your business.
Do you want to drink a venti double mocha skinny chai latte? Do you even know what that is? I don’t. We found in a customer survey that 70% of shoppers were also confused by the choices (and their obscure names) on store’s café menu.
Resisting the urge to add customer choice allows shoppers to enjoy more time savouring their coffee and less time “playing coffee Cluedo”. While there may be some customers who want the complicated drink names, (it’s not that important to them) the majority would prefer simplicity.
A recent research shows that less choice more often than not leads to a lower effort service experience. When customers are faced with outcomes for a service experience, 84% chose something other than choice, a low-effort experience.
Demanding customers, fierce competition, breathtaking technological innovation, etc. These are the realities of today’s global marketplace; realities that have changed forever the way we do business, especially the way we sell.
Gone are the days when salespeople could rely on charming small-talk and aggressive closing techniques alone to generate business.
Many traditional selling approaches regard selling as something the seller does to the buyer. They sell them something. The result of this attitude to sales is that many salespeople adapt a manipulative, almost coercive style of selling.
People say that business is all about relationships, but the truth is that business is really all about communication. Communication is key to virtually every aspect of business—from acquiring and retaining customers to improving employee engagement and performance. At the most fundamental level, business can’t happen without communication. This is even more true in the era of globalisation. As geographic borders become porous and the world flattens, effective communication with customers, employees, partners, suppliers, and other stakeholders across the globe becomes essential to successfully running a company.
The importance of consistency in business seems so basic as to not need discussion. Yet many companies, especially smaller ones, operate in a day-by-day, case-by-case fashion that is disorganised, undisciplined and certainly inefficient.
The frenetic, never-enough people/time/money reality of small business can make us feel like we’re chasing it down rather than leading it along, but if we get in front of it with consistent standards and practices (ideally working hand-in-hand with a strong set of values), every aspect of the business benefits.