Category Archives: Online Shopping
Using Colors to Enhance Online Marketing
KISSmetrics put out an infographic depicting “How do colors affect purchases?” Shown below, the graphic is an eye-opener for those who are trying to design websites, logos, etc.
Using Color to Enhance Online Presence
I have only posted once about this previously, I believe. However, colors have a definite effect upon the person viewing a webpage. While the Marketing Techblog article “Infographic: Do Colors Impact Online Purchase Behavior?” concentrates upon purchasing behavior, it also points out other aspects that should be taken into consideration as well. For example, do you want the person to have a sense of urgency (red) or be relaxed (green)?
One thing to be aware of, though, is that color can be overdone and is not the only design consideration. This is a very real temptation. Even some WordPress templates I’ve seen look, well, hideous. You don’t want the reputation of causing web surfers’ eyes to bleed or triggering migraines. Be sure to view the entire graphic, as one statistic that jumps out is that 52% of shoppers will not return to a poorly designed website. Speed and convenience are another design consideration, as 64% of online shoppers got tired of waiting on a slow site and didn’t follow through on a purchase. Design is much more than just appealing artwork.
What articles like this should prompt you to ask is, “What effect am I trying to have on visitors to my site?” This infographic can then give you a good indication as to whether or not you are achieving that effect.
eCommerce Online Payment Systems
If you are going to do business online, sooner or later you must think about how you are going to get paid. The purpose of a business, after all, is to obtain money in exchange for goods and services. A business that does not make money is not a business. It is either a charity or soon to be out of business.
You do have options. That’s the good news. You do have lots of options. That’s the bewildering news.
I was preparing a client site to set up with OpenCart, as it is one of the approved packages provided by Omins Networking. So, that was one limiting factor when I began some investigation into it. Unfortunately, the client decided against going into implementation, so there is only so much feedback I can give on any of these.
I looked at three systems: FreeAuthNet, GoEMerchant and Authorize.net.
Who You Gonna Call?
I don’t usually rag on the competition, but some of this stuff I just couldn’t make up. Some of it is generic enough to extend to other service industries, so it make help to make some mental notes if you are advertising online. They might be good, really good. However, can you really tell that from their listing?
1. WOULD YOU HIRE SOMEONE WHO TYPES IN ALL CAPS? IF SOMEONE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND SIMPLE NETIQUETTE, ARE THEY GOING TO UNDERSTAND HOW TO FIX YOUR PROBLEM?
2. Oh, and I’m from out of town, so my number isn’t local. But, you can count on me.
3. Shop around and compare prices. However, you’ll have to email or call us for a quote and a sales pitch.
4. I can come to your house and fix whatever’s wrong, but you’ll have to come and pick me up.
5. *****L@@K @T THIS!!!**** LET ME !!! DESIGN YOUR @@ WEBSITE @@ 100% GUARANTEED !!! OR I’LL KEEP TYPING LIKE THIS @ND GIVE Y@U A HEADACHE!!!!****
6. We will remove malware and viruses over the Internet. Never mind that you cannot download and run programs because of the virus. Don’t worry about rebooting and running the program all the time. Oh, and you can sit and watch … and watch … and wait … and watch…
7. Contact us for a visibility report. Never mind that you can type your business into Google yourself and see where you stand.
OK, in all seriousness, guys, c’mon on! You can do better than that! You’re making the industry look bad!
First and foremost, if you can fix a virus problem over the Internet in one session, I question how serious the issue was to begin with. How are you going to deal with some of those viruses that require Safe Mode and rebooting over and over again? Do you really expect the user to sit there through all that? What about when (because it will happen sooner or later) the customer wants to give up? You still going to charge them?
Second, search engine optimization might be somewhat of an art, but it isn’t rocket science. If your client cannot even determine their own Google ranking, then aren’t you just taking advantage of them?
Thirdly, drop the caps, drop the weird punctuation and give people prices up front. This isn’t middle school.
Finally, either get a car or pretend you’re a store front, and get a local number. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m not going to hire someone who I have to pickup and take home, and I’m not going to give my money to a stranger breezing through town, either. Reliability is what you need to be and project.
OK, deep breath. Hold it. Let it out. I feel better now.
Thank you for listening.
DealNews.com and Dealio.com
I previously wrote about RedLaser for the iPhone to compare prices, but what about just plain finding good deals? Well, there are a couple of sites you might want to check out: DealNews.com and Dealio.com.
Dealio has online coupon codes and other coupons as well as online deals. This looks like a pretty good site for the coupon clipper in your family.
DealNews finds you discounts both online and locally. It is geared more towards the Victoria’s Secrets, Lowe’s, Sears, etc.
These probably won’t replace some of the other available shopping tools, but they both look like good ideas if you know exactly what you want and are looking for a discount.
Geek Friday: Shopping with RedLaser
OK, this doesn’t just look cool, but it sounds infinitely practical. There is a free iPhone app you can download from the Apple iTunes Store called RedLaser. Using your camera on an iOS 4 iPhone, you scan in a barcode, and the app will search online and locally for posted prices for that product.
I have yet to do any real shopping with it, but just using it around the house, I discovered some items can vary widely in price.
Unfortunately, even though I’m not that far from a few stores, it didn’t pick up any local prices.
It has the ability to email a scan list (didn’t try it), and removing items from the list is similar to deleting your messages.
This has the potential to change the way you shop, though. I used to take my PDA to the store and put prices into a spreadsheet for comparing them. That means I had to spend the gas to go to a particular store and record the price or you had to keep an eye out for advertisements to come in the mail. Of course, you not only had to ensure you were comparing apples to apples but that they were the same size and weight. With this app, you’ll know quickly if the price is bad, so-so or good.
Rating the Sellers: ResellerRatings.com and bizrate
There are a lot of “review” sites out there. There are a lot of “reviewers” out there. As I previously wrote in “Research Common Problems Before Buying ”, you sometimes don’t know for sure if the reviewer is biased or even a downright shill for the company.
The nice thing is that there are checks and balances on the reputable sites. If a product has 3 out of 5 stars, for example, but the 1s come close to matching the number of 5 ratings, then that is enough to make me uncomfortable.
However, what if you what you are researching is available on Amazon.com, Newegg.com, TigerDirect.com or even eBay, but the price is better somewhere else? What if it’s a company you’ve never bought from before?
That’s where sites like ResellerRatings.com and bizrate come in! Both sites are similar, but bizrate does more than just store ratings. On ResellerRatings.com, you can browse categories or search for a company by name. On bizrate, however, you have to go to their Customer Ratings of Stores and select a category; you cannot search for a specific store by name.
Personally, I like ResellerRatings.com better because of ease of use. For example, if you aren’t sure of the spelling of a store’s name, you can click on the first letter of the store name and browse through the listings. Also, ResellerRatings.com actually gives the store two number scores: Six-month rating and Lifetime rating. bizrate gives colored smiley face icons, and you have to do an extra mouse click to get hard numbers.
Both are useful, however. For one thing, sometimes a store may be rated on one but not the other. Sometimes the ratings and customer experiences are vastly different. Sometimes, a store may monitor one and answer complaints directly but not the other. Granted, I don’t always choose to check out both sites, but if you have the time it can give you a more well-rounded look at the company.
Of course, it also never hurts to check out bbb.org for the number of complaints lodged against a given company. There are two problems with this, though. You have to know the location of the company is one obstacle. Finding the address can sometimes take a bit of searching (esp. if there is more than one location). The second is that a good rating with the BBB doesn’t mean that much. The BBB is basically a paper tiger when it comes to resolving issues. However, that also means that if a company has anything below a B rating, then that does speak volumes.
While none of this will guarantee a smooth and pleasant transaction (even good companies have off days), it will lessen the risk of the transaction from hades.
Amazon Turned 15
Amazon.com opened up on 16 July 1995, according to Time’s article “A Brief History Of Online Shopping”. It literally started out in a garage, packing up books in boxes on a table made from an extra door.
Amazon, you’ve come a long way!
Experimenting with Google Online Store
Well, I sounded off about PayPal earlier today. I also noted that I had some trouble with an online store that used Google Checkout. However, it occurred to me that I don’t have any experience with the merchant side of the house.
If you’ll recall, I previously was interested in whether or not I should setup an eBay store for items that I acquire in various ways just because of the type of business I’m in. I’m not interested in a full service computer store that has a running inventory, but I hate to dispose of items that may be useful to someone else. Well, it turns out that it is really easy to setup a Google online store, and it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, either!
So, here is my first stab at this:
PayPal Getting Bad Press From OpenCamp
Maybe I need a new category here. I’ve written about scams, I’ve written about stupid software, but I haven’t yet covered stupid companies, or at least not in so many words. Or, maybe the category should be “How to piss off the very people you make money off of”. What else do you call a web-based company that works hard at annoying geeks? I mean, this story made my jaw drop and hit the floor!
The story I’m referring to is “PayPal Hates Conferences – Especially OpenCamp”. OpenCamp is an initiative that is being pushed by no less than Cali Lewis of GeekBeat TV (formerly GeekBrief TV). Granted, you may or may not of heard of her or her show, but she has an active following on FaceBook and Twitter. Oh, and in case you haven’t guessed, her following is generally made up of geeks. You know, the ones who blog, Twitter, make FaceBook comments, and let everyone know whether or not they are satisfied or dissatisfied with a particular product, vendor or service.
Well, what do you expect of a company that was rated as “unsatisfactory” by the Better Business Bureau (BBB) earlier this year? I mean, that’s sort of like flunking recess. You really have to try to earn that bad of a rating.
I’ve seen some scathing criticism of PayPal in the past. Frankly, I’m not all that thrilled myself by some of their policies, even though I’ve not truly been bitten by them – yet. Perhaps it is only a matter of time.
However, I have read of people whose eBay business grows “too large” and thus end up with their PP accounts shut down. Frivolous accusations of dealing with stolen merchandise seems to be a common complaint as well, and one person even claimed that PP backed the buyer who swapped a good shipment with some broken equipment even though the seller had pictures with serial numbers on the items.
In addition, Wikipedia’s entry on PayPal has an entire Criticism section, including the following gem:
In February 2010, Paypal stopped or reversed all "personal" transactions in or out of India without prior notice. Funds already transferred and transactions that had previously been "completed" were reversed leaving many vendor accounts over-drafted. Companies, contractors and service providers throughout India were left in debt to Paypal for services they had already provided when Paypal, without warning or consent, returned funds vendors had already received and withdrawn.[63]
It isn’t that there aren’t alternatives. The problem is PayPal’s size makes it very convenient. If you have ever done the eBay thing, you almost surely have a PP account. Many online businesses, such as Crucial and Newegg.com accept it as well. None of PP’s competitors come near its size.
At least, not yet. Perhaps what we are seeing is a real need for competition.
There are competitors, but if you use eBay, you’re pretty much going to have to go with PayPal. Like PayPal, eBay is the biggest kid on the block, so you will have to brave a smaller site if you want to move away from PayPal. One example is if you go to eBid and search for “dell optiplex gx270 motherboard”, you will find 0 results. However, eBay has 238 results. The only one to come close was iOffer.com, which had 160 results, but some of those where 260s and even unrelated items.
One competitor is Google Checkout. It’s fairly user friendly if you have a Google account already. However, filing a dispute is about as much fun as eating mold. In fine Google tradition, there is no easy way to contact anyone.
Another alternative is PayClick, backed by Visa. They are the new kid on the block, and look very promising. The main problem is that it seems it is only available in Australia so far.
I find it interesting that in 2010, the field has so few real competitors. It’s time for a change, obviously.
