If you’re looking for practical, best-practices marketing advice on what works and what doesn’t, you can’t beat MarketingSherpa’s research. Nothing but tried-and-true findings straight from the trenches. The recently released 2009 Ecommerce Benchmark Report is full of new information to help drive sales. Here’s why I’m a fan…
We’re loyal followers and avid readers of their products – and also affiliates. That means you can purchase new reports at a discount from our site. Very cool.
I especially like how MarketingSherpa acknowledges that not all organizations are created equal and what works in one industry doesn’t necessary work in another. That’s why they’ve separated out lessons to be learned from “High Knowledge” organizations that are making use of advanced web analytics and automation. And why they’ve broken out data for B2B vs B2C products and B2B vs B2C services.
That means, as a B2B marketer, I can look at products or services data and zero in on:
Knowing we’re all coping with lean economic times, the report also highlights tactics and tools that can increase revenues without further chipping away at slim margins, such as:
Most importantly, the report answers questions that are top of mind for many ecommerce marketers, such as:
We’re conducting a shopping cart audit next week. As an e-retailer, it’s too easy to lose touch with your customer’s experience. Having an objective third party test the waters can help ground you in the user’s perspective and answer questions such as:
Here’s where you can do your part for the greater good. We’ve likely all had a bad online shopping experience. If there was one thing – or two or three – that you’d change to make a process easier, what would you suggest?
My pet peeves are 1) being asked to enter my shipping address, even if it is the same as my billing address. Couldn’t you just give me a checkbox: “Use billing address as shipping address”; 2) wiping out all my data if I try to submit without filling in a required field; 3) not letting me change the quantity ordered once I’m hit with the grand total.
What are some of your online shopping rants?