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leelee700 Joined: Oct 09, 2006
# Posts: 50
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Posted: 10/28/2006 08:13 am
I'm redesigning my site and am not sure where to put the order button. Currently, I have a picture of the product up near the top of the page, decriptive text and informaiton about the product below that, and an order button at the bottom of the page (not visible unless you scroll down). To improve conversions, should the order button be nearer the product picture? Also, I don't currently include the price of the products anywhere on the products page - the visitor only sees the price after they click the order button. So in summary, should order button be near the product's picture and should the price be next to the product picture? Note: my site sells many products, and its not an informaitonal product or ebook - these are products I have to ship. Thanks for any advice! |
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flyingrose Moderator
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
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Posted: 10/28/2006 03:55 pm
You've started an excellent thread that can greatly benefit you and others. The real answer to those questions is found by testing to see what increases sales. Google has a new beta they're testing that will offer a free service to do multi-variate testing. You may want to apply and see if you can get in that beta. There is published market research that indicates major sellers have done extensive testing on position, graphics, colors, fonts, and specific wording and found each of those can dramatically affect clicks and revenue generation. I highly recommend a book called Don't Make Me Think as the best resource to use when trying to figure out how to design your site for usability and success. I do PPC keyword advertising for a living and based on what I see I strongly believe that prices and shipping costs must be made available as early in the buying process as possible. Clear, easy to understand navigation and making it fast and easy to checkout without ANY obstacles to doing so are critical to selling online. Improving these things can increase sales many times over. Not doing them right are driving buyers away in droves. Two major errors I see constantly that keep conversion rates in the basement are not providing shipping costs and forcing potential buyers to "join" or provide personal information before they've made the decision to purchase. Not providing prices on the product page would rank right up there in my book with those two issues. It has been pointed out to me that the detail I put in extensive answers I provide may be intimidating and stop others from posting their ideas and sharing their experiences. I want to encourage anyone who has anything to contribute, any questions, experiences, or ideas to know that I and others absolutely DO want to hear from you. What I post is an accumulation of what I have learned from anyone and everyone I come into contact with, read about, study, and I invite those of you who are lurking or not posting for any reason you can think of to please just go ahead and talk to us. We won't bite. 
Here are some questions you can help answer: What have you changed on your site and how did it affect sales? I would especially love to hear from anyone who removed any of the above obstacles from their site about how much their sales increased. Are you doing any testing or using tracking now? Do you want input into how to do that? Discussions help everyone and especially those who take the time to post, so help yourself and others and just go for it! Step outside your comfort zone and grow with us. |
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mj1256 Joined: Jun 05, 2006
# Posts: 711
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Posted: 10/29/2006 09:33 pm
I wish I could see your website. I've had great success with increasing my clients sales just by how I layout the page. My best went from 20K to 130K per month in one months time. Most of my clients just needed there website laid out correctly. Just stay away from block text, don't over describe and use your main page as the first page of your catalog. if I have many products on one page (the catalog page), I do picture, price, buy, more info, for each one om the more info page, put item, price, options, buy at the top, below it all the details (don't make it too long) and pictures then repeat the item, price, options, buy at the bottom for flyingrose, there is a great recorded interview with the person that wrote the book at webstalkguys.com. I found it quite worthwhile for shipping I can't show the total until the weight of all items is added up, BUT..., I do a shipping page and prominently link it on the site. The shipping page has a ship by weight chart, overnight info, etc. instead of asking buyers to register, just save the info from the first purchase (minus the CC#) for the next purchase. They enter their email and password I got on the first purchase and the cart remembers them. |
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SportsGuy Moderator
Joined: Aug 30, 2002
# Posts: 3550
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Posted: 10/30/2006 04:58 am
Get that buy button up closer to the product picture - make sure it's clear, obvious and above the fold at all times. |
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flyingrose Moderator
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
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Posted: 10/30/2006 01:23 pm
leelee, you've gotten comments from two of the sharpest posters here at SEF: Michael, who posts as mj1256, and Duane, who posts as SportsGuy, both know their stuff so I highly recommend you read anything they write that you come across. How you lay out your page is critical to driving sales. I've seen data showing increases of 20 to over 100% in sales simply from moving a button or changing the wording. Thanks Michael for the tips and also the mention of the Steve Krug Interview on Web Usability. Michael's posts are always worth reading so I followed my own advice and found another great resource on fine-tuning e-commerce Web sites. Check out the articles on Web Site Design Mistakes for more insights. Shipping costs were mentioned and they are very important. The earlier in the shopping process you can introduce them and the easier you make them to find the better your results. The number one best way to increase online sales is to offer free shipping whenever possible. Shipping costs are the number one thing people will complain about and because some have shipping and handling charges for profit in the past there is a greater sensitivity to that issue. |
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flyingrose Moderator
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
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Posted: 10/30/2006 02:00 pm
One more tip. I heard this from the woman who does the PBS infomercials for making money on eBay. She shared a lot of really good ideas and this suggestion which is gold whether you're selling at eBay or on your own site. She said, write a product description so clear the buyer could visualize the item even if there were no photos and provide photos so good the buyer can see all they want to know even without the description. While that might be a huge challenge on some products it does provide an ideal. The product descriptions on many sites are just really bad. They leave out even the most obvious details like size, quantity, available colors/finishes/choices. And no price - now that really takes the cake. |
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SportsGuy Moderator
Joined: Aug 30, 2002
# Posts: 3550
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Posted: 10/31/2006 04:22 am
I'll second the multiple images idea Rose alludes to above. Nothing better than seeing a product, in big, full-screen images, from every angle. Buyers like NO SURPRISES hwne their product arrives. Describe it clearly and honestly, make the transaction simple and get it shipped quickly - those are key points to building lasting clients. |
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leelee700 Joined: Oct 09, 2006
# Posts: 50
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Posted: 11/05/2006 10:44 am
thanks to all for the advice. i went ahead and purchased the book "don't make me thing" - it's simple to read but has alot of good advice. my only "complaint" would be that it seems just a little bit dated (written in 2000) but overall its good. i also went ahead and added product price and shipping right on the product page, and moved the order button next to the price info (which are now below the product picture). my results: well, in fact now im getting fewer sales per visitor. my guess as to why: 1. when i changed the order button placement, i also made it smaller and am now using a regular old grey button (like you see on forms) instead of a big read button like before. 2. while my shipping costs are very low, my prices are very high. so im guessing people see the prices and bail. id like to lower prices but i cant because my acquisition costs are very high unless i can drive alot of volume. so my thinking was till i can drive volume sales ill have to keep prices high. anyway, ill keep experimenting. |
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flyingrose Moderator
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
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Posted: 11/05/2006 06:54 pm
The second edition of that book was released recently. Sounds like you got the first edition. Contact Steve through his site and let him know you just bought his book but they didn't sell you the latest edition. He may have a suggestion. I'll be sure to mention the editions when I recommend it. I already edited the sticky thread to make that more obvious. |
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flyingrose Moderator
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
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Posted: 11/06/2006 06:25 pm
You may want to apply for the new Google Website Optimizer Beta Program. It allows you to do multivariate testing (what many still refer to as A/B testing) to determine which version of many is most effective. |
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kruegerbait Joined: Nov 09, 2006
# Posts: 11
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Posted: 11/09/2006 05:11 pm
Hi, I've been a lurker for sometime now and I've got to admit without this forum my site would not be where it is today, thanks to everyone on a great and very useful forum. Anyway as flyingrose has promised that I won't get bitten I thought I would finally make a post. A while back I read the topic on shipping costs and how customers would like to see them as early as possible. So I decided to experiment. Customers using my site would find out their total shipping costs at the checkout after selecting their country, I left that how it was and added shipping cost details on each and every product page. Although this made the 'Add To Cart' button fall lower down the page I'm happy to say that sales, especially overseas, have increased. Also before this change about 10% of customers left the shopping cart when these costs were displayed, now this very rarely happens at all. |
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flyingrose Moderator
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
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Posted: 11/09/2006 11:44 pm
Thank you for taking the time to let us know how adding shipping costs earlier in the process affected your sales. I've always felt the number one reason for shopping cart abandonment was people like me using it to get the shipping charges and total cost. Often I'm not ready to buy yet but want the costs to buy later. I'm glad it had a positive effect. You may wish to take advantage of the new feature Google just announced to test the effects of various page designs. It is in beta by invitation only right now. You can Apply for Google Website Optimizer beta and I placed that link in the sticky thread at the top of the PPC forum for easy access. I am constantly updating those sticky threads and have a lot of additional resources in the Designing Web Sites for Higher Sales including links to sample chapters and an interview with Steve Krug, author of Don't Make Me Think. Anyone who wants to have a great site should read that book. (Be sure to get the new second edition.) |
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