What's Your Strategy For 2010?

Image What's Your Strategy For 2010?
By Vanessa Salvia

As we approach 2010, now is a good time to take a close look at how your business stacks up against the competition. Ecommerce has evolved, and the competition for online shoppers has become fierce. You likely face competition from the huge online sites such as Amazon and eBay, as well as the other small players in your niche. It's helpful to know how your site compares with both the small and large competitors.

A lot of competition doesn't necessarily mean that you have entered into the wrong industry. Competitors mean that there is a healthy enough customer base to support more than one or two key players. Primarily, a competitive landscape means that you need to differentiate yourself-to provide something different, give consumers a choice, a reason to pick your site over any other. But before you can effectively do that, you need a basis for comparison. Look at your top five competitors, no matter how small or large they are, and compare your business in the following areas.

Product Selection

It's OK if you don't have as many products as Amazon. No other small niche site will have as much as they do, either. What do you have that is different? Maybe it's handmade, of higher quality, customizable, or less expensive. Actively promote those differences.

Features on Site

Take a look around and see what features your competitor sites offer. Do you have more or fewer features than they do? Key features your site should offer include advanced search, suggestive selling technologies (such as "If you like this product, you might also be interested in") product comparisons, customer reviews, customer accounts, videos, and newsletter sign-ups. Your website developer can give you balanced advice about what enhancements would be beneficial to your site.

Shipping

Do your competitors offer deals on shipping, such as discounts or free shipping with any minimum purchase? Perhaps you should match or better their deals. Shipping is a tricky area in which profits can be maximized or lost if the options aren't well-planned, depending on the items you ship. Your analytics program can help. Take a look at the average size of your order, for instance, and set a free or reduced shipping option for an order just a bit larger than that.

Fabric samples or other small items are easily shipped inexpensively and it makes sense to offer free shipping on a sample that will likely convert into a sale. However, if your items are large, heavy, or travel long distances, it takes a more thorough understanding of the many shipping options you have to be able to set a discounted price.

Shopping Ease

Anything that prevents customers from quickly and easily adding items to their shopping cart, viewing their cart, and checking out is an obstacle and should be avoided. Many times, the shop owner might not even realize that their shopping cart is inadequate or confusing unless someone points it out. Assess the ease with which your customers can go from home page and product page to checkout and make sure it is easy, intuitive, and secure.

Important messages about privacy, security, shipping costs, and returns/customer service info should be easily accessible or apparent throughout the process. It should be easy and intuitive to add and remove the items that are in the shopping cart, and recalculate shipping costs at any time before checkout. Customers should be able to review their order before completing the process.

Brand Awareness

What kind of exposure you have beyond your site depends partially on what type of advertising you have done or currently engage in, but it could also hinge on some less obvious things you can do to promote yourself.

For instance, I ordered a toy for my child from a website I had previously never heard of. When my order came, I was pleasantly surprised to find a hand-written "thank you for ordering" card with a mint taped to it, along with a small rubber duckie tub toy. The duckie has the name of the website printed on the side, but my son doesn't care! It has become one of his regular tub toys when he takes a bath. It helps keep the name of the website fresh in my mind, and I also associate it with the pleasant surprise of the thank you card and mint, which are both personal touches that are above and beyond the expected but definitely appreciated.

Whether or not you write informative articles, participate on blogs or forums, or engage in social media is another factor in considering the off-site impact of your brand.

Search Exposure

Find out where you land in the organic search engines results for your top 10 keywords, and then compare how your competitors fare. You might be surprised to find that they are not much higher up than you are. If they are, assess what they are doing that you aren't-for instance, does their site have informational videos or articles, a blog, or more in-depth product descriptions, more photos, or other features? Have a talk with your website designer about what you can do to enhance the on-page SEO of your site, to increase your organic search visibility.

If you haven't tried PPC, and you find that your competitors are actively using paid search, consider implementing a small-scale pay-per-click campaign for some of your top keywords.

Google Product Feed is becoming increasingly important. Formerly Froogle.com, Product Feed allows your products to be found in the 'shopping' tab of Google.com's search page. (You can still use Google Base feeds for items other than product listings, such as real estate listings or recipes.) Google Product Feed allows merchants to provide optimizeable listings for a searchable database of products that are for sale, and your products should be in there!

Price

There's no need to slash your prices to compete with the larger sites such as Amazon. But do make sure that your items are competitively priced in line with other sites in your niche. If you can offer some specials or discounts when your competitors don't, many people will turn to you on the basis of price alone.

Your competitors' pricing can be the reference point by which you set your own prices. Setting your prices higher than others can position you as the market leader, and provide the impression that your products are higher quality. Pricing your products at the same level as your competitors means that you can compete for customer loyalty based on other areas in which you feel you are better.

Security

Make sure that the important information that customers need to know when ordering from your site is clearly accessible. Customers want to know that you value their privacy, that you won't sell their email address or use it for any purpose other than communication regarding their order, they want to know that your site is secure, and that a third-party verification system backs up the claim.

If your competitors have security seals or third-party banners or verification seals on their site, consider getting your site verified too. If customers are really shopping around, and one site has a Better Business Bureau seal and one site doesn't, that could be the tipping point in helping them to decide where to spend their money.

Unique Message

If you sell the same products or provide the same service as 5, 10, or 50 other sites, why would anyone choose your site over all of the others? Identify what you do that sets you apart, and capitalize on it. Make sure this unique message is front and center throughout your site, and not just relegated to the last paragraph of the About Us page. Customers need a reason to feel that the site they choose to buy from is different. They may not take the time to dig as thoroughly through your site as you might want them to in order to discover your uniqueness, so make sure they know right away what you do better than all of the others.

Something New

Social media is a growing factor in online commerce, and many small ecommerce sites aren't currently using it. You can be the first on your "block" to harness your own customer base using social media if your competitors aren't. According to an October 2009 report from Forrester Research, use of social networking by people aged 35 to 54 grew 60 percent in the last year.

Another growing area of online commerce is the use of mobile or hand-held devices. Adding mobile ecommerce options means that everyone who uses personal electronic devices to search the web can view your complete website and place orders, wherever they are.

Along with the growth of Internet usage among younger and older age groups comes the fact that many people will only have one way to pay. They may not have a PayPal account, or that may be the only way they can pay. You'll do yourself and your customers a great service by aligning yourself with as many payment options as you can possibly, realistically, provide. These options include additional credit cards beyond the typical Visa and MasterCard, Google Checkout, PayPal, and electronic checks.

Summary

What you might find when you look closely at your site, especially when you compare yourself to the biggest players such as Amazon, may seem overwhelming. Rather than focusing on how great the differences are, just try to improve these areas, one metric at a time.

Once you have a basis for comparison, you can begin to improve in areas that you identify as the most important or useful. Armed with more information about what your competitors are doing is the first step to making sure that your site remains strong and grows throughout the next year!
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