How To Add Fun To Your eStore Sales Funnel

A free article on E-Commerce

The Internet is undergoing an amazing transformation. It has gone from being used as a virtual encyclopedia and replacement for snail mail to becoming the center of many people's lives. In the U.S., for example, users have gone from spending just over two hours per month on the Internet in 1998 to spending over ten hours per month on the Internet in 2008, a 500% increase in ten years.

Gaming and social networking have both had a tremendous influence on Internet usage.

- December 2008 saw 86 million visitors to online gaming websites

- 27% growth month-on-month

- Total time spent online has increased by 42%

- 4.9% of the Americans total time spent on the internet is on online gaming websites

- Social networking has grown 25% worldwide from 2007 to 2008, from 780 million users to 861 million users

- Facebook has grown 153% in the same time period.

Both phenomena have something in common. They both provide opportunities for interaction and enjoyment. Retailers need to take a lesson from this tidal wave trend: people just want to have fun!

In the days of bricks and mortar shopping, there were lots of opportunities to have fun. You could window shop, try on clothes, sample gourmet foods, stop for a cappuccino and biscotti, and share the experience with friends.

Now that online shopping has begun to replace bricks and mortar shopping, some of these pleasurable attributes have been stripped away. While it is true, you do not have to trudge from store to store to compare brands and prices and you do not have to carry packages home, you also can not touch and feel the merchandise and you do have to pay for shipping.

Add together these two trends and the message seems clear; online retailers need to put some fun and excitement into the online shopping experience.

Here are some ideas for you to think about:

Feedback

People love to give their opinion. There are lots of ways for you to capitalize on that desire.

Allow your customers to write reviews of your products. The research suggests that online shoppers like reading customer reviews and are often influenced by them.

Okay, now how about taking it one step further. Does your product lend itself to pictures? Ask your customers to upload photos of themselves using your product. Wouldn't it be great to see someone enjoying a cup of coffee in that Spanish pottery you sold them? Or get a photo of a sweet little dog in the personalized pooch sweater they got on your site?

Here is another really excellent tool if your web people can make it work for you. Put up your newest items or, something you are thinking about carrying. Ask your users to give you feedback about color, price, etc, etc. then give immediate feedback about where they fit vis a vis other feedback. For example, 30% of our site visitors like our new plaid skirts but 60% think there should be more color choices, especially a blue/black option. Your visitors will be engaged and you will incredibly important market research done.

Games

People love to play games and they seem to love games of chance. Why not capitalize on that?

Enter purchasers into a contest for a free something with a weekly or monthly winner.

Give people the opportunity to push a button and spin a wheel for points to build toward discounts after they have clicked on a certain number of product descriptions up to a daily limit.

Add some small game feature to your home page like Owner makeover. Allow them to upload their photo and give them the opportunity to try your fashion accessories on. It can be a great way to make a personal connection, keep people on your site, and get them to purchase your fashion accessories for trying them on first.

Blogs/Forums/Discussions

What do the people who buy your product have in common? Do you sell children's toys? Perfect! Encourage people to talk about kid issues, creative ways to use the toys, how they handle Christmas and toy overload. Put up a question and have people write in their advice, e.g., How do you get three year olds to share their toys?

Some of these techniques may seem to be a bit far afield of selling your product. Of course, you need to decide what works in your situation. But, there is a lot of value in creating elements of your site that encourage people to enjoy themselves, browse, get to know you and others who buy your product and, yes, then buy from you because they feel happy and comfortable and connected.

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