Straight Talk

Who's zoomin' who? And what it means to you.

	The eCommerce market is changing - fast! The time is now to learn, adapt and make your move. Don't wait. You can be certain that your competitors won't. Here's my take on what is going on and what that means to you. Everybody in the pool! The low barrier-to-entry in the provider space means that two guys in a garage can pitch a solution. There are over 2500 solution providers - more than 750 eCommerce platform options alone (250 platform providers, 500 integrators and agencies).
This makes shopping for a solution difficult. Too many options can be paralyzing. And picking the wrong provider can be a costly mistake. Take the time to vet your choices and get help from those that know the particular market.
The market is fragmented. There's enough business to go around but not enough for break-away leaders. Some providers barely eke out an existence. Others want to gain as many signature brands as possible until they are bought out.
It's hard to know if your provider will be around tomorrow. Ask for proof of financial strength and what makes a company profitable.
B2B going B2C. Almost 70% of new platform provider deals are from manufacturers. Of those, 30% are going direct for the first time. Consumer electronics manufacturers have been in the B2C space for ages. Now others are seeing the size of the market and are thinking of eliminating the middle man.
If you're B2C, you'll need a strategy to keep your customers from going directly to the brand. What is your "value-add"? If you can't articulate it, your customers can't see it. If you're B2B, you may be leaving money on the table by not selling D2C. Don't compete on price against your retailers/distributers, but do offer the fullest assortment or best information and service to your end-consumers.
800 lb gorillas are making big waves. Amazon provided a marketplace for others to sell products. They learned their lessons well and now are saying: Hey, we can sell that! Hence the purchase of Zappos. Amazon is making waves in apparel and beauty, too. Kindle and iPad are shaking up publishing. What, you don't like Amazon setting prices for you? And what ISN'T Google moving into?
Your competition is more than just the usual suspects. You need to play offense and defense. Be aggressive and don't let your guard down.

Full Article:  Boosting conversions with better checkout  by Bernardine Wu.

You've got your customer in the bag. Well, their items are in the shopping cart, anyway. Checkout is where you'll find out if you have a happy customer or not. Improving checkout is the most critical lever in boosting conversions, but you needn't overhaul your whole checkout in order to gain sales. Fewer clicks and pages, early notification and easy-to-edit information are among first principles.

1. Do you give your customer all the information (shipping costs, tax, delivery options and dates, out-of-stock, etc.) earlier in checkout?
2. Can she check out without logging in or creating an account?
3. Is your navigation and checkout process easy to follow and uses a progress bar?
4. Is it easy for her to change her order, use promotion codes or coupons, and redeem gift cards without leaving checkout?
5. Can she easily change shipping and billing addresses and ship to multiple addresses?
6. Do you save (cookie) her cart for at least 7 days, ideally 30?
7. Do you show field-level error messages and state the mistake and action needed?