We’re continuing our look at top e-commerce errors. Monday, we looked at a mistake many sites make: trying to sell out of stock product. And yesterday, we commented on the mistake of “Coming Soon!” pages. But today we get to one of my favorites: small, poor photography. While this image is taken from a travel site, I run into this all the time across all industries:
Sure, there’s lots of keyword rich content on the site, but the only image is labeled “Lobby View” and it shows… a bouquet of flowers. While I suppose it’s somewhat artistic, it doesn’t do much to answer a potential customer’s questions. And given that a picture is worth a thousand words, the site in question could easily remove—or at a minimum, reformat—that huge block of text and use images to more effectively sell this product.
To be fair, this poor product shot comes from a travel aggregator, not the hotel itself. The specific hotel shown on this page has a pretty good site of its own. But if you’re relying on alternate distribution channels—whether Amazon, eBay or Expedia—to sell your products, you want to make sure that they’re representing you well, too.
Pictures and videos both help sell your products, but only if your customers can see them and can use them to answer their questions. Make sure your photos and videos help you out by helping your customers out. Otherwise, your sales picture might be pretty cloudy, too.
Full disclosure: I have several clients in the hotel industry. I do not work with this particular online travel distributor or its competitors at this time.
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Amazon may not “Like” Facebook. After all, the social giant seems eager to encroach on Amazon’s e-commerce leadership, announcing partnerships over the last couple of days with Ebay and Walmart to drive social commerce.
As Reuters notes about the Ebay deal,
“…Facebook’s so-called Open Graph — the map of connections that Facebook users create with friends and online content — will be integrated “seamlessly” into applications developed with certain eBay services and technologies.”
On the Walmart side, Forbes says,
“Any one of Walmart’s 9.5+ million Facebook fans can get local information from their store by clicking on the “My Local Walmart” tab on the retailer’s main Facebook page. “Liking” the stores nearest to them will enable shoppers to see specific offers and new merchandise geared to their area.”
Social shopping may be in its early stages, but as companies learn how to engage with their social circles more effectively, it’s only natural that Facebook wants to play in that space.
What do you think? Are your customers ready for social commerce? Or is the world not ready yet?
Are you getting enough value out of your small business website? Want to make sure your business makes the most of the local, mobile, social web? thinks helps you understand how to grow your business via the web, every day. Get more than just news. Get understanding. Add thinks to your feed reader today.
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BNET offers a look at 6 e-commerce strategies to steal from Amazon today. Which is great in principle, but is it practical?
For instance, many businesses would love to personalize their customers’ experience, but assume they lack the tools and/or funding to match Amazon’s years of development into such practices. The article, though, does offer some excellent tips on how to emulate the experience for little to no cost, so don’t fall into the “we can’t do that/we’re too small” trap. And their tips on how to get more control over your listings in Google
are excellent.
And, of course, one area where anyone can learn/steal from Amazon quite easily and successfully is in answering customers’ questions:
“Even if you have live customer service support via telephone, customers should be able to easily find the answer to the most common questions on your website. In this respect, Amazon has mastered the customer experience.”
Sure, there’s risk in “best practices.” But, in this case, you’re not just following a best practice. You’re learning from the best.
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