Total Blue System Ecommerce

Bios give product reviews more credibility

By reducing the barriers to collecting product reviews, the volume has increased. E-commerce merchants are getting more reviews for editing and publishing on the public website catalog. But not surprisingly, most reviews are coming in as anonymous.

To give more credibility to product reviews, you can now solicit reviewers to identify their location. "Share with us where you live," encourages the product review form. While reviewers mostly choose not to identify themselves by name, it would be nice to get a city or country location. The intent is to build up a brief little bio on the reviewer to give credibility to the product review.

Note there are some other slight lay-out enhancements and some additional explanation next to each form field on the page in this latest System Update. The email address field now clarifies the purpose of it's presence on the form, for example.

• Expect more about the email address field on the product review form in a future System Update...

Search engine optimized product URL's: new scheme

Product detail pages, the page with the most information about a single product and the all important "add to cart" button, now have a new URL scheme. This changes comes about as part of the release of a new tabbed product detail page template in the latest System Update.

Whereas before the URL included the name of the category in which the product appears (in human readable words) completed by the product's item # (or Stock Keeping Unit, SKU) and capped with a .html extension, now the product name appears in place of the item #. This somewhat subtle difference offers one more bit of search engine optimization to the URL's in your website catalog.

• An example of the URL: http://yourdomain.com/product_categories/[category ID]-category-name-subcategory-name/products/[product ID]-name-of-product

What may catch your eye is the presence of the category and product ID numbers. Their introduction to the URL provides a number of performance and maintenance benefits, internal to Total Blue System. For example, there ought be some faster page load times on large category pages with many product detail URL's. There is no real harm or gain by their presence in terms of search engine optimization.

• URL's can be shortened for your convenience, removing the SEO-friendly keywords, and function with just ID #'s. The format is: http://yourdomain.com/product_categories/[category ID]/products/[product ID]

One tangible external benefit from the presence of these ID numbers for site owners or visitors is the fact that this URL scheme eliminates the possibility of a "page not found" error being encountered when a product detail page URL is requested and the containing category or subcategories have been renamed (this did happen in certain isolated circumstances before). A second benefit is that this URL scheme with it's ID numbers is consistent with the REST Application Programming Interface architecture style that we've adopted for our API. Third-party developers working to integrate Total Blue System with internal or externally-hosted order management databases will find it easier to work with these URL's.

Important: the old style of product detail page URL's will continue to work indefinitely. We'll phase them out at a point in the future when we're certain to have minimized any possible disruption to search engines or click-throughs from old email marketing messages.

Communicate site-wide messages on product detail page

When your customers are closely examining a product, viewing what's known as the product detail page, there may be one or two key points that prompt the purchase now. You can make these visible at this pivotal point in the browsing process by creating a "Teaser" for the product detail page template. There's now a "teaser spot" on the top  of the product detail template, released as part of this week's System Update.

Keep in mind this teaser spot is not unique to one product, but applied to all products that use the latest, tabbed product detail page template. So the message need be appropriate for all products. Here are some ideas:

• Announce a special, time-sensitive promotion concerning shipping that's worth emphasizing to someone who is about to click the "Add to cart" button.
• Communicate your site's secure ordering process, perhaps by promoting the HackerSafe designation from Scan Alert.

Here's how:
The Teaser Spot is placed at the top of the page, so you could create a graphic image that spans the entire width of the page "body" -- whatever dimension that is for your site. If you're going to post "trust symbols" like the HackerSafe badge, you may want it to float to the far right of the page, with text and other elements on the page wrapping around it. Here's sample code to help you achieve this, which you ought include in the Teaser that you create for this purpose:

Wrap the teaser's contents  in these tags: <div style="float: right">This is my teaser content</div>

Consolidate product option choices to one page

The new product detail page template with tabs for progressive disclosure and minimal scrolling can help you consolidate the product option choices presented to the web shopper. When a product comes in multiple sizes and colors (to use the two most common options for a product), the optimal way to present those choices is on one page. Known as the "product detail page" to Total Blue System users, this page now gracefully handles a product matrix with two, three, or more dimensions.

Here are some highlights:

• Create a product with item ordering options, as many sets as necessary. Examples include color, size, fabric all for one product.
• The Catalog module will perceive which option determines the price variance. The price for each option will then appear in the drop-down select menu that presents that option set. So if the price varies by size, then only the size drop down menu will show the price, separated by white space at the far right of the menu option.
• The price range will be automatically calculated and displayed in place of the product's "Our Price" field value, which is used if there is no price variance among options.
• Each option's select menu will be preceded by a label that you configure. It could be as simple as "Size," for example" or more explanatory as you choose.
• If there are no options for a product, then the drop-down select menus do not appear, of course.

This kind of product arrangement has positive benefits for search engine optimization efforts, as it can eliminate what would otherwise be deemed "duplicate content" from your site as perceived by a search engine spider.

By implementing this kind of product arrangement, you ought also consolidate product reviews into one product detail page. In short, reduce the number of "products" in your website catalog and increase the depth of descriptive content about each product.

The timing of this release matches the release of the new product detail page template in an upcoming System Update that will be coordinated specifically for you and your e-commerce site.

Contact our technical support team for input on how this may interact with your internal order management system. Mail Order Manager users may find there are adjustments necessary to how you store items in MOM, or in how you construct the item # or SKU.

Gain attention and interest in your product, then deliver the details

Feed the appetite of the web shopper who is hungry for information about your products. That's become something of a mantra in our clients' ears this summer, repeated by SEO and merchandising expert Howard Gray. But how much info is too much? And how do you make it all easily digestable in bite-size chunks?

The answer begins with understanding the concept of progressive disclosure, employed by successful sales people down through the ages. But now you have the ability to make immediate use of this concept with the release of a new product detail page template. It's distinguished by it's use of tabs to reveal or hide detailed information about a product or related content on your site. Available now as part of a System Update, the timing of the actual release will be coordinated with you given the need to configure this template in advance and the importance of having given consideration to how best to optimize your catalog.

You can see what's configurable about the product detail page template by going into the Configure section of the Admin Area. Choose the Catalog tab on the left side, and then find the Product Detail configuration options. Here's a few highlights:

• You define the name given to all "tabs" on the page. Default values are presented, but whether or how you use the tabs is up to what's most useful to your website customers. If there's no data associated with that "tab," then the tab won't appear.
• You decide how many tabs appear on your page. Make use of the Description 1 field of course, but you can also use the Description 2 and Description 3 fields as you think best, including HTML code for special formatting.
• Related content now gets more space on the page, adding an incremental boost to search engine optimization efforts. Pick related articles, frequently asked questions, and related product categories, plus upload data files, spec sheets, schematic, or audio files as "supporting content."

Overall, this product detail page template ought give your shopper the opportunity to quickly assess your product's appeal with a minimum of vertical scrolling of the browser window. Then, once attention and interest are present, the page discloses more information as they approach the buying decision.

Look for our contacting you individually to schedule the release of this System Update.

Reduce barriers to collecting product reviews for your catalog

The collection mechanism for product reviews from website visitors used to assume the reviewer will have an account existing with your e-commerce website. This is natural enough for those who have purchased before and created an account. But there remains a barrier for anyone who used the Express Check-out and completed a purchase with a guest account, or who doesn't have account login information handy. A new product review form will eliminate such barriers. Learn more:

E-commerce merchants relying on Total Blue System measure consistently an improved shopper conversion rates for products that have reviews. As a site owner, your efforts to encourage reviews through promotions or incentives will be more effective given the changes summarized here:

• The product review form is now embedded in the product detail page, visible as a "tab" once the "Reviews" text link is clicked if there are no reviews presently approved for this product. If there are approved reviews, then the Reviews tab will appear automatically upon page load and will be the default tab displayed.
• There is no longer a explicit link between a customer account and a product review. There may be such a link re-established via an email address in the future. But in short, the BIG change is that there's no login screen prompt given that there's no tie to an account, leading a would-be reviewer away from the product detail page and delaying the collection of the review.
• The email address field is optional, given that it's no longer tied to an account which requires an email address. You may encourage the email address to confirm the review, follow-up for the sake of a promotional incentive, etc.
• You configure what the "tab" is called. Ideas include "Review" or "Product Reviews" or "Customer Reviews".

By reducing the barriers to collecting product reviews, you will get more reviews. Some reviews will be junk. The intent is to err on the side of collecting too many reviews for now, allowing you as the site administrator to always approve, edit, or reject all reviews before they ever appear on your public website. In the future, it's likely there will be a Captcha authentication element added to the product review form to cut down on bogus reviews.

Note that the timing for the release of this feature upgrade is the same as the release of the new "tabbed" product detail page template.

Identify products in web catalog precisely, quickly

For an e-commerce catalog manager with thousands of products, finding the one product you need to update on your website ought be quick, and precise. The Admin Area's Catalog module offers a new Product Search function designed to help you do just that. Now you can create filters to apply to your product searches.

Filters are ways of identifying a product in a catalog, and can include whether the product is orderable, whether it's displayed publicly on the website's catalog pages, and whether it contains a photo. There are many more filters that might be applied, but these three are shown in the nearby screen shot.  These three are a useful combination because any products that show up in the results after these filters have been applied will be those needing a photo.

Depending on the database integration choices you made when your e-commerce site was established, the presence of a product photo may be a manual step you need to take. Now you can quickly spot which products need photos added, because they're effectively "live" on your website without one.

How else might you use this feature? Here's an idea:  The presence of a product review will impact the purchase conversion rate as measured in your e-commerce analytics software package. We like to take a snapshot reading periodically to identify how many of your products have a review posted by a customer. What's the ratio of products with a review to those without a review?

Find out now by applying filters that identify all of the products that do, or do not, have a product review and are displayable and orderable on your live website catalog.

As new products replace old, keep those links

As your catalog changes and you roll-out new products for a new season, remember that shoppers may return to your site seeking products that you no longer sell. Shoppers can follow links in old email marketing messages, from search engine results pages that have become out of date, and saved bookmarks in web browsers. Why frustrate these prospective buyers with a "page cannot be found" error?

There's no reason to if you do what you can to keep those old product links still working. Here's a review of what we'll call the product lifecycle, with tips on how you can manage your website catalog's links, taking the long view:

First, let's review where you manage whether a product is available for purchase on your website. Go to the Catalog module in your website's Admin Area, and view a product's display options. It will look similar to the screen shot shown nearby.

Of course, Display? must be checked for a product to appear in your site's Path to Purchase, meaning linked within category pages, featured products, and elsewhere. See also the Orderable? field is checked here to make a product be able to be purchased through the Shopping Cart.

Note: For those of you whose internal database or order fulfillment system is integrated with your website, then the Display and Orderable fields will be configured according to your preferences. For example, if you're a Mail Order Manager (MOM) user and you mark an item as "Can't Sell", then the Orderable? field will be unchecked in your Catalog module after the next sync with MOM. See below for consequences of this to the web shopper visiting your site.

Second, let's review where you can check on how a product is categorized within your website's "category tree." This will determine where it appears throughout your site's Path to Purchase. Go to the Catalog module, select the category, and view all products associated with that category (remember, a product can appear in multiple categories). What you'll see will look similar to the screen shot nearby.

Remember also that you can manage which category a product appears within from the edit product detail page, as well as from the edit Category pages in the Admin Area.   

Now let's examine what happens when a product goes through it's lifecycle of starting out as in-stock and orderable and then becomes discontinued and not orderable. Here's where you can see the public website product detail page available to web shoppers in its normal, orderable, displayable state. See that the "add to shopping bag" button appears, along with the color / size option selector.

 

Here's where you see the same product detail page, after the product has been marked "not orderable" within the Catalog module's Admin Area (or by the latest sync with your integrated internal order fulfillment system or database.) See how the "add to shopping bag" button goes away, but all of the product's descriptive details, including it's inventory status, remain displayed.

 

Here's what the product detail page looks like when the same product's Display? field has been unchecked in the Catalog module. The "display" field being unchecked ought correspond to what you might call a discontinued state within your internal database or order fulfillment system. What you see in the screen shot nearby is the navigation menus, top "header" bar, and nothing in the main body of the page but for a simple message saying product XYZ has been discontinued. 

 

Here's the important part:  the URL or link still works given any of the scenarios above. If anyone attempts to follow a link to this page, they'll have quick access to, at least, the navigation menu of your site, including the category that the product was previously available within. No broken links, no "page cannot be found" messages, ever -- so long as the product remains in the Catalog and category. Which brings us to another tip: don't delete products. Instead, mark them to not display and or not be orderable.

 

 

Now let's consider how adjusting whether a product is set to be displayed and orderable impacts the Path to Purchase browsing experience of your web shoppers. Here's the category page in which the product appears, given the Display? field being checked. See the red dot indicating the product in question. If the product's Display? field were unchecked, it would simply disappear from this page. It would also disappear from the site search results (after a minor delay)

 

What this means is that by changing a product's Display? state to be unchecked in the Catalog module's Admin Area, you can remove direct links to the product. At the same time, the URL to that product's product detail page remains valid indefinitely, so long as the product is not deleted from the Catalog module.

Lastly, let's conclude by reviewing some hypothetical examples of a product's lifecycle and how you could manage it:

1. Scenario: For reasons that are important to you (warranties, customer service, technical support, reference by dealers, etc.), you want a product's descriptive details, photos, and technical specs to remain visible on the website, in the product's detail page. But you don't want the product to be purchased. Nor do you want the product to be mixed up with other products that are orderable in the same category, as it will clutter up your offering.  What to do?
   
   Retain the Display? field as checked, and uncheck the Orderable? field. Then move the product into a new category, given some label that indicates it's discontinued or no longer available for purchase.
2. Scenario: The product's on back-order, or the fabric has run out temporarily, or for whatever reason, you want to cease taking orders for this item. What to do?
   
   Retain the Display? field as checked, and uncheck the Orderable? field. Note: for those with integration to your internal order fulfillment system or database, this behavior can be triggered automatically based on inventory levels or thresholds. Also, inventory or shipment availability messages can be configured that allow the item to be purchased, while communicating that it's not available for immediate shipment. Ask us for assistance in optimizing this configuration to meet your business  and seasonal needs.

Whatever your specific scenario, do what you can to preserve a working URL to all product detail pages indefinitely as the product moves through its lifecycle.

Monitor results from Froogle, Google Base

You can send your website product catalog data to the Froogle shopping engine, via the Google Base integration with your website's Catalog module. What's new is that now you can track the results more precisely.

Since our clients have standardized on the Google Analytics tool, we're now embedding a Google Analytics tracking URL within the product URL's that are sent to Google Base from your catalog.

So if your product URL is something like http://www.[domain].com/catalog/category/p_123.html, the URL that is now sent to Google Base looks like this:  http://www.[domain].com/catalog/category/p_123.html? utm_source=googlebase

This uses the utm_source variable and gives it a source that's unique from the 'google' source you'd otherwise see. But because it's a source, you'll see it alongside the other search engine sources in your reports: yahoo, google, ask, msn, etc. (Note: the utm_medium variable is not being specified, so we'll have to see how Google Analytics perceives it, possibly the 'organic' search medium because there is no cost for the Google Base listings.)

We want to measure how effective Google Base will be at sending you qualified buyers. It's important to the future of the Catalog module in 2007, as we anticipate building out the capability for more structured data about your products. One reason to do this is because Google Base can accept more structured data and then refer your products more effectively (in theory). For example, data about what age group your products are appropriate for, as in the case of children's educational products or toys.

But first, let's see what impact Google Base makes in referring shoppers to your site...

Attract shoppers from Froogle via Google Base

You can now feed product information from your website to the Froogle shopping engine.

The Total Blue System Catalog module now enables you to select products individually, or send them all (all that are marked displayable and orderable), to Google Base. Google Base is the engine that now powers Froogle, will also be delivering specially formatted product results to the top of the normal Google search engine results, and promises to power more applications to come from Google.

This Google Base feed is an XML summary of product information, including name, item # / sku, description (without HTML formatting), price, URL to the product on your website, and the "primary" product photo.

Go to the Total Blue System Admin Area, select the Catalog module, and go to the Google Base Export link. There you can initiate a feed to Google Base as often as you like. We recommend this be done whenever you have a number of new products added to your site, or change product prices or photos of existing products. Note: you'll need to have a Google Base account beforehand, and will be prompted to login to Google Base the first time you do this.

We see this as one more way to broaden the exposure of your product line to web shoppers. See an example of products from our client Red Oxx now appearing on Froogle.