E-business Coach Commerce

Streamlined cart checkout process debuts: new or returning customer?

To be a guest, or not to be a guest? That is the question that's no longer going to confront shoppers attempting to checkout. Since 2005 shoppers debated their answer to that question when using E-business Coach Commerce powered web stores. As of the System Update on 13 April for some client sites (and then 20 April for remaining sites), that question goes away on the cart items page leading to the checkout.

Fundamentally, requiring an email address need not deter a shopper in 2009. Making an email address optional was at the heart of the reason for offering a guest checkout years ago. But today's merchants tell us they don't want to fulfill orders without an email address; asking for it doesn't deter sales if it's presented in an appropriate context. So long as there's no cumbersome "create an account, choose your password,  date of birth, mother's maiden name, how did you hear about us, what did you have for dinner last night..." -- okay, we got carried away there. But you understand examples of unnecessary questions being barriers to checkout. They ought be minimal.

Now when ready to checkout, the shopper clicks one of the two large "Checkout" buttons on the cart items page. No longer are they confronted with a three-way, sign-in, register-as-new or checkout-as-guest decision.

The next page presents the customer with two options for continuing.

1. One is for new customers who are asked to provide their email address.
2. The other is for returning customers to log in.
   
   Either action results in the display of the checkout address page. What happens behind the scenes is that for the new customer, an account has been created.

While on the surface these changes appear slight, we believe they significantly reduce friction in the checkout process. No longer is a new customer required to make a decision on the nature of the relationship they want to establish. They simply identify themselves as new, provide an email address, and then they move quickly through the buying process.

• Note: this changes the "goal funnel" for Google Analytics. As part of your Priority Support program, we'll update your site's profile with the new goal URL's to keep your tracking of conversion rates accurate. Then we'll measure results and learn what can be further improved.

Increase average order value with cart item page's suggestion features

'Let the buyer buy' is a favorite sales mantra of ours. It elaborates in a positive way on the adage that 'people love to buy, but hate to be sold.' In the latest System Update, new shopping cart / basket features help you the merchant let those buyers buy, offering new suggestions at a most opportune time. Let's explain: 

The page viewed by a shopper after she adds an item to her basket or cart is one we've called the cart items page. It's the page that lists all the items in the cart, their total cost, and an invitation to checkout. This System Update releases a new version of this cart items page with a great many improvements. For now, let's focus on the feature that helps you increase the average order value on your site. Cross-sell or up-sell in the basket. Here's how:

Underneath the items in the cart, shoppers now see a shopping suggestions section. The "Continue Shopping" link directly above this section will return the shopper to the page of the product last added to the cart, if any. Underneath this link there are two rows of up to three products, including a thumbnail photo and link, that are suggestioned to the customer:

• The first row of suggested products are products related to the category of the last item placed in the cart.
• The second row contains featured products in the category of the last item placed in the cart.
• If there are no products shown in this suggestions section, it means you have not flagged any of your products to meet the above two criteria.

The intent behind this design is that there ought be, without extra effort on your part, related products in the category from which an item was just added to the cart. This means it ought be easy for you to ensure there's always at least one suggested item. The second part, the featured products row, makes it possible for you to intentionally bring extra visibility to whatever product you feature. Now a featured product will show up in category pages, and the cart items page. Makes sense, right? 

To ensure understanding of how to use this new feature, see the help topic "Cart Effectiveness Tips" in your site's Commerce Admin Area. 

• Note: select sites will receive this new feature in the April 13th System Update, and others will receive this upgrade on 20 April.

Offer shoppers a shipping incentive to identify the source of their order

You can now put to use enhancements to the promotions module of E-Business Coach  Commerce, available as of the latest System Update. You can now create a promotion whereby the customer is offered a fixed dollar or pound amount off one, some or all shipping services.

As with other promotion types, this promotion type can be triggered by the entry of a coupon / discount / promo code. Such promotions can be used to inexpensively induce the customer to enter a code, facilitating tracking the effectiveness of a specific marketing campaign. This new feature is also a way of extending the order discount inherent in free standard shipping promotions to customers selecting more costly shipping services.

PayPal available as payment method within your "branded" checkout process

PayPal is now available as a payment option for merchants powering their e-commerce site with Total Blue System. The Paypal Express Checkout feature can be enabled for the shopping cart checkout process. Web shoppers will then have the option of using a PayPal account to pay for their order instead of using a credit card.

• Note that this is the advanced method of integrating with PayPal, whereby your website shoppers will appear to stay within your own, branded shopping cart checkout pages. The exception to this will be when a shopper must login to his or her PayPal account at www.paypal.com to authorize the payment. Then the shopper is returned to your branded checkout page and shown a finalize order and receipt page. Many "PayPal" enabled shopping cart programs simple send your shopper off to a PayPal branded checkout page and do not return the shopper to the merchant's website.

To read about why you should consider offering PayPal as a payment option on your site and to find out how to get started, please read our previous PayPal announcement that discusses these topics. And if you have your Total Blue System site integrated with MOM, be sure to read our post about PayPal and MOM integration.

Remember, PayPal positions itself as a way for a shopper to ease anxiety about sharing with you, the merchant, his or her credit card information. It's appeal is in the apparent security of keeping the payment details in one place, i.e., with PayPal, and not sharing it all over the Internet with lots of web merchants. If you're looking to increase your first-time new customers who may not yet be convinced they trust you yet, then PayPal becomes a useful feature for you. In our beta testing with one client, shoppers chose PayPal almost 2 out of 10 orders.

Contact us at E-Business Coach to discuss integration steps for your Total Blue System site if you'd like to take advantage of this new feature.

Paypal payment option soon to be available during cart checkout

Paypal will soon be a payment option available to merchants powering their e-commerce site with Total Blue System. We are incorporating the Paypal Express Checkout feature into the shopping cart checkout process. This feature will give customers the option of using a Paypal account to pay for their order instead of a credit card.

• By providing Paypal as a payment option, you will offer an alternative for customers who are not comfortable entering their credit card information on what, for them, may be an unfamiliar web site if it's their first purchase or if they're from another country.
• Other customers may simply prefer the convenience of using Paypal, as their payment information and shipping address are already provided in their Paypal account. Note: your customers who do not currently have a Paypal account will have the opportunity to create one as part of the Paypal Express Checkout process.

By providing Paypal as a payment option on your site, you have the potential to improve shopping cart conversation rates and make a significant impact on your bottom line.

If you want to know more about adding Paypal as a payment option on your Total Blue System site, you can learn about Getting Started with PayPal. This page your will walk you through the three steps for becoming a Paypal merchant. Step three is "Implement your preferred payment solution".

That's where we come in. Contact us at E-Business Coach to discuss integration steps for your Total Blue System site and back-office fulfillment database if you'd like to take advantage of this new feature.

Streamlining shopping cart's "view items" page makes room for custom messaging

Total Blue System's shopping cart includes a "view items" page where a shopper may view the contents of their order and decide whether to check-out. Some adjustment to this page, to be released in the System Update scheduled for 9 June, 2008 warrant your attention:

• The text that appears in the top / middle of the page that reads "Review the items listed below in your cart [basket]. You can modify your cart [basket] to change the quantities ordered, remove items from your cart [basket], or check out." will be removed. There is no replacement for it; it just becomes blank.
• If you wish to keep this or a similar instruction to your shoppers, you can place a message of your choosing (text, graphics, HTML) into the appropriate Teaser Spot on the cart items page. This Teaser Spot is identified as "             Cart View Items Page. Description: Displays at the top of the page showing all items in the shopper's cart." The net result can be the same as the status quo, as this Teaser Spot is placed just above where the text to be r

This change is one example of a number of refinements to the page templates being introduced, with the consequences being two-fold:

1. You can control or customize the language used in the cart check-out process, via the use of the Teaser Spots that are scattered throughout it. Teasers can of course be text, graphics, or some combination of both within HTML.
2. You can streamline or minimize what might be perceived as distractions to the shopper by removing content rather than adding to it.

If you have questions on locating the appropriate Teaser Spots or otherwise responding to this forthcoming change, please make a Priority Support request through normal channels.

Simplify choices during check-out by removing "express" language

When shoppers are ready to check-out and complete a purchase on your e-commerce website, there ought not be any confusing choices about what to do next. Encourage the purchasing process along by presenting useful "default" behaviors or paths. That's the thinking behind this latest refinement to the shopping cart's "View Items" page -- the page showing all the items presently in the shopper's cart or basket and, importantly, the check-out button: Here's an explanation of the before / after changes to be rolled out to Total Blue System websites on 31 March:

• "Express Checkout" is renamed to "Proceed to Checkout" and moved up to be the first radio button listed among the 3 choices.
• "Create Account" is renamed to "Create New Account" and moves to the 3rd option listed
• "Use My account" moves to be the 2nd option listed.
• The lighter shading of gray, presently outlining the options "Use My Account" and "Create Account" and explaining the benefits of an account is adjusted. It's adjusted so that these options, now #2 and #3 remain shaded.
• The CSS used to highlight this "lighter gray" area, may be customized using some lighter, brighter color to match your site design.

In effect, the language suggesting an "Express" purchase option is assumed. This means that unless the shopper changes the default setting, he or she will not be prompted to create a website account when completing the purchase. Now, the idea that the shopper needs to have an account or ought use their existing account is a decision that need not be made, or need not confuse the completion of the purchase. If the shopper knows about this website already, and remembers creating an account at a prior time, then the shopper may change the default setting to make use of his or her account. Based on the experiences of a Total Blue System merchant who assisted with testing this change beginning in November 2007, here's the likely consequences you can expect for your website:

• More shoppers will choose the "Proceed to Checkout" default option, meaning they will not "create an account" on the website, meaning they will not have the option to return to the site, login, and check order status.
• The conversion rate for shoppers will go up, as there's no longer a potential question / doubt / roadblock thrown up about having to sign-in to your account or create a new one before completing the purchase.

This represents a subtle but important change in how shoppers complete the purchase process on your e-commerce website.

Consistent display of item's price given quantity discount

You've asked for more flexibility, freeing you to creatively design shopping cart promotions that give shoppers just the right incentive to complete a purchase. We've listened, and are up to our elbows in an overhaul of Total Blue System's shopping cart promotions module. Read our alerts here, or trust we'll contact you directly in advance if there's an impact to existing promotions on your e-commerce website.

As we introduce a more flexible and creative feature set, the shopping experience will evolve. Some changes will be significant and appealing, other changes will be subtle and possibly appear trivial. Here's the latest:

• Today the display of a product's price on the product detail page -- or category gallery pages, or recently viewed items, or wherever a product's price appears -- is conditional based on the presence of a special pricing discount promotion. What this means, to use an example, is that if there's a buy 1 at $10 normal price and a 'buy 2 at $8' pricing promotion, then after you add 1 item to your shopping cart, the product's price will appear as $8. This is because it's showing you the price for the next purchase. However, you're shopping cart will show the one item you've already added to your cart at a price of $10, the normal price.
• What's changed in the latest System Update:  the product's price will now display as $10 throughout the website rather than $8. IF you add a second item to the cart, then the cart will show the special pricing discount you've received. The product detail page and other pages will show the normal price.

Note that the product detail page can still contain messaging that explains the pricing discount, that being the option to save if you buy more than one quantity. But this will be in text that's separate from the official 'your' price of the product, as it's visually designated on the page.

For users of Mail Order Manager (MOM), the mix and match code pricing will still be recognized, and the explanation on the product detail page will still appear as normal. For example, the message "Buy 2 for $8" would appear in the normal place on the page, based on mix and match code pricing imported from MOM.

The intent of this change is to eliminate potential confusion of the shopper. This means showing discounts or special savings consistently on the cart items page, while not inconsistently displaying the product's normal price elsewhere.

Updates to shipping during shopping cart check-out

As your e-commerce software continually grows and incorporates new enhancements, it's worthwhile to pause now and again and ask: what ought be removed? In other words, as new features are added, does it make sense to remove some features that have lost or never gained substantive value over time? We say yes. A software product ought be pruned in some areas, even as it grows in others.

Here's a couple updates along those lines concerning shipping during the cart check-out. As you review them, know that they do not impact our present clientele, or the impact has been mitigated, or the client's needs will be managed differently and we've worked out those changes with you directly. If something's been overlooked, please contact us immediately:

• When shipping costs are equal to $0.00, because of a promotion or coupon code or just because that's the way you've set up your Shipping Services, then the line item on the order subtotal will display as £0.00 or $0.00 (the currency being configurable by you, the site owner). Before, it used to display as "Free". Now it's the actual amount, even if that's zero.
• A site-wide configuration to allow shoppers to specify during cart check-out a shipment arrival date and or the day of the week for shipment arrival has been removed.
• A product may no longer ordered as a "pre-order item," with implications for inventory management, shipping cost calculations, and multiple shipments.
• Related to the above pre-order items, there is also no longer a "ship-ahead" option for shoppers to choose, specifying that they want the in-stock items to be shipped ahead of those that are not yet in inventory because of a pre-order status.
• In the Admin Area of Total Blue System, there is a place to view order details. What's changed: the shipping calculations are no longer split out into costs for pre-order, back-order, and ship-ahead, as these features are no longer present to make the data meaningful.
• The "estimated" qualifier has been removed from the cart check-out process when it appeared next to the shipping amount. This qualifier related to the fact that there may have been back-order items that, when shipped, would be charged a different shipping amount than the shipping total specified at the time of check-out. The removal of this language doesn't prevent you from charging more or nothing for additional shipments of back-ordered items, but it does eliminate the ambiguity that caused concern among shoppers. You can communicate your own policies in "Teasers" on the Cart check-out pages where you think appropriate, to communicate what you wish.
• If you create a Shipping Service in the Admin Area of Total Blue System, and you define a maximum shipping weight, this weight total now applies to all items in the order, even those specified as on back-order status.
• Promotions involving the cost of shipping now apply to orders that include items  that have a back-ordered inventory status.

Pitch the email opt-in after you've got the order

For every merchant who wants to query would-be buyers with all sorts of questions (yes, we love the data, too), there's a shopper who wants to buy with a minimum of hassle. Creating a website account in order to make a purchase of cart items can be one such hassle that our latest System Update seeks to reduce. New: an email opt-in invitation no longer appears on the Create a New Account page.

The website account creation process for site visitors is now separate from the act of opting-in to receive email offers. With the latest System Update, the Create a New Account page now asks these two questions only:  your email address, and "How did you hear about us?" -- assuming the merchant has configured this question and answer options to appear here.

So what can be done to encourage a shopper who wants to buy to also opt-in to email offers? Here's a couple of ideas:

1. Make use of Teasers in your site's navigation bars to call attention to your Publications sign-up form page at http://www.yourdomain.com/profile/signup or alternatively the Quick Sign-up form if you use it.

2. Configure the Cart Thank you Page Teaser to offer an invitation to opt-in. This Teaser displays after the cart's order has been placed. It's a great time to encourage your new customer to stay in touch and get great offers by email. Here's a tip on how to do this:

In your teaser, as a link around a graphic image or as a text link, point to this special URL: http://www.yourdomain.com/profile/edit_using_session_email

When you do this, the site visitor who clicks through will be brought to the Update Your Profile page and the email address he or she already entered during the cart check-out process will be pre-populated in the appropriate form field. (If the shopper used the Express Checkout option and didn't enter an email address, then of course it won't appear.)

By setting up the Cart Thank you Page Teaser in this manner, you can keep the continuity of the ordering process going with minimum interruption, and then pitch the email opt-in at an opportune time: after you've got the order.