Online shoppers are similar to shoppers in stores: Some know exactly what they want to buy, and others need a little help or encouragement to make their buying decision. Is your site helping customers buy or just waiting for the sale?

Simply showing products on a website will get sales, but it will also send some shoppers back to the search engines with their credit card in hand, unfulfilled. You may have had the product the customer wanted but just seeing it wasn’t enough. The price was good, the picture and description were good, but the customer didn’t see enough value to buy from you.

According to research conducted by AOL and the Henley Centre, 70 percent of all respondents agreed that search engines are an important source of information. The same study concluded only 24 percent of sales staff in stores are significantly informative. (Source: Internet Advertising Bureau UK). What is interesting about this research is not that 70 percent saw value in the information obtained from search engines, but that only 24 percent saw value in the sales staff in stores. If shoppers feel that over 75 percent of sales people in stores do nothing to enhance their buying experience, then certainly you can do better on your website.

The success of e-commerce websites should involve the use of best practices based on the most current research available. This involves some amount of research, but it is the difference between showing your products (hoping someone buys) versus selling your products (helping them make the decision) based on what you know works best for you.  Which sounds more profitable?

Know your customers

Site visitors are motivated to purchase by many different factors. By identifying as many of those buying motivations as possible you can establish a personal one-to-one relationship with each customer based on his or her specific motivations.

An in-store sales staff, unless highly trained and very experienced, has a limited view of any specific product. You, on the other hand, have the advantage of knowledge, and you are working in an environment that enables you to create a one-to-one relationship with each of your target demographics. You can take a cross section of your best customers, your most profitable segments, and tailor your message(s) to satisfy individual buying motivation.

Product descriptions that are tailored for specific segments help to create that one-to-one relationship. For example, a solid selling message for males can be, and at times should be, different for females for the very same product. By the way, don’t assume that a product description supplied by the manufacturer is the best description for selling.

The same messaging holds true for selling to younger buyers. Present your selling message in terms to which your buyers can relate. You’ll stand a much better chance of closing the sale. If the word “awesome” is “so yesterday,” it won’t sell anything today.  Speak the right language and that one-to-one relationship will result in more sales.

Building one-to-one relationships adds value to your website, and the more value you offer the greater the opportunity that you will have exactly what each buyer is looking for.

		Ryan Vartoogian is president and founder of Spartan Internet Consulting Corp., a website development firm in Lansing.