Apply the Rules You Already Know

Here’s a breakthrough idea for enhancing your Web site to make it perform more effectively: Apply the catalog rules you already know!

After all, catalogs are a visual medium and so is the Web. When you’re selling products, the product picture and other graphic elements are kings. Though good catalogers already know the key rules of catalog design and merchandising, for some reason these rules are not being applied consistently to even the best Web sites. Let’s focus on a few of the key catalog rules you should be applying to your e-commerce site.

Maximize Your Hot Spots. We know that a print catalog has several hot spots in which we place our best-selling (in units or dollars), highest-margin, or most brand appropriate/brand enhancing items. The hot spots, of course, are the front and back covers, front and back inside spreads and the pages around the order form or any other bind-in card.

Likewise, your Web sites have hot spots that need to be leveraged with your best-selling items, brand positioning statements, unique selling proposition statements, offers, and similar items that you feature in your catalog.

These hot spots will be:
• the site’s home page or other landing pages (common points of entry for visitors to your Web site),
• the second page shown after the first click,
• category opening pages, search results pages,
• and the checkout page.

These are areas of your site that are most often viewed and therefore should be leveraged. With the right online reporting tools and careful analysis, you may find other pages that also have high viewership and deserve special layout attention.

Create Great Covers/Landing Pages. We know that the catalog cover is of the utmost importance in getting people inside the book (or at least not to pitch it into the recycling bin before they even leave the post office). This is especially true for prospects. One of the revolutionary aspects of the Internet is that your Web site is accessible to tens of millions of first-time visitors.

In order to keep the viewer from clicking on the dreaded Close box or Back browser button, the landing page of your Web site should do all of the things that a catalog cover does. It should grab attention, communicate the brand and positioning and what kinds of products you offer, create interest and intrigue, explain any offers, and in many instances sell a product. Many home pages I’ve critiqued do not do this as effectively as the company’s catalog covers—especially when it comes to communicating what they sell.

Create Good Eyeflow. When consumers read a catalog spread, we know that they start in the upper right corner, cross over to the left outside edge, then follow a diagonal line down to the right bottom corner and off the page. This has been tested many times. So, the upper right of every spread is a coveted position that is leveraged with the best sellers, highest-margin items, and so on. And we also make this item a “hero” by making it larger, giving it call-outs, adding graphical elements or using other techniques. This grabs consumers’ attention and draws them into the spread.

We should treat each Web page similarly. The upper right should pull attention onto the page and lead the eye around (being careful not to build the screen too wide so that users have to scroll left/right or miss some items altogether). The pages should not be so busy that the eye doesn’t know where to land or where to look next.

Feature Your Best Items. Products don’t all sell the same, so don’t show them the same. Along with creating good eyeflow comes the task of ensuring that your best items (measured by dollars, margin or units, depending on your goals) are featured.

I am amazed at how many Web sites show pages and pages of items all the same size, in tiny little thumbnails. On many clothing sites, the clothes look like they might even be for dolls! When consumers search by keywords, or click on a product category, they should be presented with a page that features an item and then shows them additional, related items. Maybe you want to show the additional items smaller, but commit to something and present that to your customer—that’s what being a good merchant is all about.

Be Thoughtful With Type. Again, most catalogers understand the science behind typography. They know that sans serif type is more difficult to read than serif, high-chroma and reversed text is difficult to read, headlines should be in upper and lower case, line lengths should not be too long and so forth. Yet on many Web sites, these rules are broken repeatedly.

There is a lot of sans serif body copy on the Web. Is it because the development software defaults to Arial? I’m not sure but it’s making your copy difficult to read.

Show Your Toll-free Number On Every Page. Catalogers add the Web address to the bottom of every catalog page, so why isn’t the toll-free number at the bottom of every Web page?

As so many e-commerce studies have shown, 70 percent of shopping carts are abandoned. Imagine the mess if that were true at the local grocery! This should be telling us that something is very wrong. So, why not make it as easy as possible to order or get a question answered while trying to order? A phone number just might save that sale.

Prominently Display Your Guarantee. In a catalog, the guarantee is often placed on the inside front cover, order form, on graphic bugs used throughout the book and often on the back cover. Quite a lot of key space is dedicated to assuring customers that we want them to be happy or we’ll provide a remedy if something isn’t right.

But on most Web sites, the guarantee is only at the bottom of the home page in flea-sized type or buried in some “About Us” page, —often never seen again. With the current consumer concerns about the credibility of Web companies, why not put your guarantee or at least a button linking to it on every page? While you’re at it, make your privacy policy prominent, too.

Present Offers Effectively. If you were presenting an offer to everyone (e.g., free shipping with a $100 order), then you would want to remind your customers of that offer as often as possible. In your catalog, you might put that on the front cover, back cover, order form and on individual items priced higher than $100. Yet on most Web sites, this is only on the home page or the ordering page. It should be repeated on every page, and especially at checkout or in the shopping cart if the buyer is close to the $100 threshold: “Spend just $10 more and your shipping will be FREE!”

A good merchant knows selling products is much different than merely offering products for sale. I don’t see many Web sites doing a good job of selling. If you simply apply the rules that you already know about selling in your off-line catalog, I’m confident you’ll see improvements in your online conversions and sales.

Phil Minix is executive vice president and general manager of J. Schmid & Associates. He can be reached at (913) 236-2408 or at philm@jschmid.com.