EPORIA eCommerce Website Development Transforms Online Business

EPORIA Serves Up D’Artagnan Gourmet Food eCommerce Website with Unprecedented Results

EPORIA and leading gourmet food purveyor D’Artagnan announced that D’Artagnan’s eCommerce website, which was launched in October on the EPORIA platform, generated higher online sales for the months of December and January than the company has ever seen, with January seeing double digit sales growth over 2009.

“Launching in time for our busiest season was key for us, so we could capitalize on holiday traffic and convert visitors on the new platform,” said Katie Holler, Director of eCommerce for the 25-year-old gourmet food company. “EPORIA helped us every step of the way, from design to implementation, and met our tight timeframe with a week to spare!” The two companies collaborated closely to accomplish this feat. “As a result,” says Holler, “we had the best December online in the history of the business, and the month of January was up 17% over last year.”

Recognizing the desire for increased online sales and a richer online presence for its expanding clientele, D’Artagnan selected EPORIA for their focus on results, and for the platform’s robust feature set, which is perfectly suited to an elite gourmet food brand like D’Artagnan.

The website’s extraordinary results began immediately after launch. EPORIA’s search engine friendly platform and comprehensive SEO expertise led to rapid indexing of the new website’s pages–nearly 90% of the new pages were listed in search engines within just days after launch. “We were extremely impressed with the results,” says Holler. “Just two weeks after launch, our rankings on the first three pages of search returns increased 400%. I’ve never seen a site index so fast.”

“From the day we launched, our daily order volume and average order value have seen double digit increases and our conversion rate has already nearly tripled,” Holler reports. In the due diligence phase of researching potential eCommerce solutions and partners, Holler often told the EPORIA team that the EPORIA eCommerce solution sounded “too good to be true.” Since the launch, Holler confirms that “we can now see the results for ourselves, and it’s true—EPORIA really is that good. And on top of it, they offer a great value for your investment.”

Read the complete story for more details

Contact us to learn about how we can help grow your business online.

eCommerce White Paper – eCommerce Best Practices Guide

EPORIA has developed a formula to increase web sales by encouraging your qualified traffic to actually place more orders.

Discover how to increase your conversion rates and average order totals with our FREE eCommerce Best Practices Guide: Formula for Conversion and learn how your website can help you sell more.

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Cross-Selling Tips to Maximize Online Sales & Conversion

The art of effective cross-selling (offering related items) and up-selling (suggesting more expensive alternatives) on your product pages can make a significant difference in the overall sales volume and conversion ratio of your ecommerce website.

Effective Cross-selling and Up-selling can Increase:

• Average order totals
• Conversion rates
• Exposure to higher margin items and best sellers
• Awareness of the depth of your offerings
• Overall customer satisfaction by helping to find the product or service offering that best meets your visitor’s needs

Cross-Selling Dos

• Only feature highly relevant items such as accessories directly related to the product offered or as an alternative of the product
• Use personal words such as “you”, opposed to “we”. For example, “You Might Also Like”, not “May We Also Suggest”
• Choose items that sell well and have higher margins whenever possible
• Keep you cross-sells down to three suggestions. This seems to be the magic number to create interest while not overwhelming or distracting your customer from making a choice
• Whenever possible, show the most obvious choices someone would want to go along with their purchase such as a matching necklace to go along with diamond earrings
• Continually test your cross-selling tactics and work at improving them for maximum effectiveness
• Look through your order history to find proven cross-sell items. For example, previous customers often bought product “A” when they bought product “B”

 Cross-Selling Don’ts

• Never, ever, show items that are not “directly” related to the main product
• Don’t show items that are out of stock unless backorders are available – Note: During the holiday shopping season, try not to cross-sell anything that isn’t readily available
• Don’t use cross-selling to simply try unloading unwanted inventory. The goal is to maximize your overall sales totals and conversion rates. Unwanted inventory can have its own area on your site such as a Clearance or Specials section
• Don’t try cross-selling big-ticket items. As a general rule the incremental cross-sell/up-sell should be 10-25% of the price of the original item on the product page

What Do You Think?

Everyone seems to have their own ideas about what cross-selling strategies work best for their ecommerce business. What do you think about cross-selling as an online marketer or customer? Have you had success increasing sales or buying products due to cross-selling? Leave a comment and share your thoughts!

Holiday Season 2009 eCommerce Sales & Marketing Checklist

Your eCommerce website should be ready and rolling for the holiday season and online Christmas sales. Whether you believe your site is ready or not, review the following Holiday Season 2009 eCommerce Sales & Marketing Checklist. If you find anything below that you haven’t already addressed, now is the time to make it happen!

1. Take advantage of your home page primary banner and ad spaces to present strong and attractive holiday imagery and feature your holiday season best sellers.
2. Make sure your best selling products are also featured in the top positions of your department category pages. Make it as easy as possible for your visitors to find what they want and buy from you.
3. Optimize your content for the holiday season. Make sure you’re using the right keywords on your pages for both visitors and the search engines to let them know about your holiday offers.
4. Use strong calls to action with an emphasis for your customers to buy now. Experiment with limited-time offers (“Three days only!”) and other variations (“While supplies last – order now!”).
5. Make sure product images and product page content are rich and enticing.
6. Maximize cross selling opportunities by suggesting the most relevant items related to each product right on that product’s page.
7. Ensure that your email marketing campaigns have a strong focus on your offerings and present your brand in the best light. Make sure to include “forward to a friend” links to capitalize on viral marketing.
8. Make the most of your site’s ad positions. Ensure that all ads on your site only feature your best selling holiday products or offers positioned as giftable. This is not the time to promote lower converting merchandise.
9. Don’t skimp on promotions. People are actively searching for special offers online during the holidays such as free or discounted shipping, percentage or dollar amount discounts, special offer promotion codes via email and affiliate programs, and cross promotions (buy one get one free).
10. If you have membership or club groups, create specials that are designed just for them and make sure you let them know with email marketing pieces that make it clear that these special offers are only available to them to add perceived value to their previous purchase and keep them coming back to buy more.
11. Review your site’s search engine optimization (SEO) and work at updating your most important pages for the holidays.
12. Make sure all of your pay-per-click (PPC) ads, such as Google AdWords ads, are using the best keywords for the season and that you’re also applying negative keywords to reduce wasted clicks and ad budgets.
13. Ensure affiliate ad materials for your affiliate networks are enticing and up to date with your most important and most likely to convert holiday offers. Think in terms of click-through and conversion.
14. Publish new online articles, content pages, and blog posts, optimized for the search engines, for your most important holiday product or service offerings.
15. Get social. Make sure to let those who follow your blog posts, tweets on Twitter, or other social media efforts know about your special holiday offers and give them an incentive to click through to your site and buy.

How many of the above items have you already implemented to maximize your online sales for the 2009 online holiday shopping season? It’s not too late! Optimize for the holidays and convert more with your seasonal promotions.

Most Shoppers Who Abandon Their Carts Return to Buy

In a previous post, Common Reasons for eCommerce Shopping Cart Abandonment, we pointed out that shopping cart abandonment averages as high 78 percent. However, a recent study by McAfee has found that nearly two-thirds (65%) of online shoppers who abandon their carts come back within a day or more to complete the purchase.

McAfee’s study of more than 150 million online transactions indentified the following reasons why online shoppers often delay purchases after placing items in their shopping carts:

• Brand Recognition: Well-known brands experience shorter purchase delays than lesser-known brands since shoppers will often research lesser-known brands before making a purchase.
• Competition: If items being sold are in a highly competitive market, it will take more time for shoppers to come back and complete the purchase since they want to shop around before finalizing their order. On the other hand, items that are unique or harder to find will experience quicker order completions.
• Information Gathering: Online shoppers often add items to the shopping cart so they can easily purchase them later if they want and also to find out what’s required from them in the checkout process.
• Price: Higher priced items will usually take longer to lead to a completed order since shoppers will often want to think more before committing to making an expensive online purchase.

Although the information found by McAfee is highly insightful, online retailers should study their own abandonment and conversion numbers very closely – and not simply hope shoppers that abandon their carts will come back. In other words, you should always be looking for improvements to your site’s content and offerings to reduce your cart abandonment rate.

When was the last time you analyzed your site’s cart abandonment and conversion rates? With the holiday shopping season literally around the corner, this is information you should be looking at and taking action on immediately.

Email Marketing Still Drives Results

Email marketing is one of the best ways to promote an eCommerce website. Since fans of a site and its product offerings are likely to want to receive promotional offers and news. Think about it, do you receive email marketing from companies you’ve done business with that you like to receive, such as those from your favorite specialty store or big box retailer? For most people, the answer is an overwhelming yes!

Is your company actively using email marketing to grow your brand and increase sales? If not, consider the following numbers recently published by eMarketer.

• 94% of marketing emails were delivered in Q1 2009
• 22% of these emails were opened
• 6% were clicked through

Now stop and think about these numbers for a moment (seriously). Of all marketing emails delivered in Q1 2009, 22% were opened and 6% produced clicks directly resulting in website traffic and potential sales.

There is no question that email continues to be an effective marketing tool that drives results. How effectively is your company using email marketing to grow your business?

Share your thoughts by commenting below.

Despite a Slower Economy, Online Sales Continue Strong Growth

A recent report from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that despite a slower economy (and traditional in-store retail sales being significantly down) eCommerce retail sales are still growing at a strong pace.

The chart below shows estimated quarterly U.S. retail eCommerce sales as a percent of total quarterly retail sales from the 4th Quarter of 1999 to the 2nd Quarter 2009.

If retail eCommerce can go against all of the current economic odds, just imagine how much more growth there will be as the economy improves.

 View Complete U.S. Census Bureau Report

Contact us to learn more about how eCommerce can help your business.

Keywords and Phrases for Search Engine Optimization

Since we are regularly asked about SEO and how it works, we thought it might help to provide a basic SEO primer for those that are challenged with the task. Keep in mind that the guidelines provided here are general principles to help get you going in the right direction. Successful SEO requires many elements including keywords, Meta tags, content, URLs and links. However, the focus of this blog post will be on the subject of keywords.

Overview of basic keyword elements

• Keywords in Title Tags – The Title tags of your web pages are among the most important elements in optimizing your website since they tell both search engines and potential visitors what your web pages are about. Make sure your Title tags use your most important keywords and total approximately 60 characters in length including spaces.
• Keywords in Meta Tags – Keywords used in Keyword and Description Meta Tags are still of importance and search engines such as Yahoo! and Bing rely on them. Also, Google specifically looks for unique Description Meta Tags on every page of your site.
• Keywords in URLs – Using keywords in your URLs can help with your SEO efforts, for example http://yourdomainname.com/seo-services.html, where “SEO Services” is the keyword phrase you want to rank well for. However, as with any SEO element, the words must also be in the content of your web page.
• Keywords in Headings – Your most important keyword phrase for each page of your site should be used as a heading on the page and within the pages content. For example, your “SEO Services” page should contain a heading on the page of “SEO Services” and the content of the page should also contain these words. If you have another page about “Website Design”, then you should be targeting the words “Website Design” on that page.
• Keywords Upfront – The first sentence of your page content should start off with your most important keyword phrase and this phrase should be tactfully woven though the rest of the web page content without being redundant.
• Keyword Density – Keyword density refers to the percentage of times your keywords or keyword phrase is used on a web page. As a rule, keywords should be woven into your content in a natural manner as you would use in conversation. You should aim for a keyword density of approximately 3 to 7 percent. Once your keyword density goes over 10 percent, your web page may be considered by the search engines as Spam and your page may receive a ranking penalty, or even be removed from the search engines index.

Applying keywords as suggested above will help your website to achieve higher rankings in the search engines. Remember, the search engines do not understand what your web pages are about unless you make it clear to them.

Check back next week to learn about applying Meta tags to your website.

eCommerce Reality Check for Success

If you’ve read any of our previous blog posts you’re probably starting to pick up on a theme; being successful online takes effort. As a matter of fact, building a thriving ecommerce business takes the same amount of hard work and discipline as building any other business, if not more so.

The following tips will help you to grow your ecommerce business into a success if you apply them on a constant basis.

• Plan ahead for everything – It isn’t uncommon for a lot of ecommerce companies to miss significant selling opportunities due to not being ready ahead of time. This being the case, everything should be planned at least three months in advance. This includes seasonal promotions, product offerings, PPC and SEO campaigns, site design elements, etc.
• Make continuous improvements to your site – Many online businesses start with an incredible amount of enthusiasm only to fizzle out due to unrealistic expectations. Once your online store is up and running this isn’t the time to sit back and see what happens. This approach is guaranteed for failure. In order to be successful online, you need to apply the same mentality of the major players of constantly improving and growing your website. Keep in mind that search engines as rule like larger sites and they thrive on quality content. With this said, make getting big fast and continually growing your content resources a top priority.
• Keep it real – Some business people still view the internet as something different from their physical business locations. In other words, they think it’s OK to do things online that they wouldn’t do in the real world such as questionable marketing tactics to generate sales. Contrary to the “old school” way of thinking, your web presence is just as important, if not more important, than your physical business location. In today’s wired world, most potential customers will find you via the internet opposed to driving by your business or finding you in the yellow pages. If your online presence is not coming across as the most reputable and professional in your field, your competitors are only a click away.
• Promote, promote, and promote some more – If you are not actively working on marketing your online business every day, the odds of success are not in your favor. Like any business, you don’t set up a store, load it with products, and wait for something to happen… This methodology does not work in the traditional retail world and it will not work online either. Any successful online business is constantly marketing their site 24 hours a day 365 days a year. In addition to online marketing methods such as SEO and PPC marketing, think about other things you can do such as sending out flyers and bumper stickers with your orders. Having strong email signatures that promote your business. Using signage on your physical locations and vehicles. The options are endless, and the more you market your business – the more successful it will be.
• Don’t scare customers away – Have you ever visited a website, found their offers interesting, and then they got too nosy? You’ve seen these sites that want your zip code, your email address, etc. before providing any of the information you want. If you’re like most people you simply leave. With this said, if you apply such tactics, your potential customers will do the same. Don’t ask your customers to provide more information than necessary and by all means do not force them to set up an account to shop with you. This may have worked in the past, but today’s online shoppers aren’t going to do this as easily, which will result in lost sales for your business.
• Be the expert in your industry – The quickest way to gain ground on your competition, online or off, is by being an expert. However, this is even more so the case online where people are seeking information on products and services before making a purchase. Now, if you were a consumer and a site attracted you with the informational content you were looking for, and they also offered the product for sale, this would be a double win since these folks know what they’re talking about and they sell exactly what you want or need. This comes back to what was said earlier about making continuous improvements and maximizing your content opportunities. Simply showing a little picture with a blurb of text about your offering is not going to put you in a competitive position with leaders in your industry that offer online instruction manuals, lists of complementing products and accessories, additional product views, detailed product specs, etc.
• If you don’t know ask – If you feel your website isn’t living up to its potential, your marketing isn’t effective, or you aren’t applying strategic site development that works – by all means ask a professional for help. Sometimes all it takes is a minor change to make a website more successful and in other cases it may require setting up a new site that is up-to-date to compete in today’s online savvy world. Remember there’s no shame in asking for help, especially if doing so saves your business money and increases your online sales.

The above principles should be a major part of your core thought processes and actions on a daily basis. Again, you can’t win in ecommerce without commitment, planning and continuous effort. If you’re not sure where to begin let us know. We can help you get started in the right direction.

Using Product Images to Increase Online Sales

When selling online a picture isn’t just worth a 1000 words – it’s worth 1000’s of sales. This thought holds true for every picture you post on your website. As the old Nike slogan goes, “Image is Everything”, and nowhere is this more true than online.

The images your website uses are among the first things that affect whether or not a site visitor is going to continue exploring your site or leave. This is even more important at the product level where the sale is being made. If your product images are less than desirable, so is the perception of your product offerings.

With today’s technology, providing excellent product images shouldn’t be any problem. Digital cameras can take thousands of photos that are ready for immediate use in the attempt of capturing the perfect image. Also, if the perfect photo isn’t quite perfect it can usually be made so with some crafty image editing software. Sometimes all it takes is a little cropping and brightening to turn an image from blah to buy!

Keep in mind that the better the quality of your product photos, the more confidence you provide your potential customers to follow though and make a purchase. If applicable, provide additional photos of other colors or designs available and alternate views.

In some cases, taking a picture of an item yourself may be impossible or simply impractical. If this is the case, ask your suppliers if they can provide you with images for your website. Most manufacturers have professionally done web ready images available simply for the asking.

Remember, on the web your product images can make the difference between getting the sale and losing it. Make sure you’re making the right impression with all of your product images and converting your site visitors from shoppers to buyers!