Merchandize Your Ecommerce Site Like the Pros

With advertising dollars becoming scarcer in this down economy, it’s more important than ever to get the most out of each order. Every order is a good order, but why not entice them to buy more during their shopping experience?

Modern online shoppers most likely won’t drill down into every category you have searching for something else to buy. They need to be enticed quickly, in a compelling and well-integrated way, to add more products to their cart.

This is why merchandizing is so important—it can help you increase your average order value (AOV), and make the most out of the customers you already have. We’ll tell you 10 ways you can better merchandize products on your site.

1. Show related products for each product you have. You don’t have to relate every one of your site’s products to each other, in the hopes that they’ll all get seen, but do show at least three related items on every product. Where possible, try to think about the related products you decide to show, to give something similar for the customer to view. This could be something in the same color, style, complimentary styles or extra parts.
2. Always show at least three 3 products in your right column as ‘featured products’ or ‘bestsellers’. This can encourage shopping when a user visitor gives up on your site, as research shows that the right column is the last place they look before they leave.
3. Combine your reviews with featured products on category landing pages. Make an image out of a popular product and a favorable 5-star review, and then take users to that product when they click on it. Check out this great example at Land of Nod^TM (taken 6/12/09) :
   

4. Group unrelated products on your homepage or sidenav when you want customers to see content or products, (or a combination of the two), they might not otherwise see. This example from Amazon.com^TM (taken 6/12/09) uses a small icon, title (linked to the product or content) and a short description. The key here is to show customers your products without including unnecessary information that might slow down their ability to scan.
   

5. Group similar types of products, by usage or ingredient, and present them as related to each other. For example, Crabtree and Evelyn^TM (taken 6/12/09) uses scent to promote two different groups of products on this category landing page:
   

6. Online shoppers like color. Use color to promote, unify and organize products. Color is one of the best ways to evoke emotion in your customers. Often, this emotional response can lead to a sale. The Gap^TM (taken 6/12/09) uses color effectively to lead the user through their site:
   

7. Develop personas for your site as an additional way for your customers to browse. They may not be inspired to wade through your SEO-optimized category list, but they may prefer to browse the categories you create specifically for your customer personas. Develop 4 or 5 types of people you think shop your store and create a category for them. Another example from Crate and Barrel^TM (taken 6/12/09) illustrates this, perfectly:
   

8. Never underestimate the power of a great photo. If you have a great photo of your product in use—, you’re in luck. Let it tell the story for you. Don’t clutter it with two many words, just let it sell your product. When you let the photo do the work for you, it does a better sales job than words ever could. Provided you have great product action shots, this is an easy and effective way to change your home page often. Photos keep your site looking fresh and gives light to products that may have otherwise been buried in the site. In this example, from Williams Sonoma^TM (take 6/12/09), they feature both their merchandising category: Top Father’s Day Gifts, and the object of the photo, itself.
   

9. Merchandising is all about grouping products in different ways, to make them look new and attractive to shoppers. Try organizing your homepage by merchandising categories, such as Free Shipping Deals, Holidays or Sales. This example from Target^TM (taken 6/12/09) groups their extensive category list in a new way, causing shoppers to think about their products from a different angle:
   

10. Create a deal-of-the-day page and deeply discount one of your items. Deal- of- the- day websites, like Woot^TM, Tramdock^TM and MamaBargains^TM are getting a lot of attention from shoppers, lately. Some reasons for this are: the simplicity of shopping (you’re only able to buy one item); the novelty of buying something at a deep discount; and the competitive nature of the transaction (I have to buy this item now because others might get it or it might be gone soon). One drawback to this format is that there’s no opportunity to increase the order value, because owners of these sites only sell you one particular item at a time—once you’ve bought it, that’s it. You can do this very same thing on your site—simply. Create a deal of the day page, and deeply discount one of your items. Send out a special newsletter announcing these hot deals daily or weekly. Here’s an example from newegg.com^TM. Their the deal-of- the- day is located directly on their homepage (taken 6/12/09).
    

Above all, make sure that your merchandising is clickable. Nothing is worse than being enticed to buy something via merchandising, and then having to go hunt around the site for it.

What are some of your merchandising tips and tricks? We’d love to hear from you!

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