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Wednesday, August 6, 2008

The Three Main Problems We Address

How exactly can we help you? In three specific areas:

1. Low Conversions
2. Weak Online Consumer Satisfaction and Trust
   
3. High Shopping Cart Abandon %

One of our clients said it better than we can:

"A river of potential revenue was flowing past our business that we couldn't monetize with our existing cost structure, you do...quickly and profitably."

We do it by intercepting traffic that is about to abandon and offer assistance. We find there is a tremendous opportunity to help people online. Next, we offer Proactive Chat invitations to visitors who are probably lost, afraid or unsure of buying from you.

Our depth of process and expertise enables us to pinpoint those people.

Although our business looks easy, it isn't.

In addition to these tactics, we also drive revenue by placing a Click to Chat Icon on key pages and providing 1-800# access to the same trained sales people as above.

Maybe our outsourced sales model isn't right for your business? You want to learn how to drive incremental revenue by learning to do what we do? We're open to a fee-based set up and training program for your business.

© 2007, Online Sales Accelerator.
www.onlinesalesaccelerator.com

The Three Main Problems We Address
posted by Online Sales Accelerator on Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

How We Create Incremental Revenue

We leverage what you've already invested in. The truth is, you DO NOT need more traffic, but improved conversion strategies.

This is where our process can help you.

Our process in working with your organization is first to develop rules for offering chats to site visitors based upon the experience we've developed in this space.

Some simple examples of when we'd to reach out to people are when a visitor has spent a certain amount of time idle on a page, or pages where exits are particularly high or content is especially complex.

A great place to deploy our service is in your shopping cart or when site visitors are backing out of the store.

Because most our partnerships are with organizations that have large volumes of traffic, screeners are deployed.

The sole purpose of that role is to direct traffic we engage with chat to the right sales resource. Many times our clients want to leverage our abilities to direct support requests to other assets on their site, or to direct enterprise prospects to a different internal resource.

This provides added brand equity for your business by improving the navigation and information seeking experience for visitors to your website. We've found this screener and sales specific resource allocation to be an extremely valuable and efficient element of keeping the numbers up.

It also ensures that those more expensive sales resources we've invested in training, are using their training to sell most of the time, instead of engaging in zero upside interactions.

We are not like "chat technology providers" who close most of their buyers exclusively on chat, or just sell you the software, leaving you to figure out how to do what we do.

The difference with the Online Sales Accelerator's business model is our ability to get someone on the phone and interact with them while applying our professional selling skills.

We will fully understand all of the up sell and cross opportunities available in your product lines, and combine that with the sales process we've implemented in our training and deployment for our sales people. Through these levers we usually increase average order value 45% - 100%.

How can we help you?

© 2007, Online Sales Accelerator.
www.onlinesalesaccelerator.com

How We Create Incremental Revenue
posted by Online Sales Accelerator on Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Order Values are Lower Than They Should Be Online

What do you at the end of the quarter to make your number?

PROBLEM:

In the absence of any other options, many sales leaders will discount to win business. "Get it in the door and get it off the street", seems to be the prevailing wisdom.

Getting help from the e-store to make the quarterly number is increasingly common in our partners and prospective partnerships.

EXAMPLE:

Last December, one of our partners discounted one of their consumer product lines by 50% and doubled sales. So the net result, was, yes, you guessed it - top line revenue was flat for twice as much volume.

But it doesn't have to be this way. You don't have to discount to grow revenue.

WE ARE CAREFUL WHO WE PARTNER WITH:

If you look at companies that we like to partner with, one of the best opportunities for us to help grow order values exists where there are real up sell and cross sell opportunities.

According to our partners, this is one of our strongest abilities - increasing order values.

RESULTS:

With partnerships that have a decent product mix of complimentary offerings, we are driving the following result:

* 45%-100% higher order value on EVERY sale we close.

After our revenue share, this almost always creates a net order value for our partners higher than what they were driving on their own with technology alone.

If your are in information technology and have a suite of products with solid up sell and cross opportunities, we should talk.

Chances are excellent that we can increase your revenue without any capital expenses on your part.

© 2007, Online Sales Accelerator.
www.onlinesalesaccelerator.com

Order Values are Lower Than They Should Be Online
posted by Online Sales Accelerator on Thursday, July 31, 2008

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Top 5 Reasons Shopping Carts Are Abandoned

A recent survey says the rate of shopping cart abandonment for US online retailers has increased slightly year on year, reaching 59.4% in Q1 2008.

So why do customers abandon their shopping carts and what can be done about it?

According to the survey, which was covered by eMarketer, the top five reasons are:

1. Expensive delivery costs

This was the main reason for 43% of US online shoppers surveyed by PayPal, but is something that retailers should be able to rectify.

Retailers should be looking at their abandonment rates and experimenting with lower shipping costs to see how this affects conversion rates.

Better still; offer free delivery on orders over a certain threshold, then the customer has an incentive to spent a little bit more.

2. Hidden costs

36% of those surveyed cited the total cost of the purchase being higher than anticipated as their reason for bailing out.

This is something that can irritate customers intensely and there is no excuse not to be upfront about any costs. Delivery charges should be made clear on product pages, as well as any other costs like gift wrapping.

Retailers should also refrain from adding extra items to shoppers' baskets without asking. I noticed this recently on Currys' website, when an internet security program was added to a laptop purchase automatically. This is guaranteed to annoy people.

3. Comparison shopping

27% said they were just checking out prices and would look at other websites before deciding on a purchase.

This isn't necessarily a problem for etailers as online shoppers tend to take their time, especially with more expensive products.

A recent survey found that people take an average of around 34 hours from their first visit to actually making a purchase, while they do some comparison shopping.

Therefore, retailers should make it as easy as possible for customers to do this, by making prices and delivery charges clear, and also by allowing customers to save their baskets so they can easily return to make a purchase.

4. Unable to contact customer service

This was the reason cited by 16% of respondents, something that retailers should be aware of.

When considering a purchase, customers may often have questions about products or charges, and will require some reassurance.

This can make the difference between making and losing a sale, so a contact number should be provided on every page so shoppers don't have to hunt around for contact details.

Sony.co.uk provides a good example of this, with a clear contact number on every page of the website.

5. Forgetting usernames / passwords

For 14% of shoppers, forgetting login details was the reason for abandoning their shopping baskets.

To prevent this, retailers should remember user data across sessions, or make it easy for customers to find out or reset their passwords.

© 2007, Online Sales Accelerator.
www.onlinesalesaccelerator.com

Top 5 Reasons Shopping Carts Are Abandoned
posted by Online Sales Accelerator on Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

How Not to Cannibalize Existing Revenue

One of the questions we are often asked is whether or not our partnership would cannibalize existing revenue on the website.

Before answering this question, let's look at an example partnership. Let's call the example company "Preview Software". Preview Software has about 250,000 unique website visitors a month arriving on their website through a variety of marketing efforts including organic and paid search efforts.

Preview sells products to home and consumer users for an average order value of about $89. They also have an SMB product line which produces an average order value of about $200.

Preview is converting about 1.5% of the 250,000 into new customers every month at a combined average order value of $95. This number is skewed to the lower of the two numbers above because they are more well known in the consumer market than their competitors are, who do a better job of selling and are more well known in the SMB market. 1.5% of 250,000 is 3,750 new customers per month, generating $356,250 in revenue from their website.

These are sales which are taking place without any human intervention: website visitors arrive on the site, look around, make a buying decision, put a product or two in the cart and check out.

We call this natural revenue and there's no need to touch it (for now).

However, what about that 98.5% that is NOT converting? This is where we can help.

In order to drive significantly more revenue, we don't need to communicate with those buyers who are already buying. Because we can readily identify the click-stream and navigation path of those purchasers who are buying naturally, we can isolate them from our interactions and instead focus on those who are not converting at all.

Let's go back to the numbers for a minute.

Let's say that of the 250,000 unique visitors that Preview gets on their website every month, 220,000 of them never enter the e-store. This means that 30,000 of them DO visit the store, of which about 8,000 put something in the cart.

Given that we know Preview is converting 3,750 new customers a month, we can say they are converting 46.8% of visitors in the cart, or 12.5% in the store.

We know from our experience that about 50% of the people on content pages who never enter the store are good prospects. If we just worked with those people (220,000 / 2 = 110,000) there is a significant opportunity for us to add material value.

Typically 9%-10% of those visitors will accept our chat invitations. Because Preview Software has some up sell and cross-sell opportunity in their product line, we are able to close about 20% of those visitors at a new order value of $125 with our trained sales agents using our sales process.

Let's do the math on this.

9% of those 110,000 site visitors accept a chat invitation with one of our account-dedicated, well trained, North American-based sales agents. That's 9,900 interactions. Those sales agents will close 20% of Preview Software's customers (1,980 orders) at a new order value of $125, generating a gross revenue number of $247,500 from prospects who were going to leave the website and probably never buy from Preview Software anyway.

Conversion rates actually haven't gone up that much (1,980 + 3,750 = 5,730 Total Orders / 250,000 Site Visitors = 2.2% new conversion rate).

However, revenue has almost doubled from $356,250 to $603,750 (before our partner/ affiliate commissions) from a traffic source that Preview couldn't monetize because the economics of doing this internally is only feasible if you outsource it.

More importantly, Preview Software implemented this ability within 3 weeks of speaking with us and did not cannibalize their existing revenue stream because we never had to speak with those customers who were already in the cart or buying anyway.

Because we work on straight commission, with no fixed or set up fees, the same way affiliate partners do, Preview Software enjoys no risk and sees only incremental revenue added straight to their bottom line.

Even more importantly, we provide to Preview on a daily and weekly basis a summary of the buyer dispositions and market intelligence through our proprietary business intelligence portal. Preview Software's marketing team loves this information because it helps them better understand the real time needs of their prospective customers, which helps us sell better products to happier customers.

It's a win-win-win partnership.

© 2007, Online Sales Accelerator.
www.onlinesalesaccelerator.com

How Not to Cannibalize Existing Revenue
posted by Online Sales Accelerator on Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Monday, March 17, 2008

Integrating Effectively with Google

E-consultancy.com wrote a great article about exactly how much of the customer's web shopping journey Google is trying to own and therefore optimize.

The article is well written and makes some good points. However, when it comes to converting web traffic at the point of sale online, we have an incredible body of evidence to support that just implementing technology like Google Optimizer or Google Analytics will hardly boost conversion rates.

In fact, most of our prospective customers didn't even know what their cart traffic or abandonment rates were when we first started talking with them, and even if they did know, they either had no idea or a million ideas as to how to improve conversion rates and couldn't figure out which direction to go.

It seems for some businesses if you put a gold solution on a silver platter in front of them it seems they still procrastinate taking any action despite how quickly we can deploy our infrastructure to begin delivering revenue to them.

In our experience and opinion, technology is not going to improve conversions... it's going to be good old fashion selling that will improve conversions and that's why we believe (as do our partners now enjoying new revenue where there previously was none) we are on the right track.

Technology will facilitate the connection between customers and sales people, and it will help sales people pre-qualify prospects, but technology alone really cannot itself improve conversion. We think companies like ours hold the power when it comes to technology that can make selling more efficient and effective. For example, our chat rules engine constantly gets more sophisticated so our sales reps time can be spent on the most qualified prospects possible. The more we can deploy 'self-managing' technology solutions like this, the more we can deliver winning technology pieces.

As for what or how we can integrate with Google, we have made the decision to being technology agnostic as much as possible and supporting whatever technology our partners currently use now or want to use in the future.

Because of this, we are increasingly familiar with most of the analytics landscape today: Webtrends, Omniture, WebSide Story, Google Analytics, etc. Google's analytics solution is not as sophisticated as some. It lacks some critical cross reporting features such as identifying what sources of traffic are converting. It also does not offer an API at this time to allow anyone to extend or integrate with it.

We think the best element we can leverage from Google is the referring search terms and use our chat platforms capabilities to launch targeted chat invitations to inbound traffic from certain origins or search terms.

Now that's smart.

We believe Google's priority will continue to be driving traffic to sites and getting paid to do so, it should be our job to enable the connection between the most qualified prospects and the right sales people.

That's where we come in and do the REAL selling.

© 2007, Online Sales Accelerator.
www.onlinesalesaccelerator.com

Integrating Effectively with Google
posted by Online Sales Accelerator on Monday, March 17, 2008

Sunday, January 27, 2008

The Best Way to Increase Website Conversions?

There's no question that the marketplace is loaded with vendors offering solutions to increase website conversions. With an increased drive toward true alignment of search marketing and site optimization for online shopping, it would seem that a majority percentage of people arriving on a website would buy.

But they're not.

In fact most organizations rarely have better than a 1% conversion rate for all unique traffic. What's worse is that many of these organizations have less than 1% unique traffic conversion. Yet, marketing directors and other leaders responsible for online sales in organizations whose names you probably know, continue to burn through massive online budgets, running large infrastructures and managing large teams for what amounts to an anemic performance.

Increasing conversion is the only thing that matters online.

You've really got to sit down and ask yourself why these organizations think the only way to increase revenues is to increase traffic.

This is insane.

For starters, traffic is not infinite. In fact, most website traffic will never come back to your site. The majority of good prospects are lost to no decision at all.

If you think your traffic is going to come back and buy from you, you'd better think again.

* In a study released by BizRate.com and The NPD Group, more than 10,000 consumers were surveyed. Respondents indicated what occurred after they abandoned the shopping cart:

* 39% did not purchase the item at all

* 26% purchased the product from a competitor

* 17% made their purchase offline

* 18% returned to the site to make the purchase at a later time.

The next largest group of departing site traffic is driven into the arms of the competition. When you consider how poorly sites convert, you've got to wonder why people continue to burn cash and other valuable resources on traffic without looking closer at this problem.

Instead, marketers should first re-focus on making the site convert better, THEN turn up the tap on traffic. The etailing Group found in a study that 47% of e-commerce directors didn't even know their abondoment rate.

Embarassing.

What's worse, consider the following facts:
* 35% of online shoppers find navigating sites difficult (Yankee Group)
* 20% of online shoppers find technical glitches frustrating (Zendor)
* 61% of people who abandon may not come back (Zendor Study)
* 55% of online shoppers are reluctant to provide their credit card information online (Yankee Group)

* Consumers, on average, spend more than 19 hours deciding where to buy online for a given purchase. (ScanAlert)

The fastest way to long term conversion improvements.

One of the best ways to increase site traffic without wholesale changes to navigation and graphics is with real human beings. Deploy a service that offers live chat to site visitors when they arrive based upon some entry criteria, like the keywords they used to find your site in the first place. Chat is anonymous and non-confrontational for site visitors who genuinely would appreciate some help.

Staff that chat system with trained sales agents who know your products and can properly qualify based upon the most common needs of your visitors. Be careful not to overload those agents with too much traffic or you'll burn your brand with yet another version of poor customer service. Offer people the ability to speak with your agents on the phone during that sales cycle and conversions will go up even higher.

Then measure those results.

Is it that easy?

Probably not, but you won't know if you don't try. And with websites converting less than 1% of traffic, it would be hard for things to get much worse. Realistically though, you WILL increase conversions.

If you do it right, our experience is that conversions will DOUBLE. What would that mean for your revenues?

People like to buy from people.

A sale is not just a transaction...it is a transfer of positive energy from one person to another. It is one person helping another make a solid buying decision. Imagine going to the mall and no one being in any store to help you. That would seem weird wouldn't it?

So why do we think it's normal to abandon decades of retailing best practices in on-line stores? Forget about new navigation and fancy graphics for now. Leverage something that will always be more powerful: the human element.

Then outsource it.

If you don't know where to start or you can't staff it up fast enough - we can help.

We've been doing this for over a decade and think our systems, people and processes are the best in the business. There are no fees or long term commitments. The only commitment is our commissions which you'll be happy to pay because we usually increase your order value high enough to cover our costs and deliver a net amount higher than what you're probably producing today.

We would even be happy to test the concept on your site with our trained sales people, over a short period of time, at no cost to you.

© 2007, Online Sales Accelerator.
www.onlinesalesaccelerator.com

The Best Way to Increase Website Conversions?
posted by Online Sales Accelerator on Sunday, January 27, 2008

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Tougher Online Environment?

According to the 2008 forecast of the National Retail Federation (NRF), retail sales are likely to be sluggish during the first half of 2008, followed by better results in the third and fourth quarters. The forecast says that retailers may have to sell to more demanding customers.

The online shopping and luxury goods segments that normally experience high growth will also be affected by the slowdown in demand.

The forecast says that customers will be under pressure in 2008 because of the high costs of energy, the slump in the housing market from the secondary mortgage market, and due to slowing employment and income growth.

Shoppers may focus on paying off debt, and try to keep their spending in line with the limited growth in income. They may prefer to abstain from spending on non-essential items.

This could affect the revenue numbers for the sale of consumer information technology products.

To survive in this type of tough retail environment, it is essential for online retailers to try to attract more targeted traffic, and to take measures to increase the conversion rate.

We can help.

Presently the traffic conversion rates are very low for most online retailers, and shopping cart abandonment is very high - even on the most popular online shopping websites.

Online retailers who offer chat and online sales presence will help their customers through the buying process. and challenge this trend.

We consistently get positive feedback from our customers, because their website visitors can communicate with a human assistant, who provides help and recommendations when they are needed.

More conversions can help online retailers to get through the tougher conditions that are predicted for the first half of 2008.

Providing chat and online sales presence on those websites can also help online retailers to cash in when the demand goes up in the third and fourth quarters of 2008!

© 2007, Online Sales Accelerator.
www.onlinesalesaccelerator.com

Tougher Online Environment?
posted by Online Sales Accelerator on Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Monday, January 21, 2008

Dealing with Low Shopping Satisfaction for Online Retailers

According to a recent article in Suntimes.com, a survey has revealed that online shoppers have been less satisfied with their online shopping experiences in this holiday season. However, more online shoppers opted to do their shopping online because of higher gas prices.

The article mentions that there has been a drop in the purchases being made from traditional bricks and mortar stores, due to the rise in prices of essential items like food and gas.

Changing economic conditions and the flood of discounts have prompted customers to compare prices online, and to expect better deals. The article mentions that there is a need for online retailers to improve their websites continuously, and to listen to the feedback provided by their customers.

Most people that we speak with here at the Online Sales Accelerator express concern about low website traffic conversion rates, and the high frequency of shopping cart abandonment. These trends are apparent even on the most popular online shopping websites.

Many websites have chosen to provide chat and live sales presence on their websites, to offer a more personalized and relevant shopping experience to their customers.

Online chat and live sales presence can prevent customers from abandoning the online shopping process, and stop them from moving to another website.

A key differentiator between us and Chat software providers - is that we provide the people AND the technology to close more sales.

Online shopping websites that have adopted chat and live sales presence have managed to improve their traffic conversion rates quickly.

In industries where we work with more than one company competing for the same customers, websites that offer our live sales support help online have a big advantage over their competition. We have the numbers to prove it.

The personal touch provided by chat and live sales presence is really helping online retailers to meet the evolving expectations of online shoppers, and to enhance customer loyalty.

© 2007, Online Sales Accelerator.
www.onlinesalesaccelerator.com

Dealing with Low Shopping Satisfaction for Online Retailers
posted by Online Sales Accelerator on Monday, January 21, 2008

Thursday, January 10, 2008

The Importance of eCommerce Personalization

A recent article on the Fox Business website mentions that personalization really makes a difference on eCommerce websites, because the majority of consumers value recommendations, and many of them end up making purchases on the basis of these recommendations.

The amount of online content is growing rapidly, and people who visit eCommerce websites have to go through thousands of listings of different products and options, which can be quite confusing.

There is a need to engage customers by means of a more personalized and relevant eCommerce solution. This provides a much better experience to customers, leading to more conversions and higher levels of loyalty.

An eCommerce website can provide a more personalized shopping experience to customers through automated personalization tools, or even better, via chat and live sales presence.

Customers who can get access to live assistance of the type that is available in traditional bricks-and-mortar stores, and are less likely to terminate the buying process.

People who visit eCommerce websites want to talk to people who will help them find the answers they are looking for. Automation can be helpful, but there is no replacement for the help and recommendations provided by a human being, who listens to you and can understand your requirements and concerns.

Customers need to be able to get help from a sales assistant without having to go through complex steps, or to having to wait for a long time. If it is too complicated or if it takes too long, customers are more likely to abandon the process, and may not want to come back, according to research be the Zendor Group.

Speed AND live personalization are the magic combination.

© 2007, Online Sales Accelerator.
www.onlinesalesaccelerator.com

The Importance of eCommerce Personalization
posted by Online Sales Accelerator on Thursday, January 10, 2008