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Bad Website = Losing More Than Half of Your Customers
January 4, 2007

Since the implementation of the Internet back in 1992, and the subsequent boom that’s followed, businesses are slower to follow the trends that their customers are creating.Some retailers and small manufacturers build websites that contain only the bare bones of information; barely engaging—much less demanding—the attention of the billions of people who want to shop.

The slogan that became popular with the movie Field of Dreams—build it and they will come—does not even begin to apply to the rationale of customer behavior online.

Think about it this way:

• You have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars designing a store or showroom to engage, inform and please the senses of people as they wander among your products.
• You create signage with colorful lettering, place floral arrangements on glass tabletops, and put soft, welcoming cushions on metal and rattan chairs to beckon people to sit and relax.
• You do all of this in the hopes that people will not only want to shop with you, they want to come back repeatedly.
• Yet, all of this is done for only a small percentage of your business potential.

Many business owners will budget less than $5,000 to design a website that over half of potential customers will see instead. The same attention to detail that’s so lavishly placed on the store design is completely lost on the largest audience.

In other words, if they spent $700,000 to open a retail store and $5,000 to create a website, they spent less than 1% of their budget to reach more than half of their customers. Ouch.

According to one September 2006 eMarketer report about home and garden, 66% of shoppers will research online before making a decision. Thirteen percent will buy from a website once they’ve made their selection, while the remainder – 87% - will then walk into a store to buy it. If they didn’t find a retailer online or didn’t like their website, the competitors won that traffic.

Does your website measure up?

You can design a plan to increase your bottom line in three steps.

The first step is to figure out what type of website you have. There are three types:

1. Basic information - a brief overview of your store, what lines you offer and where you are located.
2. Merchandise - features, pictures, pricing, coupons, promotional details, etc.
3. eStore – has all of the above, plus selling online, order tracking, email updates, deliver, satisfaction surveys, and more.

The second step is to find sites that your customers are visiting and noting the difference between your site and theirs. Create an outline of what you want and a realistic budget to make that happen. (Check out an example of how one company prices their website design).

The third step is to find a company that builds websites that fit your need. Send out multiple bids and don’t necessarily settle on the lowest one. You wouldn’t have a college kid build your retail store, why have your friend’s teenage son build your retail website?

Taking baby steps online helps to under whelm the process, ensuring you stay in business long after your competitors have faded away. Building a good website isn’t difficult, but it does make the difference between long-term success, and foreseeable failure.

Posted by Suze Bragg on January 4, 2007 | Comments (0)