How to help apparel shoppers find the perfect fit

April 25, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Online apparel sales are poised to grow by leaps and bounds in 2012, with research firm eMarketer predicting revenues of $41 billion, or one-fifth of all U.S. eCommerce sales. But apparel merchants face a persistent sales hurdle: helping shoppers find the right fit without being able to physically try on items before purchase. The problem isn’t trivial: a recent Wall Street Journal article reported that between 20 and 40% of all apparel orders are returned, with poor fit being the top reason.

With those returns biting into profit margins, merchants have a huge incentive to help shoppers select the right items the first time around. And that means going beyond traditional fit charts, which list sizes and dimensions in inches in a static grid. Using a tape measure to get the right fit — and measuring in just the right place — is too onerous for most buyers, many of whom are shopping online in the first place because they expect the process to be quick and convenient.

There are plenty of ways to guide shoppers to a perfect fit, ranging from simple solutions to elaborate technologies. Depending on your budget and your target audience, consider these fit solutions:

Develop an at-a-glance system. Go beyond the numbers and develop a system appropriate for your merchandise that conveys key fit information — whether garments are meant to be loose-fitting or tight or whether watches are rugged or delicate, for example. Display these icons prominently on the product page, along with a link to an explanation of the system. MarketLive merchant Peruvian Connection employs a fit guide for its hand-crafted sweaters to let shoppers know whether selections are drapey or snug.

Apparel fit guide example from Peruvian Connection

Save the numbers. If you ask shoppers to supply their dimensions, save the information to their profile for future reference — a time-saving feature shoppers will appreciate — and use the data to present products that are most likely to fit, whether on the eCommerce site or in targeted email or mobile offers. Retailer DestinationXL asks shoppers to select five size criteria for apparel and shoes, then uses the information to display only those items that are available in the selected sizes. Shoppers can turn off the feature and modify their information, and opt to save it for a single session or as part of a permanent profile.

Fit guide example from Destination XL

Synch sizes across brands. If shoppers know their size in a particular brand, you can use that information to help match them to other garments. You can make this process as simple as creating an equivalency chart for shoppers to consult, or you can employ a matching technology such as TrueFit, which asks shoppers to create a profile based on a sampling of brands that fit well, plus information about body type. The portable profile lets shoppers visiting the sites of participating merchants view which items are likely to fit them well, as at the Macys.com denim shop for women.

Fit guide example from Macys

Personalize with photos. Let shoppers upload their own images to help them select flattering products. Again, tools can be fancy or simple, depending on your budget and how likely your audience is to spend time customizing their avatar. For example, LensCrafters offers a simple photo upload tool that lets shoppers determine their face shape, with guidelines for what glasses styles will fit each category. It’s a simple and quick process that adds a touch of personalization to the fit guide.

Fit guide example from Lenscrafters

By contrast, U.K. retailer Tesco’s Facebook fitting room app asks shoppers to upload both face and body shots, and then to pinpoint features such as the top of the inseam, to create a full-body avatar than can be rotated 360 degrees for viewing how garments might fit.

Fit guide example from Clothing by Tesco

Go for the intangibles. You can also help guide shoppers to the right products by going beyond dimensions to pinpoint general styles that are likely to be most flattering. Plus-size retailer Lane Bryant’s FashionGenius tool uses a questionnaire to identify which fit challenges shoppers face, and asks them to rate a sampling of individual items, before displaying likely matches.

Fit guide example from Lane Bryant

Fit guide example from Lane Bryant

What tools and features do you use to guide your customers to the right fit?

Filed under Acquire, Convert & Retain, Client Innovations

Performance Index update: 2012 is off to a strong start

April 18, 2012 by Leave a Comment

he latest MarketLive Performance Index numbers have been released, and the news is heartening. Although impossible to top stellar fourth-quarter results, the first three months of 2012 saw merchants holding their own and building on the momentum from a stellar holiday season.

In fact, so far, the data show merchants ahead of the curve when it comes to forecasted online sales growth for the year. Industry researcher Forrester predicts U.S. online revenues will top $226 billion in 2012, a 12% projected increase over 2011’s total, while research firm eMarketer forecasts that year-over-year growth will top 15%. But Performance Index data shows that for the first quarter, merchants achieved a whopping 19.95% year-over-year revenue gain — suggesting that 2012 is off to a bright start indeed.

MarketLive Performace Index data for Q1 2012

Merchants achieved that revenue increase despite seeing site traffic rise just over 4%. Both the conversion and engagement (add-to-cart) rates grew by more than 12% — signaling that merchants are making the most of modest audience growth by successfully targeting potential and return customers with relevant products and offers.

The “1-and-out” or bounce rate, however, also increased — for the ninth straight quarter. Well over a third of visitors now leave sites after viewing just one page. Merchants who combat this trend stand to reap even greater sales gains, while those who fail to hone their strategies further may well  find themselves falling behind the curve.

To engage shoppers beyond the first click, merchants must hone their acquisition strategies and create a relevant shopping experience wherever shoppers roam — from the eCommerce site to the mobile environment to social outposts and beyond. It’s a challenging task, but one merchants can achieve by optimizing their businesses to create a cohesive brand identity.

With so much at stake, business optimization is our top priority for the year. To read more about it, download

How did your first quarter go? Based on the results, what strategies will you undertake to maximize sales for the remainder of the year?

Filed under Analytics, Connected Commerce Tagged with MarketLive Performance Index

Putting reviews to use in product development

April 11, 2012 by Leave a Comment

By now, most merchants recognize the value of customer reviews — they give brands credibility with shoppers who seek authentic product information; they have word-of-mouth marketing potential; and their content can help boost relevance for search engine optimization.

New research points to another use for customer reviews: future product development. In its third Conversation Index report, social software provider Bazaarvoice found that 12% of reviews include product suggestions — and those suggestions are most often found in reviews that award products positive ratings of four out of five stars.

Research from Bazaarvoice on customer reviews

Moreover, most product suggestions contain ideas for further improvement or requests for expansion with additional colors or styles, rather than critiques of intrinsic problems, Bazaarvoice found.

The upshot: Mining customer review data for product suggestions is a great way for merchants to connect with largely satisfied customers, who have the potential to become even more valuable as loyal brand advocates. To encourage product feedback in reviews — and to let consumers know their voices will be heard — take the following steps:

Help reviewers aggregate their opinions using tags. While you can’t control what customers write in their reviews, giving them the ability to tag their posts with keywords — and to use tags others have submitted — is one way to gather information on which product attributes are most popular, and which could use improvement. REI asks reviewers to select tags for “pros,” “cons,” and “best uses,” displaying which keywords individual customers selected within their reviews, as well as a summary at the top of the reviews section of the page.

Customer review example from REI

Search for “pivot words”. Bazaarvoice suggests glean product suggestion content from reviews by scanning for keywords such as “however,” “although,” and “if only”, which signal that the contributor has included ideas for improvement alongside a generally positive review.

Take suggestions social. If product reviews reveal a recurring theme, broach the topic on social networks to gather further information — for example, by polling Facebook followers as to which additional colors or styles they’d prefer. This tactic can extend beyond product features to include crowdsourced merchandising strategies, as Soap.com did during the holiday season, when Facebook followers could vote on which brands would be discounted for the peak Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping days.

Customer feedback example from Soap.com

Connect with top contributors. Frequent reviewers are a potential gold mine — they’re willing to contribute significant time to share opinions and offer suggestions. Merchants should connect with these individuals directly and invite them to participate on a more substantive level, whether through a focus group or a customer feedback panel.

Let customers know they’re being heard. When you take action based on customer reviews, be sure to report back to the reviewers to let them know their voices were heard. You can also publicize the new product modifications more broadly, both as a sales driver and as an incentive for others to contribute reviews, by using language such as “you asked … we listened!”

Best Buy has made a significant commitment to gathering customer feedback through its IdeaX forum, where consumers can post ideas for service and product improvements and vote on others’ suggestions. Best Buy flags each contribution with a response —  including“Tell Us More” to gather more information and “Under Review” to show that the suggestion is under consideration.

Customer feedback example from Best Buy

How are you using customer feedback content to guide future product selection or development?

Filed under Acquire, Convert & Retain, Social Commerce Tagged with customer reviews, customer service

Best practices for attracting loyalty club members

April 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment

With large portions of the marketing budget dedicated to acquisition tactics such as search marketing and social media, customer retention often takes a back seat.

But one strategy has bucked the trend and caught on: loyalty or free shipping clubs — paid membership programs that offer participants exclusive benefits, starting with discounted or free shipping. There’s a reason these programs are increasingly commonplace: they’re proven to drive repeat business.

According to industry researcher Forrester, participation in free shipping clubs grew by a third from 2010 to 2011 – from 9% to 12% of U.S. online consumers. And of those participants, 66% say they plan to shop more with the brand whose club they’ve joined.

Research on free shipping clubs from Forrester

If your brand doesn’t yet offer an online loyalty club, now is the time to consider adding one — it’s a big investment, but one with the potential to pay off handsomely.  If you already have a program in place, maximize its effectiveness and profitability with these best practices:

Put shipping front and center — but play it smart. Shipping costs remain the top reason consumers abandon online shopping carts, so giving loyalty club members a shipping price break makes sense. To offer value while maintaining margins, consider these tactics:

  • Make it a flat rate. Taking the variability out of shipping costs may be enough of an incentive for your customers to join the club. Assigning a flat, low rate for ground delivery eases the purchase process for them by making total order costs easy to calculate.
  • Offer “free” strategically. Rather than defaulting to free shipping all the time, consider offering club members generous, but periodic, free shipping windows — for the month of their birthdays, for example, or for the last two months of the year for holiday gift purchases.
  • Sweeten the deal for the holidays. Whatever your default offer, give loyalty program members an even better discount during the peak holiday season — free expedited shipping once the ground shipping threshold has passed, for example.

Round out the package with other benefits. While shipping discounts may be a primary driver of loyalty club membership, you can increase participation — and compensate for not offering free shipping by default — with a bevy of other enticing benefits. Consider offering members:

  • Advance notice of sales, particularly when stock is limited.
  • Advance notice of sought-after new products.
  • A discount on every order, exclusive discounts throughout the year, or additional discounts during major sales.
  • Access to members-only events in stores.
  • Exclusive opportunities to give feedback, such as customer advisory panels.

MarketLive merchant Title Nine puts it all together to offer new members free shipping on their first order, combined with flat-rate shipping for the rest of the year, along with a 5% discount on orders and other benefits. Club T9 is given prominent placement in the shopping cart, where consumers are enticed by the promise of instant free shipping.

Loyalty club example from Title Nine

Promote the program everywhere. To drive maximum participation, give your loyalty program prominent placement throughout the eCommerce Web site and beyond. Feature it:

  • Side-by-side with links to shipping information. Wherever shoppers can consult shipping rates, they should also see a promotion for the loyalty club — on product pages, in the customer service section, and on the shipping rates and information page itself.
  • In the shopping cart and through checkout. Let would-be buyers know that they can score a shipping discount instantly if they join the club.
  • In post-purchase transactional emails. When sending customers notice that their items have shipped, let them know they can save on shipping costs for their next purchase if they join the club. Post-delivery, include an invitation to join the program along with an invitation to submit a customer review.
  • On social networks. Let brand followers know they can reap even better deals and score shipping discounts by joining the loyalty program; enable purchase of gift memberships directly from Facebook.

Spell out the benefits clearly — and repeat the message. Create a product page for memberships on the eCommerce site that lists benefits prominently and includes all the related fine print, such as whether subscriptions renew January 1 regardless of signup date. Be up-front about restrictions on free shipping: are gift orders included? How about international or corporate orders? Is there a minimum purchase amount?  Once customers have bought a membership, follow up with a detailed “welcome” email that reiterates all the policies and procedures, including how they can log in to take advantage of their discounts and access their account information.

Wine.com aggressively promotes its StewardShip program throughout the eCommerce site, with links to program information from product index pages as well as from the shopping cart, where the difference between the estimated shipping cost and the program membership is displayed so consumers can see how much more they have to pay to join. The program is explained on an attractive page that lists comprehensive details and links to frequently-asked questions as well as member testimonials.

Loyalty club example from Wine.com

 

Loyalty club example from Wine.com

Do you offer a loyalty or free shipping club? What tactics do you employ to boost membership?

Filed under Acquire, Convert & Retain, Client Innovations Tagged with Shipping

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