I was reading a business article and on the side, an ad caught my eye. It was for an electronic device that looked quite handy and unique. So as most marketeers would like, I clicked on it and went to the website. Well much to my chagrin, you have to give your email address in order to get on this site. So, I thought to myself, let me get this straight you will not let me get into your website to give you money without my email address. Kind of foolish, as I have to give my email address at checkout time anyway. So it got me to thinking, what is the number one complaint about e-commerce sites? Simple, making the process harder than it has to be. We have long ago discovered that you need to have things like one page checkout. Having to go through multiple pages in order to checkout is a no-no, and people will abandon their orders.
So again I come back to the site I mentioned (I will not mention their name), they won’t even let me into their site. This email box slaps me in the face and basically says to me “give me your email address, I’m going to spam you otherwise we don’t want your business“. Wow, unbelievable. In this day and age where companies are fighting for the almighty dollar, this company has the nerve to require you to give your email address before even seeing their offerings. They want you to join, so they can market to you, an ill-conceived premise. After all, I can go to Amazon who has over 200 million products available.
Whatever this eCommerce company was paying for the ads I clicked on, they just threw away the money. While the product was unique they are not the only one selling it. I went to Google to search on the product and found it available on many websites. Amazon as I suspected had the item, I can purchase with one click and it’ll be at my house in two days as I have Amazon Prime.
Lesson learned: trying to be a little too cute in making people give you their email before they even see your site is a sure way to lose business and eventually put yourself out of business. Amazon has a loyal following as they realized early on, how to please customers. People will actually even pay a bit more sometimes as they know they’ll get their items in a couple of days and if they have any issues Amazon will take care of it.
Did you know: RooSites can assist you with building a customer friendly e-commerce site that won’t break the bank. Contact us for more information.
I always love seeing 
companies do things differently. We live in such a follower society, where companies do what everybody else does. No originality. Followers seldom succeed in business. The trendsetters, the originals are the ones that really make an impact. Apple of course comes to mind, but happily there are other examples.
So, as you can imagine I love seeing what are REI is doing in closing on Black Friday. They of course are an outdoor outfitter, so this whole OptOutside hashtag is a fabulous idea on many levels. From an employer’s standpoint, this will have a positive ramifications for a long time. People looking for work will look at this company with a favorable light. Even customers that enjoy the savings that Black Friday offers will be impressed and we’ll have a much more positive view of this company. Everyone wants to support a company that does the right thing by its employees.
Now of course the naysayers will find something negative about REI. I read one analyst who said they aren’t deep discounters anyway so it’s not a big deal. Way to go negative you genius.
“The thing that is powerful to me is this clearly is not a financially self-serving act,” he says. “It’s an act where we’re really making a very clear statement about a set of values.” ~REI President and CEO Jerry Stritzke
They are even taking it a step further, REI will have no Black Friday promotions and won’t process any online orders until Saturday. They will just a small handful of its approximately 12,000 employees will be on call, while the rest get a paid day off. This to me really shows their commitment to this. I figured their web department will be processing orders although the brick and mortar stores themselves would be closed. So, this isn’t a publicity stunt, this is an authentic attempt to change their company values, and highlight their commitment to their workers. So those folks get to spend more time with their families, which is exactly what Thanksgiving is for in my view.
Now of course, you are wondering what does this have to do with my company, RooSites. Well, since you asked I will respond with the answer. One of the main things I always tell clients is that a website if nothing else should differentiate you from your competitors. You need to show why you are great. We spend too much time doing competitive analysis, when we really need to be spending time showing them why we our better, why we are the best. Your about page (which is one of the most viewed) is a great place to do this. I encourage you to make sure that page shows your value proposition.
