By Shari Waters, About.com Guide

Do you have a marketing idea? At the end of this article, you can Share Your Ideas with others.

Small business owners can easily get too involved in the day-to-day operations of their retail stores to spend any time brainstorming marketing ideas or promotional events2. Some retailers worry that marketing is too expensive, others may find it too time consuming. Without announcing who you are and what you sell, how will anyone know? Here are 50 marketing ideas for retailers.

1. Create a calendar for customers with your shop’s name and address on it.

2. Print the products you sell or services offered on the back of your business cards.

3. Always carry business cards with you. Give them freely and ask permission to leave them in places your target market may visit.

4. Join a trade association or organization related to your industry.

5. Have a drawing for a product or a gift certificate. Use the entry forms to collect customers’ mailing addresses.

6. Develop a brochure of services your shop offers.

7. Conduct monthly clinics about a product or service you offer or schedule semi-annual seminars on related “how-to” information for your industry.

8. Print a tagline for your business on letterhead, fax cover sheets, e-mails and invoices.

9. Develop a website to showcase your products, services and location. Use a memorable URL and include it on all marketing materials.

10. Include customer testimonials in your printed literature.

11. Promote yourself as an expert by writing articles or tips on topics related to your industry.

12. Submit to the local newspaper, trade journal or other publications.

13. Host an after-hours gathering for your employees and their friends/relatives.

14. Provide free t-shirts with your logo to your staff to wear.

15. Send newsworthy press releases as often as needed.

16. Create an annual award and publicize it.

17. Develop your own TV show on your specialty and present it to your local cable station or public broadcasting station.

18. Create a press kit and keep its contents current.

19. Use an answering machine or voice mail system to catch after-hours phone calls. Include basic information in your outgoing messages such as business hours, location, website, etc.

20. Join a Chamber of Commerce where you can network with area business owners.

21. Hold an open house. Invite prominent city officials and the press.

22. Get a memorable local or toll-free phone number.

23. Place ads in publications your market reads. Be sure to reach the non-English speaking market as well.

24. Distribute specialty products such as pens, mouse pads, or mugs with your store’s logo.

25. Advertise in creative locations such as park benches, buses, and popular Web sites.

26. Improve your building signage.

27. Get a booth at a trade show or expo attended by your target market.

28. Give a speech or volunteer for a career day at a high school.

29. Sponsor an Adopt-a-Highway area in your community to keep roads litter-free.

30. Donate your product or service to a charity event or auction.

31. Have a Yellow Pages ad listed under your main industry and in related categories.

32. Volunteer your time to a charity or non-profit organization.

33. Create a loyalty program to reward existing customers.

34. Create an opt-in email or print newsletter for your customers. Fill each edition with specials, tips and other timely information.

35. Send hand-written thank you notes to important customers every chance you get.

36. Use brightly colored envelopes and unique stationary when sending direct mail pieces.

37. Show product demos or related videos on a television on the sales floors during store hours.

38. Book a celebrity guest for an event at your store. Use people in your industry or television news anchors or local authors.

39. Create window displays in locations away from your shop. Airports, hospitals, and large office buildings occasionally have display areas they rent to local businesses.

40. Team up with a non-competing business in your area to offer a package promotion.

41. Pick the slowest day of the week to hold a one-day sale.

42. Create a warm, welcoming waiting area for your customers.

43. Provide extra customer service training for your staff.

44. Sign up for a newsletter or join online discussion groups in your industry.

45. If possible, loan your facilities to other groups for a meeting place.

46. Create a unique lapel pin based on the products you sell to wear at meetings.

47. Choose a regular customer to spotlight as a Customer of the Month. Create a brief write up to submit to the local newspaper about the customer and be sure to give he or she a copy of the article as well as have one framed to hang in the store.

48. Pair up slow moving items with related products and repackage as a special buy.

49. Start a blog. Write about your industry or detail in-store happenings.

50. Offer your customers discounts for each referral they provide.

Marketing is most effective if done in coordination with other exposure. Enhance the above efforts with additional signage, newspaper ads, displays and radio ads. Remember to tailor each event for your target audience. If your message isn’t being delivered to the right person, it may be a wasted effort.

©2010 About.com, Inc., a part of The New York Times Company. All rights reserved.

Links in this article:

1. http://retail.about.com/u/ua/marketingtips/marketing-ideas.htm?from=lb#ua_form
2. http://retail.about.com/od/marketingsalespromotion/a/promo_calendar.htm

If you’re struggling to conquer the market-share of your industry, online or offline, Seth Godin, author of The Dip offers some advice on why businesses often fail to achieve top-status in thier field.

Seven Reasons You Might Fail to Become the Best in the World

1. You run out of time
2. You run out of money
3. You get scared
4. You’re not serious about it
5. You lose interest or enthusiasm or settle for being mediocre
6. You focus on the short term instead of the long, and quit with the short term gets too hard
7. You pick the wrong thing at which to be the best in the world

What does all this mean to your online strategy?

It means online marketing focus needs to be limited to the keywords and markets where you can clearly win. Any attempt to capture ideal keywords that are too expensive or out-of-reach, due to strong competitive presence, can turn to be disaterous.

Your online marketing and advertising dollars must start with limited achievable target, where you can make a small empire for your business, and dominate the niches that you can win.  There are lots of tools to help achieve this, but it begins with the understanding of your business capability, and your own understanding of the market.

The best way of portraying your expertise online is to…

You said it! Write! “But write what?”, you may ask. The answer to your question is (yes, we are reading your thoughts): write articles! Let me emphasize that again. Write articles!

But how is that so? Does it really work?

Of course, as a business owner you will also ask, “Why should I bother?”, or, “Why would I do that?” Well, simply because your customers need to see that you’re an expert in the product that you sell to them.

If you are trying to sell me a pair of shoes and I ask you, “Which kind should I wear for basketball and which one should I use wear for running?”

Put it this way, you better have an answer for me! Otherwise I will go to your competitor who knows  a bit more about shoes and about which type of shoe I should wear for each activity.

But you may also say, “I give them that kind of advice when they ask for it, why should I bother with the articles?”

Well, if you have a Website and you sell online, how else are they going to know that you’re an expert? Post them articles on your Website and you will see the sales rolling in baby!

“But what if I’m not an expert?”

We thought you may ask that. Here’s the beauty about this whole article-writing phenomenon.You do not need to be an actual expert--depending on how you define the word ‘expert’.

Here’s the second beauty: If you are in the business of selling shoes, for example, then you probably know enough to answer the most questions customers tend have about shoes.

Heck, you could write an article on ‘how to make your shoes last for 3 years’; the opportunities are endless!

The fail-proof way of doing it!

The trick is to start writing articles on the most important topics first, and then learn more about your products as you move along. For example, you could start out with a topic on ‘what shoes to avoid wearing for running’.

You do all of this while you periodically, and consistently write articles on the important topics that you do know and the topics that you learn more about as you roll along.

But where shall you get your topics from? The Internet, of course, has got lots of information on your products through online forums, articles, blogs, etc. So do your research and come up with cool topics to write articles on.

Eventually, after you have written 100  or even 50 articles, let’s say at the rate of two or even one per week, you will by then have done what most of your competitors don’t do. And you will stand out as an expert in your customers’ eyes.

“But how do I write good articles, and where do I put them?”

These are all questions that are inevitably going to be asked. You’re convinced on the whole idea, and are not discouraged by writing one to 1-2 articles per week, but how the heck do you write them and where do you place them?

We have only one answer to both of your questions and that is, stay tuned to this blog! This has three hidden meanings, which serve as the answer to both questions.

1) This blog is a live example of how you should write good articles.

• Trust me, we have done our research on the do’s and dont’s of article writing. So learn from us!

2) We will write more articles on fail-poof article-writing tips and techniques for you.

• So yeah, you might want to come back again.

3) After you have had read this article on our blog, have you still not figured out where you could place your articles too?

• I think the answer to that questions is right here, literally, right before your eyes!

• Of course, there are many other places on the Internet where you could post them to attract even more readers, and ultimately, customers. Stay tuned and you’ll find out more on this topic, as well.

• Are you prepared to capture a share of the rising trend in retail sales?

• Do you know what it really takes to capture those sales?
  

The good news is here

Well, you have probably figured out the good news by now; that there has been a recent finding of retail sales growing again. You may ask, how do you know? The National Retail Federation forecasts retail sales will be up 2.5 %  in 2010.  After a 2.5 % decline last year, this year’s retail sales will pretty much make up for all of last year’s losses.

But, have you prepared for it?

Although retail sales are forecasted to grow again, a typical retailer will just wait for the wave of new customers to come to his store. This is similar to the “If we build it, they will come” perception. However, nothing could be farther away from the truth.

Actually, one of the best investments a retailer could partake in is to set up an online store to complement his physical, brick-n-mortar store. According to Forrester Research Inc. forecasts e-commerce sales will double by the year 2012.

Furthermore and according to Forrester analyst Sucharita Mulpuru, one of the reasons for this growth in e-commerce sales is because sales are shifting from physical retail stores to online stores.

“But how do I sell online painlessly?”

A retail store owner will agree with everything in this article and will nod his head at every point that has been made, but will ask the typical question: ” How do I sell online without paying too much money and wasting too much time?”

We know just how overwhelming it can be to find the right e-commerce solution seeing that the market is flooded with way too many options. Every retailer wants the best solution and for the best price. But how do we get that? Well, it’s simple, here are some basic guidelines:

1) Avoid buying software and stick with hosted solutions

As a business owner, your time is better spent on running the business itself, not figuring out the technical issues of installing software. The beauty with hosted software solutions is that the e-commerce vendor takes care of all of the technical issue for you. All you have to do is enter the products into your online store and make sure that the products get shipped for each order. Let someone else take care of the technical details.

2) Try out the free-trial of the e-commerce solution you’re considering

A free trial is a way for you to test drive the e-commerce solution before you actually invest money and time into it. However make sure that free trial does not contain the 3 C’s: No hidden costs, no hidden commitments, and no credit card required. You’d be surprised how many times people sign up to free trials only to receive diet pills for the next year.

3) Ask to see the transaction fee schedule

Oh man, the worst is when your online store gets big all of a sudden and your e-commerce provider tells you, “Oh, you didn’t know, we take a % of your sales, and this month you us $1,000,000!” An online store such as Yahoo would do just that, because they charge a small fee up-front but once your site gets popular, you pay through the nose.

4) Ask to see the cancellation policy

Come on now, you don’t want to pay a huge cancellation fee or continue to pay for a solution that you do not want. It’s simple, just ask to see the cancellation policy. Typically, you do not want to sign any long-term contracts, and you do not want to pay any cancellation fees should your online store not work out.

Does Halixo accommodate all of the above needs?

You bet your hat we do. Firstly, our software is a hosted solution, so you don’t have to install it nor do you have to manage the technical in’s and out’s of the online store.

Secondly, our free trial is free of the 3 C’s: No hidden costs, no credit card required, and no hidden commitments.

Thirdly, we only charge a flat monthly fee, regardless of how well your store does online. So there are no hidden transaction fees of any sort.

Last but not least, you are allowed to cancel anytime without any penalties. The only thing we ask for is a 30-day notice so that we may take care of transferring all of your store’s data to you. Simple enough!

Resizing 1, 10, or 1000 images in one shot?

If you have too many images to edit, you don’t have to resize each one spearately.  PixResizer does the job in a few minutes.  This tool allows your to resize all your images to a consisten dimension with ease.

Do you find you Website hard to update and manage? Do you find that your visitors are leaving your site too quickly? Last but not least, are you not getting the repeat traffic and sales that you would like to see? If you answered yes to all of the above three questions, then you most likely have a static Website.

Static Websites do not respond well to each visitor

We don’t want to get too technical and throw at you words that may go over your head, but if you had to know what a static Website basically is, it is a website which does not respond dynamically to each visitor. It is typically a promotional Website that remains constant between each update.Let’s have a look at an example of a static Website:

And they usually requires the right technical skills or a web developer to make changes for you, making hard to update and manage. Let us have a look at an example of a static Website:

This is a static Website which sells books and DVD’s about pottery but does not really engage the visitor very well. Nor does it respond dynamically to each visitor. For instance, a visitor may not be able to buy from this Website online (i.e. there is no shopping cart software) nor can the visitor have an account where he may view his orders and such.

Dynamic Websites to the rescue!

You may have already figured out by now that a dynamic Website is one that responds dynamically to each visitor, and is easier to update and manage with only basic technical skills. We took a look at a dynamic Website, so let’s have a look at a dynamic one too:

This is a dynamic Website that sells chocolates online and enables the visitor to ass products to a basket and purchase it online, whereas afterwards, the order get processed in a database making it easy for the Website owner to complete the order.

But are all dynamic Websites the same?

Nope. They are not all the same! In fact, they differ in the degree of functionality and scalability.  You may have been sold on a what may seem a good dynamic Website for your online store, and then find out later on that you have to manually enter all of the products into the database.

What if you have 1000 or more products? This will take you days! If you are setting up an online store using a dynamic Website, then you must have features such as the products import tool, where you can just import a huge excel sheet of your products into the database and voila, you’ve got an online store ready to sell! Here is one of our clients who has many products and has imported them into his online store using the import tool.

So be sure to ask your Website provider, especially if you are setting up an online store with it, if they are also providing an products import tool to avoid manually entering in products all day long.

Youtube videos may link your customers to your competitors

Okay, so you may have seen  more and more online stores use Youtube videos in their product pages, and you may have said to yourself, “I should have thought of that.” But have you though about it more carefully? Did you realize that the Youtube videos have glaring ad overlays that, in some cases, advertise other retail Websites? These retail sites could actually be your competitors because Youtube is owned by Google, and Google provides relative ads based on the keywords in your video and on your site! See it for yourself:

Another reason to avoid Youtube videos

Notice the related videos circled in green in the above screen shot? This will most likely distract your customer away from your product page, wouldn’t it? Yes, Youtube is a cost-effective and efficient of adding videos to your site, but it can actually annoy and distract your customers with ads and related videos. Another thing to think about is what if Youtube goes down for maintenance, then you are left with a video that does not work on your site!

Can you embed Youtube videos without annoying ads and related videos?

It is certainly interesting that IdealCases.com has actually embedded their Youtube videos without the annoying ads and related videos. In the first screen shot above, we saw that Ideal Cases used to have videos with ads and related videos. How did they do it? We are going to find out and share the solution within a future blog post, so stay tuned!

How do I get customers to write product reviews?

You’ve already asked them for their billing information, their shipping address, and their credit card information, so how in the world will you motivate them to submit reviews on the products they have purchased from your online store? The reality is that customers may not care enough to come back to your Website after they have received their purchase and submit a review.

Simply ask for it!

Jay Shaffer of Power Reviews offered simple advice by saying, “ask for it.”  You would be surprised how many online stores fail to do this simple task, whether on their Website or in their marketing material. Here is an example of how our clients ask their shoppers to submit reviews on their online store using Halixo.

The problem with offering discounts as incentives to submit reviews

Shaffer goes on to mention that the retail industry has a bad history of paying people to write fake reviews and testimonials. Therefore, e-tailers should stay away from offering discounts or even money to induce product reviews as this might affect the perceived authenticity of the reviews. Also, it might make the customer who is receiving the incentive for submitting the review to given an unbiased one.

So what is another way of inducing customers to submit reviews?

One way is to offer a gift card incentive, as Ovis Gear does with a subject line: “Win $100 By Reviewing Orvis Gear.” Customers are then were presented with a chance to win, but not a direct link to content contribution. You can even go further by asking encouraging them to submit unbiased reviews. Have a look yourself.

The problem competition has set for you

Ever wonder why your shoppers are abandoning their carts on your online store right before the checkout point? We covered two main reasons for why this may happen and now we present you with the third reason. Here it is, if you are not allowing your shoppers to compare products in an easy manner, then they will most likely go to your competitors. The reality is that a comparison matrix or chart feature is a standard feature among online stores nowadays and if your online store does not have one, you could be headed for trouble.

What is a comparison chart anyway?

Simply put, a comparison matrix or chart allows the customer to easily compare a list of products side-by-side which eliminates the need to switch back and forth between product pages.  Here is a comparison chart taken from one of our clients who uses the Halixo shopping cart.

But wait, was it easy for shoppers to choose products to compare?

Ahaa, you didn’t think that we would forget about this important step, did you? Not at all. The reason why you are providing a comparison chart  for your shoppers is to help them make an informed purchase decision in an easy manner, but if  it’s hard for the shoppers to get to the comparison chart, then you have defeated the very purpose of providing it. You need to make it easy for your shoppers to choose the products that they would like to compare. Here is how we do it with Halixo:

If you take a look at the green box, this how shoppers are able to click on the item they would like to compare. But with the red box, this what happens when they actually click on “Add to Compare”. This ensures that shopper receives confirmation that they have successfully added a product to the comparison chart.

But how will you remind your shoppers to view the comparison chart?

After your shoppers have added the products to the comparison chart, how will you remind them to view the comparison chart if they get distracted? You’ve got to make sure that you have it in a visible place where they can easily click on a link to view the comparison chart. Have a look at the next screen shot (particularly the red box) to see what we’re talking about.

All they have to do is click on “compare products” and voila, they’ve got the comparison chart we’ve shown you above. Just another strategy to help your shoppers make informed purchase decisions. It also provides users with a better system than using the shopping cart as a holding tank for product comparison, which should improve your shopping cart abandonment rate.

The perceived problem with refunds

Let’s face it, not everyone can afford to have the same amount of returns and refunds that Wal-Mart can have and still succeed beyond all bounds. And it doesn’t help that the holiday season’s high sales is followed by lots of returned merchandise in the new year. If you think about it on a per-purchase level, it is actually costing you money without a monetary return. You sell the product, then process the order, then wrap up the product, and then ship it. Later on, the customer decides to send it back and then you have to repackage it and put it back on the shelf. Tough, isn’t it?

So how do you turn those refunds into happy returns?

Here is a fact: as long as you have a refund policy, then refunds are inevitable. Customers will return products for all the reasons in the world. But here comes the diamond in the rough: if you ask the customer the reason for the return then you are sitting on a goldmine of information that help you improve your product pages on your site.

Sharing reasons for return on your site helps build customer trust

Just like with negative reviews, showing the reasons for return on your product pages shows the customer that you are open and are not trying to hide anything with them. Rather, you are trying to help the customer make an informed purchase decision. You can include the reasons for return into the description of your product or slap it under one of the tabbed boxes (as we discussed in previous blog entries).

You may ask: “Can you show me some examples on how to do it properly?”

Sure, why not. One way of doing it is how Shoeline displays a Return-O-Meter for every product page. This is a great way of showing the shopper just how often the product gets returned.

Or you can do it the traditional way and just display the reasons for return as text just as you do with customer reviews, which of course would entail more details and would naturally provide more useful information for the shopper. Furthermore, if you really want to excel in customer service, then you can respond to reasons for return by providing other solutions or recommending alternative products. Here is an example that was provided by Lindas Bustos of GetElastic.com:

“Reason for return: Brought the desk home and it was not the right white for our daughter’s room. Drawers also a bit too small.”

Staff tip: “This desk is a very creamy white (a bit of a yellow tint) and may not look right if your walls are white-white or the decor has bluish white or grayish white in it. Looks good in rooms with pink, yellow, orange and other warm tones. The drawers are 8×12×6″ which holds items like crayons, CDs, jewelry and small toys but may not be suitable for larger toys or books.”

But wait, are you taking full advantage of this strategy?

You tell us. Or should you go visit Amazon to find the answer to this question? We will give you a hint: “What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?” Does that sound familiar? If you guessed this same feature that Amazon provides on their site, then you are on the right track. This feature is a cross-selling strategy that can help customers avoid buying the wrong product based on the actions of past browsers of the same product. Have a look for yourself.

The underlying principle again, is to help customers make informed purchase decisions

It’s simple, isn’t it? The more open you are about why customers returned a certain product, and about what customers bought after viewing that product (as in Amazon’s case), the more trust you will build with your customers. Therefore, they will favor your business over others and make many happy returns to your site, because they know that your site is set up in a way that can help them make more informed purchase decision. It’s a win-win situation!

Unlike online stores, brick-and-mortar stores give you the the advantage of closely examining the product by being able to pick it up, look at it from every angle, feel it and read the information found on the packaging. And when consumers are used to that kind of interaction and expect it of from retailers regardlessly, then e-commerce sites need to meet those expectations by trying to make the online sopping experience as close as possible to offline shopping experience.

There are many sites on the net that have little or no information in their description of the product at hand. And trust us, you cannot afford to have customers left confused or unaware about the specifics of the product, because they will go elsewhere, right to your competitors.

What You Can Do About It

It’s simple isn’t it? All you have to do is provide as much product information as possible. Some examples of details that you may want to include in your product description are as follows: Colour, sizes, types, dimensions, weight, accessories, etc. For example, with an online clothing e-tailer, you may want to include such things as the different sizes and colors available, a size chart, the thickness of the product, wash and dry instructions, and other pertinent information that would help the shopper make an informed decision.

Let’s have a look at an example set forth by one of our clients who uses our Halixo shopping cart software.

You will notice four things about the above screen shot:

1) This is the brief introduction description to the product. Just a brief paragraph, you do not want to overwhelm your visitors with the specs right away. Offer the specs in a tabbed box that they can click should they choose to.

2) These are the options for this particular two-way radio. If you didn’t provide them with these options, then they will most likely go elsewhere to purchase this product with the right frequency and channels. Nobody wants to buy the wrong product, especially when you know exactly what you need.

3) Even more options! Once again, ensure that your shoppers are making an informed purchase and that they are getting the exact product they need. Besides, you don’t want customers returning products because you didn’t provide a sufficient description.

4) Even more images from different views. Whatever you can do to help the customer make an informed purchase. It is as if they are shopping at a brick-n-mortar store.

But wait, does this much information provide a sufficient description?

Well, it depends on your product. In this case, this is amount of information is not sufficient due to the complexity of two-way radios and the amount of specs that go along with it. This is why our client went even further by providing a world more of information to help make the shopper comfortable in buying from them. Just have a look at the below screen shot to notice that there are tabbed boxes with information on things like accessories, videos, more specs, articles, more images, reviews, and so on. Learn from the successes of other e-tailers to help your store convert more visitors by doing things such as providing detailed or sufficient product descriptions.

Required registration, there, we said it! Forrester Research reports that 23% of customers abandoned the last online store that asked them to register. And how do you fix this? Do not make it mandatory for your shoppers to register in order for them to checkout. In other words, allow them to checkout without creating an account. By choosing this option none of their user information will be kept in site’s records, however, the shoppers will not be able to review their order status, nor keep track of their previous orders. But the important thing is that they checkout quickly and painlessly; without creating an account and giving more information than they need to. Have a look at how we have the checkout process set up with Halixo in order to give this kind of freedom for shoppers:

Notice how we’ve got three options for shoppers to choose from. The third one allowing them to checkout with registration (marked with an arrow pointing down on it). But one might ask, but what is the difference? These shoppers have to put in the same personal information regardless of whether they create an account or continue on as a guest. The difference is that their information is not stored into the site’s database. A lot of shoppers resist registration because they are afraid of receiving spam sales emails.

So the moral of the story is, listen to your customers and give them what they want. If it’s ensuring them that their information is safe and will not lead them to receiving unwanted emails, then so be it. Whatever it will take to make them happy in completing the purchase. After all, it’s the sale we are going after, not their personal information and email. And fortunately, Halixo is optimized to attain the most important goal of the online store: sales, sales, sales!

• 90% believe free shipping offers would entice them to spend more online. — The Conference Board (2008)
• 61% online shoppers prefer to shop with a retailer that offers free shipping than one that doesn’t. — Forrester Research (2007)
• 43% of shoppers abandon their shopping carts because of unexpectedly high shipping charges. — PayPal, comScore (2008)
• 60% claim free shipping is a reason they are more likely to shop online. — Harris Interactive (2008)

According to David Bell, marketing professor at the Wharton School, free shipping that saves the consumer $6.99 instead of a discount that saves them $10, is more appealing. We still don’t know the exact reason why. Probably something that has to do with psychotactics or some other psychological reason on how the brain works when consumers are making a purchase decision.

But according to Linda Bustos of Get Elastic, there are a couple of theories for why consumers prefer free shipping over discounts:

“I Win” Theory

The desire to win could be what draws these shoppers to prefer free shipping over discounts. Shopping online provides advantages over shopping in-store, where shopping online allows consumers to compare prices, find the lowest prices, avoid parking lots and lineups. The shipping charge seems to reverse that advantage where it raises the total price paid and is perceived as being a “convenience tax.” A dollar discount is possible to find in-store, so finding one online doesn’t necessarily justify the shipping cost.

The consumer may think that since the product is already marked up, it’s easy for the retailer to slash on the price and thus offer a discount. But dropping the shipping charges costs the retailer money, and indicates to the consumer that they have “won.”

Perceived Value Theory

According to Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, dollar discounts devalue product, and the perceived value of the incentive can never exceed $X (where X is the amount of the discount). However, the value of free shipping could be much higher depending on what the customer imagines shipping costs would be.

So, with all that being said, should you offer free shipping or a discount? The answer with a shopping cart that only allows one of these methods is more difficult, but with the Halixo shopping cart the answer is a lot more easier since you are able to offer either both or test each one out separately to see what brings in more sales.

Some of our clients offer both discounts and free shipping, but put a minimum price on the total sales value in order to qualify for free shipping. This way, you are getting the best of both worlds but with a safeguard to prevent free shipping on small orders. So, the point is, you should test it out to see what works best for your customers.

Fortunately, we’ve got a solution for that as well, and it’s called tabbed boxes. One might ask, what are tabbed boxes? Well, we will let the following image answer that question for you on our behalf.

You will notice from the above screen shot that the “description” tabbed box is the one that is active right, and thereby presents the content that pertains to it. In the next screen shot, you will notice that the “images” tabbed box is the one that is active and therefore displays images right under it.

Just imagine how messy the site would look if tried present all of the content all at once, without such a method of organizing it for your viewers. It would confuse the visitors. Now here comes the next question, does the Halixo shopping cart contain tabbed boxes? Where do you think we got the screen shots from? Just another example of how we keep our shopping cart software updated to meet the industry standards of effective e-commerce practices.

Let’s take a look at the below screen shot to see what a comparison chart looks like.

You will notice that the two products are side-by-side, with a full comparison and contrast of the features for each product. This was the result of merely clicking on a button next to the two products that read “add to compare”, and voila, you’ve got a comparison chart. With the Halixo shopping cart, this feature is fully functional and is at its best in terms of usability and relevance. We have added it to ensure that you help your shoppers make informed decisions when they are making purchases on your site, because if you don’t, then someone else will!

This is especially the case when you have many products and categories and each category has products that, although belong to the same group,  have many differences in pricing and specifications. However, this sort of tool will not make sense if you’re showing “cross-sells” of related products that you hope the customer will buy in addition to the product being viewed. You shouldn’t compare headphones to mp3 players, for example.

As a sales tool, why not provide them with browsing history so that you can remind them what caught their interest in the hopes that you will reinstate those products in their heads and induce them to make a purchase. This is sort of a safeguard for those shoppers that not only forget to add items to their carts, but forget the products of their interest all together while getting distracted by the next thing on the Internet.

Here is a screen shot of the browsing history feature that comes with the Halixo shopping cart. It was taken from the site one of our current clients who is finding it very useful in converting more shoppers into customers. Many other shopping carts do not even come close to proving such an innovative sales tool, and will charge you through the nose if they were to add it to your shopping cart software.

1) Your shoppers are depending on unbiased feedback and reviews in regards to specific products. They want to hear what other buyers have to say about the product. If you do not encourage your customers to speak up on a product that has resulted in more bad customer experiences than good ones, or you get rid of the bad ones, then all you will keep on getting is more angry customers. So let your customers speak freely, and let them share their opinions unbiasedly.

2) It will help you figure out which products to either remove, replace, or enhance. When you are encouraging your customers to share their experiences on the products they’ve purchased from you, then you will get a quick and cost-effective insight into what is creating customers satisfaction and what is not; something that you would have to spend a lot of time and money into attaining through time-intensive and costly surveys and focus groups.

3) It will increase your credibility with your customers. When you leave bad customer reviews on your site, you are telling your shoppers that you care about them making the right purchase decision. What is even better is if you pay attention to the bad customer reviews and then respond to them by either replacing or improving the products that receives far too many bad reviews.

Fortunately, Halixo is equipped with a cutting-edge and powerful user-generated review and rating system. It can be very costly to develop one from scratch or to ask your e-commerce vendors to add one for you. But at Halixo, it comes fully equipped with the shopping cart, and the best thing is that we are constantly improving it at no charge to our clients. The monthly rate does not go up based on improvements that we voluntarily make to the shopping cart. To see our customer review system live, feel free to visit a product page of one of our clients who uses Halixo.

1. Provide product-comparison tools for your shoppers. You will notice that Future Shop and other major e-tailers offering such tools to help their customers not only pick the right product, but also save some money since we are living in a recession where people are watching their wallets more carefully.

2. Offer customer ratings and reviews. It can take some time to get a reviews system furnished with a large amount of user generated content, but it is definitely worth the wait! You will remove so many objections for your shoppers when you provide them unbiased ratings and reviews from past shoppers.

3. Personalize.  When  a customers comes to your site, they want to see content that is relevant to them. One way of achieving this is for you to offer registration when shoppers purchase products from your online store, so that when they come back, they can log in which in return allows you to tailor offers to them based on past purchases.

4. Renew content and offer incentives regularly. There are no incentives for your customers to come back to your Website if you do not offer new content and offers on a regular basis, so make it a habit!

5. Utilize cost-effective e-marketing channels. Social networking sites are probably going to be your best venues when you are talking about cost-effective. The reason for the cost-effective channels is because you want to keep these e-marketing efforts running for a while to build momentum and pursuasion. Sites such as Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, and Digg It are good places to start.

If you are signed up with Halixo, then you are not to worry one bit. We have got you covered on all of the above strategies plus more. In addition, we are in the process of developing new features everyday to make sure that the shopping cart software exceeds industry standards.

First of all, you need to assess your target profile and decide whether you are targeting the right profile so that you can prevent wasting money on bringing in the wrong visitors to your site.

Secondly, you need to have a healthy mix of online endeavors. It might not be the wisest idea to put all your eggs in one basket when marketing online. For example, you may not want to place all of your resources on one online marketing initiative such as a pay-per-click advertising campaign. Seek other venues such as email marketing, banner advertising, viral marketing, etc.

Last but not least, when you do market online, make sure that you have a customized landing page for each ad. For example, if you have a Google Adwords campaign for the keyword “Spa Resorts” and you are targeting mothers who are older than 40, then you want the first page they land on to be completely tailored to them. You do not want to direct them to the homepage when they click on the ad. Make sure to take advantage of landing pages.

At Halixo, we make sure that all of our clients are up to date on the latest online marketing techniques and how to utilize them effectively. Our expertise in the field of e-marketing, especially search engine optimization, will sure come in handy for our clients.