Impulse Purchases Rare Online

“Vast Majority of Search-Influenced Buying Occurs Either Offline or in Subsequent Internet User Sessions”
-- From a study by comScore Networks, Dec 13, 2004

• Only 15% of purchases occurred in the same session as the initial search.
• 85% occurred in a non-search session.
• A full 40% occurred from 5 to 12 weeks after the initial search.

Add to this that the initial search was most often for either a general term (such as "videos") or a known megastore, and small online businesses are left in a bind. How can small ebusinesses hope to show up in a highly competitive generic search, and how can they encourage searches for their specific business name?

Good, Old Fashioned Networking

Be found! Be known! A Google search for beaded jewelry has about 1,530,000 results. A search for beaded jewelry, Bremerton has 1,040 - very manageable from a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) standpoint. If a searcher remembered that the jeweler's name was Suzy, a search for beaded jewelry, Bremerton, Suzy would get down to a near bulls-eye of only 14.

If I was Suzy I'd take every advantage to be known, fascinating and personable while happening to point out my specialty, my online presence, and my physical location.

Share the love whenever appropriate. Do it with every handshake, be it in person or online. I'd give demonstrations, talks about beading in history, and let it be known that more of interest is available on my site. I'd do whatever I could to become Suzy, that cool bead lady from Bremerton, and I'd never, ever, forget to bring business cards that include my URL.

Be Bookmark-Worthy

I repeat: only 15% of online purchases occur in the same session as the initial search. The other 85% of purchases occur in later sessions, sometimes weeks later.

Once you get 'em in the door, romance their socks off. Show your stuff. A little tasteful eye candy wouldn't hurt. Brush up design elements. Add a favicon. Be memorable and make visitors want to come back.

• Be browsable, classy, beautiful and deep.
• Offer a little more than can be absorbed at one sitting.
• Help visitors trust you. Be convenient, reliable and interesting.
• Demonstrate responsiveness.

Check and respond to email at least once a day. Anticipate a customer's curiosities and insecurities – offer closeups, washing instructions or technical specs, as warranted by your niche. Offer gift certificates, guarantees, exchanges, refunds... do whatever would seem reasonable and attractive if you were the target customer.

Take Heart

The same set of studies points out that online spending increased about 26% over last year, while both Nielsen and Maritz reported that shoppers planned to spend about the same amount overall.

If initial estimates are correct, this could indicate a move towards doing a greater portion of total shopping online. That would involve a lot of searchers who will eventually know and love and look for Suzy.

Reachable Goals 101.5: Confessions

Balance versus Activity

1700 years ago Diogenes Laërtius wrote that what's difficult is "...To know one's self," and what was easy is "to advise another."

Do I advise clients to publish an unfinished-looking site? NEVER.

Am I more likely to get on with my site if I publish it unfinished? Yes.

But that's sooooo unprofessional!

Guess what? As of the end of October I published my own unfinished AbleReach web site revamp. I felt like laughing. Web Content Consultant, my eye! Yet that is exactly what I do, and pretty darn well, I might add.

As of late October my behind-the-scenes structure included about 100 unlinked, open spaces for future content, and four, count-em "4" of my own finished pages. As I was joking to a friend, that's four pages down and 30 to go before the main site will look finished. Then come the expansions and updates, the php includes, the css divs and ids that will replace all those individual classes I was so proud of when I first learned to write them. I wrote the code I knew best because that was the fastest way to get going.

Can getting off the block be more important than getting off on the right foot? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Depends on how wrong the foot.

Why did I do it? This time, the emotional jump-start was more important than surface-level perfection. The morning after publishing my unfinished template I woke up with a gleam in my eye and laughter in my heart. Six weeks later I am still jazzed. Oh, this irony! I feel free. I've exposed my soft underbelly for all to see, come out of the closet, poked a little fun at myself, lit a fire under myself, put myself in the shoes of my clients... and, gee wiz, I so hoped anyone who checked in by early in 2005 would see only sparkling and complete content.

Today, January 13, 2005, life behind the scenes has picked up considerably. My folders of research and drafts are bulging beautifully. My own sites are still "in development." If I finish two pages a day I'll be where I want to be in about three years. In three years I'll have my eye on 2010. I'm a lifelong learner, an ongoing project kind of a gal.

In the meantime, there are reachable, simple, short-term goals that really do make a difference. I wanted to teach: I have taught. I wanted to learn some Linux: I am learning the leanest of smidges as time allows. I wanted to make more progress with face-to-face networking: love it, am doing it, plan more of it.

I want to make more progress my own site: lo and behold, the good red road is ahead. Better get cracking.

p.s.
Do as I say, not as I do, but if you do do as I do (groan,) do have a sense of humor about it. Above all, enjoy life and keep moving forward. Life is too short for anything else.

Link of the day: The Procrastination Research Group

Have fun!