Using the E-Commerce Internet ...converting visitors THE PURCHASE DECISION Whenever we make a purchase, there is a three stage mental process: want, need, and rationale. A website is unique because it can direct and focus a shopper on each of these stages. The website can be as effective as, and more efficient than, a full color brochure. And, the website has the added advantage of providing a shopping cart to respond to an impulse buy. If you're not sure that this decision making process is valid, think carefully about the last time you purchased a high ticket item. As purportedly rational beings, we are reluctant to admit that our 'need' starts with a 'want' and ends with a 'rationale'. We like to think we just buy that which best suits our needs at the best price we can find. A good starting point when designing a website is to assume that a visitor arrives at the site as a result of directed curiosity. That is, they've run across your site listing in a search engine or have heard about the site by word of mouth or advertising and have some curiosity about your particular products. Your job is to convert this visitor from 'just curious' to 'customer'. WANT You may think that visitors arrive at your website only because they want your product or something similar, not just because they're curious. This may be true but, it cant hurt to reinforce this 'want' and at the same time grab the attention of the 'just curious'. Making someone want something is often done with the glamor shot. A glamor shot is a refined image of your product. The image frequently shows the product being used by a celebrity or a good looking model. Having a person in the picture helps the customer relate to the situation by identifying with the person using the product. On the other hand, especially where you're selling into a niche or micro market, a superb image of just the product may be compelling enough. A small amount of text accompanying the picture is usually appropriate. The text message should focus on a key reason for wanting the product. The text should not start describing the product or its features. Save that for the next stage. Think about recent new car ads on television. A driver speeds along a curvy road. The text, audio in this case, is something like, "Get the feeling". The basic reasons for wanting something can often be stated in very brief phrases: look cool, be creative, be a hero, be recognized, be more productive, feel secure, attract friends, etc. Longer statements are usually addressing the 'need' not the 'want'. NEED Now that the 'want' emotion has been stirred, it's time to create a need. Using 'create' may seem strange in relation to 'need' but, this is exactly what a good promotion has to do. Even if your product is as mundane as a roll of paper towels, it's important to establish the need in your customer's mind. In the case of paper towels, they aren't just for drying up spills anymore; now they kill germs. The message is, "You need that capability; it's one of the benefits of buying the product.". You're no doubt familiar with the admonition of presenting features, functions, and benefits when promoting a product. Think of a feature as a hilighted function and be sure every function has a benefit for the user. A function is simply one of the capabilities of the product. These attributes all address the 'need' stage of the buying process. Marketing people can get very creative when establishing a need for their product. Certain sneakers will improve your basketball game and a carbon fiber racket will have you playing better tennis. Oh, and if you look good by buying a special outfit, you're probably going to do better. At least you'll be more popular. You get the picture. This is stage two of the promotion and a chance to relate every feature to a benefit for your customer. This is no time to be reticent. Bells and whistles count and can often turn the tide when it comes to selecting your product over the competition. If your product has many features, a separate page listing may be appropriate. If you're selling several similar items, a feature comparison page can help the customer decide the best fit to their needs. A page comparing your product features to the competition is good if you offer more or better features. The more benefits you can demonstrate for a product, the more compelling will be the customer's 'need' for the product. Once a need is established, your website presentation can move to stage three, providing a rationale for making the purchase. RATIONALE The rationale for purchasing is the process of establishing in ones mind a set of valid reasons for buying a particular product. A more cynical view of this stage might be 'creating excuses', considering that the basic reason for making the purchase originated with a 'want'. It's up to the website, to provide the information that will help the customer develop this rationale. This requires a presentation of the hard facts about the product. The hard facts are specific product attributes, comprising specifications, price, and any special offers. This is stage three in the selling process. When appropriate, especially for technical products, a page listing the important product specifications can be very helpful to the customer's process of rationalizing the purchase. Compare the product specifications against those of a competitor where you have a clear advantage. This helps the customer to know that they are doing the right thing even though they might not fully understand the technical specifications. Other specific product attributes can be a coupon offer or an on sale discounted price. Special pricing is always good for the rationale. You can just hear someone brag, "I bought it on sale!", as though this in itself was a good reason for making the purchase. On the other hand, it is a good reason if first that 'want' was successfully turned to a 'need'. IN SUMMARY Exactly how the three stages for the purchase decision get put together at a website is a mater of some flexibility. The brief examples given assume a limited number of items that can be discreetly presented in some logical sequence. Complex websites and service sites may not lend themselves to quit so much orderliness. Never-the-less, in spite of a cultural trend of blending 'want' with 'need', the three stages of the of the customer's psyche are always there. The astute merchant will find ways to best make their website presentation compelling enough to turn 'want' into 'purchase order' The Staff Team ....ImagineNation FURTHER READING: See the tip on linking product detail pages in the "TIPS" section below. Did you know you can take credit cards at your Internet store without a merchant account. Learn more about our IAMS  Merchant services There are lots of advantages to subscribing to an IAMS account and a couple of compelling reasons:   Everything you'll need is in one easy to use location, including free use of our award winning PeddleGold storefront. Take a look at the advantages of subscribed services. View a demonstration IAMS order management console. Recent     Changes    Improvements    Upgrades    Stories IAMS Console Upgrade The IAMS console is an on-line interface to a set of order records maintained in a dedicated database table for each webPeddle and PeddleGold storefront. An order record comprises over 40 fields of information that the console is used to view and manipulate. Any credit card transaction information on a particular order is kept with that order record in the same table. This record keeping technique allows fast and easy access to all order and payment information. The console is the merchant's primary source of information for an order. While e-mail copies of the order are sent to both the merchant and customer, e-mail delivery cannot be relied upon in a business critical operation. On the other hand, an order cannot be placed without appearing in the console order record. The console serves several basic functions: maintains a log of orders, provides a detail page listing of all information on each order, provides a virtual terminal for subsequent credit card operations, and provides profile information, allowing the merchant to customize the operation of their store. To enhance the merchant's ability to manage store operations, the console also provides: sales charts by year, month, and day, links to customer contact forms related to each order, a utility to generate a shipping invoice with optional shipping and return labels, an order search function by name, date, or order number, a database backup utility, and a monthly merchant account record summarizing all sales, returns, and adjustments. New to the console with this upgrade are a set of visitor statistics and a manual order entry capability. STATS The console counts and records the number of visitors to the store and presents this information in a two year chart by month. At the same time, this information is compared to the number of orders, the number of abandoned carts, and the number of declined credit card transactions and presented by month in pie charts. MANUAL ORDER ENTRY The manual order entry capability of the IAMS console allows the merchant to enter telephone and mail orders without going to the storefront. A search utility is provide for looking up a prior customer using name or order number and pre-filling most form information. Manual order entry also lets the merchant enter orders for items not found in their on-line store. All orders entered manually are logged to the console database table and processed just like the on-line store operation with confirmation e-mails and real time credit authorizations. The new console will be in full release by June 30. A 30 day transition period will be provided while merchants get acquainted with the new features and navigation scheme. On August 1, the old console will be discontinued. Tips 'n Tricks    HTML tags shown here use the caret (^) instead of braces <> for proper rendering.     Brackets are represented by the curly bracket symbols ({}). In Keeping with the requirement to provide a customer with the rationale to justify a purchase, a convenient link to a product detail, specification, and/or comparison page is required. One good place to put this link(s) is in the product description field of the database file. The link will be readily available for last minute review before checkout and will appear with the product description anytime a customer elects to display a list of items. The link can be designed to replace the current page with a new page or to pop up a window with the new page. The choice is up to the merchant. A small popup window is handy where the amount of information is limited. A popup has the added advantage of displaying the new page without removing the primary page. A popup window link will appear as follows: ^a href=JavaScript:doc="http://the_domain/new_file.htm"; newwin=window.open(doc,"newwin","width=400,height=350,scrollbars=auto,menubar=no");void(0);^ image or text^/a^ The link as shown will open a plain window with no tool bar or address field so the presentation is fairly compact. The popup window size is set using the width and height values in pixels. Do not use the apostrophe (single quote) to delimit items in this link. The apostrophe is reserved to delimit fields in the database file itself. In the PeddleGold storefront the new pages can have the usual button links of 'add to cart', 'check cart', and ''search'. However, if using a popup window, the links must refer back to the original window. For instance. instead of being : ^a href="JavaScript:top.addToCart(.....etc);void(0);"^ the link will read ^a href="JavaScript:window.opener.top.addToCart(.....etc);void(0);"^. ImagineNation © 1996 - 2003  Products of ImagineNation!    Providing on-line stores for small and mid-size Internet businesses since 1996,   Imaginenation is a full service company meeting all of your e-commerce needs:    Storefronts     Credit Card Processing     Back Office Utilities     Merchant Accounts DO YOU NEED HELP WITH OUR PRODUCTS OR HAVE A GENERAL QUESTION? Please E-Mail specific product questions using the mail form at  ImagineNation.com For general information questions, visit our moderated public Q&A   FORUM For back issues of E-ComTips visit the   ARCHIVE Suffering from overload?  List Removal E-ComTips is brought to you by ImagineNation because you are listed as a user of one of our storefront products or have subscribed to receive the Newsletter itself. To remove your address from our list, go to List Remove and, if your correct address and service ID are not showing when you get there, enter the correct values manually. 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