15 tips for giving your site that luxury feel
E-biz strategists at luxury sites know that the high-end consumers they're targeting demand to be handled with care. Here are 15 things that many of their sites have and that even nonluxury e-commerce sites should emulate.
- Locate-ability. Make it easy for people to find your site by, for example, picking an easy-to-remember URL
- Clear product payment/pricing information. Make sure this is presented upfront. Don't make the user hunt for it
- Minimise ads. Users don't like ad overload
- Intuitiveness. Make it clear how someone can use the site
- Avoid link sabotage. Don't send customers away from your business by giving them needless links to other sites
- Channel integration. If you run a newspaper ad campaign, make sure that same information is on the Web site, and vice versa
- Shipping options. Base shipping cost on the actual size of the item being purchased and don't restrict choice of shipping company
- Recognise repeat customers. And give them benefits for coming back
- Inventory availability. If you don't have it, don't advertise it, or make sure "out of stock" notification is prominent
- Make it easy to get answers. If it takes more than two to three clicks to answer a question, your site is poorly designed
- Make search easy. Have a search window on every page
- Email customer communication. Answer questions promptly
- Globalise. It doesn't apply to every e-business, but consider offering the site in multiple languages
- Returns processing. Returns on some sites run as high as 40 percent. Use customer service to help lower that number and make sure returns are processed efficiently
- Security/privacy. Information needs to be very easy to find
Source: Gartner Inc.
