Wazala ecommerce and shopping cart blog

Some Tips For Showing Customers You Care

January 15th, 2012

As we move forward into the new year, it is important to not only focus on attracting new customers, but to focus on keeping those customers once they bite. Here are a few tips on providing an incentive for customers to stick with you for the long haul.

1. The first time a customer orders from you, throw in a little something extra. This will give the customer the impression that you value their business, and that you are all about loyalty. In addition, if they order from you a lot, reward them with a similar gift. Show some love to your customers and they are bound to show some back.

2. Make sure that your stocked up on your products, and that once a purchase is made facilitate the order fullfilment right away and update your customer with an email that the shipment is on its way. People don’t like to wait, so the less they have to wait the happier and more impressed they will be with your business.

3. Give them a money back guarantee. Customers want to know that if they aren’t satisfied with a product, even if its not your fault, they should be able to return it at no cost. This will help instill confidence in the buyer, and establish a trust relationship between you and the customer, which is a necessary component for repeat business.

4. Offer special discounts spontaneously. This will keep people checking your site and inject some excitement into the buying process. With Wazala, configuring a discount is extremely easy. Make sure to advertise your discounts on all your social media pages to get a buzz going.

Happy Selling!

Promoting Your Store With Love

January 15th, 2012

Ooooooh something is in the air! Can you smell it? I can’t, because I’m stuffed up as a turkey right now, but I’m sure it smells super romantic! Lovers and lonely hearts be warned, Valentine’s Day is quickly approaching! So how can your eccomerce site take advantage of the big day? Here are a few tips to help your business feel the love.

Email Your Customers Now
Get ahead of the ball. Give your customers the heads up that they better get something now before they’re significant other is left empty handed and broken hearted. Convince them that your store is the way to go. Let them know of any special promotions you might be having.

On That Note, Offer Promotions
Everyone wants to get a great Valentines day gift for their other half, but nobody wants to break the bank doing so. Offer special discounts on your products exclusively for Valentines day, especially those items that you think would make a fine V-day gift. Create a vDay coupon code and spread the word. Send it to your customers to send to their valentine’s as well. “Savings have never been sweeter”

If you really want to show your customers you <3 them, create a shipping coupon and send it out. Most people are not huge fans of shipping costs, so if you waive those fees, your bound to make your customers feel all warm inside.

Get Your Site In The Spirit
Making tweaks to your site to highlight V-day can go a long way in attracting customers. It could be as big an entire design overhaul, or as small as sticking a little heart in site header. Just do something to make sure people know your aware of the holiday.

Don’t Leave Out The Lone Wolves
Single people sort of get the shaft on Valentines day. So make sure you include them by offering products that they can get for themselves. Feb 14th is the day of love, but make sure not to alienate those who come to your site with the intention of gifting themselves.

Timing Is Everything
As with any holiday that involves the giving of gives, keeping your customers informed about shipping dates and times is a MUST. If they aren’t sure that you will be able to get a product to them on time, they are much less likely to take a chance on your product. Let them know the cut off day for V-day delivery.

Put A Bow On Top
Make your customers loves a little easier by offering to gift wrap their gifts for them. Also, let them know that you’ll be able to deliver the gifts straight to their loved ones on the big day. Valentines day is nerve-racking enough, and revealing some of that stress is a really loving gesture.

Happy Valentines day wishes from everyone here at Wazala! WE LOVE YOU!

Your Store – Your Colors!

January 8th, 2012

You’ve got a website and you spent time and money deciding on the right shade of cotton candy red for your background and it looks delicious! You add your Wazala store, and although it’s, nice and clean you wish to tweak some colors, add some flavor and make it your own! Guess what.. YOU CAN!

Our first release of the up and coming store designer is out! You can now change the colors of the store to match your website. Different elements in your shop can now be tweaked to clone your site colors and match your brand.

For now this only works on stores placed as overlay or embed in your own site. You need to be familiar with the HEX color code, or use simple wording like green, red and yellow and is done by adding simple lines to your widget code on your site.

Store background, image borders, price, menu effects, product and category names are among the many elements you can color. In addition to some element placements that you can change as well. Interested in checking this out? Take a look at our detailed FAQ for specifics.

Stay tuned for more customizations and playful tools coming your way…

Top 3 Reasons For Abandoned Shopping Carts

December 31st, 2011

A customer is on your ecommerce site. They have put items in their cart. They obviously are interested in what you have to offer. Now all they have to do is purchase. Suddenly, something disastrous occurs. They leave your site, leaving an abandoned shopping cart and a looming question in your mind. What deterred them from making a purchase? According to a study by leading Customer Service Management (CEM) firm, these are the top three reasons why someone might leave your site just minutes from buying.

High Shipping Fees
Shipping prices are a huge issue for any ecommerce site and the biggest reason customers abandon shopping carts. Customers tend to view shipping costs as an extraneous fee. This is especially true in orders with less items. If someone wants a shirt for 15 dollars, and the shipping cost is 13 dollars, its going to be a tough sell, as they are almost paying the price of two shirts. To remedy this, either find a cheaper means of shipping, or take a little bit of a profit cut on smaller purchases in order to keep the shipping costs low.

Comparison Shopping
This kind of shopping cart abandonment occurs when customers are on multiple sites looking for the best deal on certain items, and find a better or more enticing deal on one that is not yours. This could have something to do with price, or it could have something to do with the quality. Obviously, you should make sure you are priced competitively and offer a great product, but you should also try offering discounts on bulk deals. This may help convince customers that your store is the one to go with.

Changed Mind
This one is very hard to prevent. People are very fickle by nature, and you are destined to get a certain amount of these no matter what you do. They could just be window shopping, or even just making a wish list. However, there are some things you can do to make it harder for them to change their mind. Namely, making your site extremely easy to use, so that the process is as painless as possible. If people don’t see roadblocks up ahead, they are much less likely to turn around. So eliminate the dead ends.

Happy New Year and Happy Selling!

Helping Your Business Get Back On Track

December 24th, 2011

So things haven’t gone your way lately. Times are tough and your business seems to be on a downward spiral for which there is no reprieve. You are close to, or in the process of shutting down. The thought of just throwing in the towel has crossed your mind, but you may still have a few more moves to play, and you know that the way in which you play, could either save or condemn your business. So what actions should you take and what actions should you avoid entirely? Here are a few pointers on what to do, and what not to do when your business is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

DON’T Add Fees
Adding fees while failing to add value is a recipe for disaster. The airlines did that, and it just pissed people off. If you’re going to charge extra for things, at least make sure that what you are charging for is of a higher quality than when it was free. Say you sell website themes and offer free support, instead of adding on fees to help get people set up, offer more added value services that you can include to the mix for this fee. Make that fee less of a blatant cash grab and more of an incentive to buy your services or product. Your customers will thank you.

DO Reward The Loyal
Your most frequent customers are often your biggest cheerleaders. They constantly show you appreciation by continually purchasing your products, so show them a little appreciation back. Rewarding your biggest customers will help you keep there business when times are sour, and will act as incentive for other customers to pledge their allegiance to your business. Try a final push and reward them.

DON’T Jack Up Prices
Want a sure way to alienate customers and drive your business swiftly into the ground? Look no further than a price increase. Not only will a sudden price increase lose you a good deal of customers (look at Netflix), it will cause many customers to lose their trust in your business, and could permanently tarnish your image. You very possibly will be undercut by the competition, and that will definitely end in an early grave for you business as well. Instead look to see where you’re loosing, and where you profit, try to cut your losses by eliminating the products that do not covert well into profit first, and push others that do.

DO Make Sure Your Business Is Efficient
Is there any way you can save a buck on the goods or services you are already offering. This is a great time to find out. Make sure you business is getting the best possible prices on everything it needs to function. This is a great way to cut costs while keeping the same amount of money coming in. Just make sure that saving money doesn’t mean sacrificing quality. Start with a good financial overview on where you spend the most, see how you can consolidate some of these expenses and cut down slowly.

There is no formula for getting a business back on track, but if you follow these tips and tread carefully when making major decisions, you have a dramatically better chance of digging your way out. Just make sure to strike a balance between cutting costs and making what you have to offer more appealing. More customers, less clutter. Good luck!

3 Things Not To Do In Ecommerce

December 8th, 2011

We all have heard tips about what things you should do to increase your conversions, so we thought to change it up a bit and talk about the things that you shouldn’t do, the things that are going to hold you back and actually cost you sales. So real quick, here is a list of 3 ecommerce no no’s that we think are most pertinent.

DON’T Force Registration
There is no real logical reason why you should do this. It just pisses people off. You can offer the option, but don’t require it. It’s a hassle, and your more than likely to lose conversions because of it. Think about it, have you ever been happy that a site made you register? We can understand those sales that require follow ups, support for specific software sales and regular updates, but if you’re selling a one off product, you’re better off taking your money and thanking your customer. People don’t like to be bullied in to things. If you hold you product hostage, people better love it or their not going to bother paying the ransom.

DON’T Hide Payment Options
This one is simple. People want to know how they can pay, right away. You don’t want to make a customer jump through hoops at the end of an order because they have a Visa and your site only accepts PayPal. They are more than likely to take their business elsewhere. List the available payment options prominently on your site, and even create a custom page within Wazala to give this info. This will help your conversions, and encourages more interested customers in completing the purchase.

DON’T Overuse Keywords
I get it. You want to stuff as many relevant phrases into your content so that you can get better rankings. But while SEO is still somewhat important, selling to customers is and always will be the first priority of a good e-commerce site. Cramming in keywords for keywords sake only serves to muddle up your message, and therefore hurt conversions. Use them only when it seems natural. If you can’t do that, hire a writer to do it for you.

Happy Selling!

7 Ways to Boost Online Sales During the Holidays

December 4th, 2011

Ah, the holidays are upon us again. That wonderful time of giving, and if you’re a store owner, a time when the gates of heaven open, and sales begin to pour in. Are you ready to take advantage of this buying frenzy? You got the potential customer to your site, so now you have to capture their impulse buying and lock them in. We’ve got some tips to make this holiday season the merriest one your store has ever seen.

Clearly state your cut off date
After mid December, many are frantic with last minute shopping. Make sure you let your visitors know exactly how late someone can order something and guarantee delivery by Christmas. You can create a custom store page within Wazala just for your Holiday shoppers. You don’t want any disappointed customers that didn’t get their gifts for the big day.

Showcase your coupon codes on your site
A few use this technique, but it does work. Clearly showcase your available coupon codes on your own site.. Yes give it to them on a silver platter instead of having them to search for it. Place a banner with your current codes, give them details, on how these can be redeemed and make it easy on them to simply copy and paste it into the checkout.

Change your product descriptions
Focus on GIFTING. So writing your product descriptions to state why and to whom this particular product can be a great gift can help boost your sales. Yes people are often looking to make sure that their gift makes sense, so go ahead and convince them.

Categorize Holiday deals
Use a category, and move it to the front of your store to showcase the best sellers and those great sock fillers. Other ideas for categories is the “White Elephant or Secret Santa” category where you can showcase some of your products that are good for just about anyone as a gift.

Wrap it with love
Offer free or cheap gift wrapping. Many would love to have their gift ready to be placed under the tree, and offering free gift wrapping for all your products during the Holidays is a sure way to get those last minute customers.

Customize your store with joy
A great way to entice is to clearly showcase that your store is Holiday ready. What better way than to add some bells and whistles to your store design. We love what Pier 1 Imports did this year, they even added a twist with a “Cheer 1 Imports” banner design. Go ahead give your Wazala store some Holiday sprinkle, by using the store designer, and don’t forget to give your site a little touch of magic as well.

Change your store labels to Holiday favorites
Instead of Buy Now, try “Gift Now”. Instead of Favorites try naming that page “Santa’s List” and instead of Contact us, try “Contact the Elves”. This is a fun and sure way to get your customers entertained and hooked. You can do this, with any Wazala Large account in the customize tab.

Hope these tips help out! Happy Selling and Happy Holidays!

Three Tips for Better Conversions

November 16th, 2011

Choosing the right landing page for the right keywords can have a dramatic effect on the amount of traffic you get, and therefore how much money you make. While it helps to do testing first, here are three guidelines that will help you avoid the pitfalls that some sites fall into and improve your conversions rates dramatically.

Get Rid of the Choices

You shouldn’t present many options to a potential customer. This will just serve to confuse them. If you want them to buy something, put a “buy” link in big letters right where they can see it. If you want them to download something put a “download” sign in big letters right where they can see it. You get the point. Eliminate all other options, or at least put them in really small print so they are hard to see. You want to keep the customer focused on what you want them to do, so why give them other choices? That would just be silly.

Stay True to Your Word

This is very important. You have to make sure your landing pages matches the expectation set by the link that the customer clicked to get to it. If your link says “click to find out how to listen to MP3’s in style,” and when the the customer clicks the link it takes them to a landing page of your main site, and they have to search for what they wanted to see, your customer won’t be happy, nor will they trust you. You must follow through on what you promised in the link or the customers’ expectations will not be satisfied.

Don’t Peacock

While you want your landing page to stand out, you don’t need to be loud about it. Avoid having a ton of visual distractions that will take the visitor out of the buying experience. Only truly relevant information should be displayed. Everything else should be nixed. Visitors to your landing page want to find out about what they were promised in the link and satisfy and expectation. If by satisfying that expectation you get a sale, why would you want to put up road blocks in the form of other visual distractions? Keep it simple, keep it neat, keep it focused.

While these techniques don’t guarantee sales, you sure won’t lose any because of them. So apply them to your landing pages and see what happens. You could just make bank.

Using Twitter as a Support Desk of Sorts

November 9th, 2011

Twitter users love to do two things most: gossip and air their complaints. More and more, people are are logging on to twitter every day to engage brands. This is really cool because it provides an open forum in which conversations can happen about your products. But what do you do if someone complains about your brand in a tweet? How do you respond? Do you respond at all?

The answer to this is actually pretty straightforward. Yes, you should try your very darndest to respond all the time, and you should respond in an extremely helpful manner. Most people expect you to respond, and if you don’t then you’re not meeting their expectations, and that’s just horribly unprofessional of you. According to Maritz Research, (some big customer experience research company), people view Brands who respond to tweeted complaints very positively. People are surprised and delighted to know that there is actually someone on the other side listening, someone that represents your brand who is concerned about their concerns.

And you should be genuinely concerned. Or at the very least, act concerned. These are your customers, and this is a public arena. All eyes are on you. We believe you should always try to be kind and understanding towards your clients, but even if you can’t stand your customers, your brands twitter page is not the place to show your true colors. Your business is your baby, and responding to a tweet that says “your products suck” with an expletive laden rant that mentions Ghandi and a Porto-potty in the same sentence won’t win you any points (unless it’s really, really funny!). Be the bigger man. Or at least direct them to customer support where your exchange will be (slightly) more private. Just remember, the customer is always right, especially on twitter. So treat them as such, and you may get a few treats in return. On a side note, we have a bunch of left over candy from a productive Halloween night that we’re looking to sell in bulk/trade for the 6th Harry Potter DVD. Hit up Wazala on twitter if you’re interested PEACE.

Spicing Up Your Product Descriptions

November 4th, 2011

You’ve got the product down. It’s your baby, you’ve worked hard on it, your in-love with it. Now comes the part where you have to present your product to the masses, in the hopes that they too will fall head over heels. A good picture is a nice side dish, but an amazing product description is the big, juicy, steak that is really gonna get their mouths watering. Here are a few tips on how to serve up a perfect worded plate of seduction.

What is the product for

People like it when you are specific. They want you to give them an idea of how and when they should use a product, and what goal they will accomplish by using it. Say your selling a lipstick. Is it an everyday lipstick, a neutral color, that is subtle but will make them look slightly more put together when they go took work? Or is it a sexy, special occasion, knock ‘em dead cherry red lipstick, that they should put on before going out on a date? People are looking for specific things, so you should let them know in writing that they’ve found exactly what they’re looking for.

How will it make them feel

Most consumers buy products based on feelings, so why shouldn’t you be specific about exactly how your product is going to make them feel? Is it going to make them feel cool? Sexy? Alive? Confident? Savvy? Frumpy? (I hope not the last one). Let’s revisit the lipstick example. Say our product is that “knock ‘em dead cherry red” lipstick, part of your description could read: “This lipstick is guaranteed to be the milkshake that brings all the boys to the yard, and have you thinking, damn right, it’s better than yours”. That’s a pretty corny, song-referencing example, but you get the idea.

How long has this product been on the Market

Is it a hot new product that they just have to have? Or a longstanding that’s become a classic go to? These are questions that should be answered in your descriptions. Let people know how long the products been around. If it’s a top seller, note it in your description. If it’s a seasonal product or a limited edition, tell people that they’d better act fast, or they might just miss out. If you just brought back a product due to popular demand, people should know that it’s there for just that reason. This will create a bit of a a buzz and personality for the product. Giving customers a product’s history can help them make a more informed decision. All in all, that’s what these tips are for. Give people more information to confirm their decision, so that they have to look no further for the product that is just right for them.

Some Tips For Showing Customers You Care

Top 3 Reasons For Abandoned Shopping Carts

3 Things Not To Do In Ecommerce

Three Tips for Better Conversions

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