How to Sell Products Directly on the Web

by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
Web Marketing Today, Issue 18, July 27, 1996 [an error occurred while processing this directive] Getting people to your Web site is important. But selling them something during their visit is even more important. If direct on-line sales is your objective, at least four elements are vital for you to consummate a sale at your Web site:

Reason to Buy Now

Your shopper will need to find a reason to buy now. These reasons are both positive and negative.

On the one hand you'll need to anticipate your shopper's objections. Is she concerned you won't ship in time to wrap a sliver tray for her friend's anniversary party? Describe your shipping policies. You might include a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page for issues that come up again and again.

One of the chief reasons people hesitate to do business with Wilson Internet Services, for example, is the perception that they can't easily work with a business half a continent away. We use a map to highlight our clients in 24 states, three provinces of Canada, and Indonesia. We point to our on-line worksheets and contracts, provide a hot-linked list of our clients, and try to respond to contacts quickly by e-mail or telephone. We anticipate a customer's objection.

But negatives don't sell a product; you need to give your visitors some compelling reasons to buy. One way, of course is to describe your product as fully as necessary to acquaint your customer with its benefits and features. A catalog like L.L. Bean's makes me want to purchase a heavy flannel shirt. Sure, everyone knows what flannel is. But hearing about its fiber-dyed, heavy cotton fabric with a hand-sewn lining for long life makes it much more compelling. While graphics are important, you have to help your customer rub the flannel between his fingers and feel its softness through your own words. Tell him how warm it'll make him feel on cold winter nights under the twinkling stars.

It's one thing to make your customer want to purchase, it's another to give him a compelling reason to purchase now. Retailers have always been holding sales, and offering "limited quantity" items "only while supplies last." Direct mail marketers get you involved making choices, placing stickers, and looking at the inevitable folded note to be read only if you're not sure you should purchase this limited set of four golden oldies CDs. Cyber merchants need to learn the on-line equivalent of end-cap displays, two-for-one offers, etc. Right now, retail sales on the Web are in a state of adaptation and experimentation. Don't be afraid to explore -- and keep exploring until you hit upon a winning formula.

Ultimately, your customers will purchase for a combination of three reasons: value, price, and convenience. Because on-line costs may be lower than either storefront or catalog merchandising, you may be able to compete strongly on the basis of price. Small businesses do well to specialize in products in a particular niche, like gymnastic equipment or quilting supplies, then offer their customers the very best products, values, and selection that can be found anywhere. But if purchasing is a hassle, you still won't consummate many sales.

Ease of purchase

Think of the Web as the equivalent of the ultimate catalog sales destination of the next decade. Your customer doesn't have to leave her home, she can look at a wide variety of products, and browse shops up and down the bandwidth. To get her to make a purchase in your store, you need to make it extremely easy to make a purchase when she's ready.

It is inherently inconvenient to force your customer to move from her computer to her telephone to order. Most people at home use the same line for their modem as they do for their telephone, so ordering will mean going off-line. Printing out a form to fax or mail necessitates the same diversion from a smooth ordering process. Whereas on-line ordering takes advantage of the customer's spur-of-the-moment desire to buy, forcing off-line order completion allows the ardor to cool or the buyer to become distracted. To sell consumer products successfully you need to allow them to order on-line.

This means giving real attention to the ordering process. How hard is it to place an order? Is the order form clear? Do you require the customer to write down product names from one Web page and enter them on the order form on another, or do you provide a shopping cart program so a customer can place an order from the page on which he sees the product? Ask Internet-newbie friends to make practice purchase on your Web site, and then solicit careful feedback about their points of confusion. Make it simple!

Give must them a reason to buy -- now -- and make it easy. But to get them to plunk down their money, they need to trust you.

Trust

In Walt Disney's "The Rescuers," the cruel villainess Madame Medusa explains softly to her intelligence-challenged sidekick, "Snoops, you don't have a way with children. You must gain their confidence, make them like you…."

"Yea, how do you do that?" he asks innocently.

"You force them to like you, Idiot!" she screams.

You need to gain your customers' confidence. After all, if they send you money and you don't deliver as promised, it'll be a big hassle to recover their money despite of the legal protections of credit card purchases. How do you "force" your customers to like you? Chat with them. Don't write in stiff formal sentences, but in short, informal language, just as if they were sitting across the table from you.

The larger corporation garners trust by name recognition and listing achievements in the marketplace. The small business person gains trust by just "talking" to Jennifer about the business. Tell her your story. Explain how you and your partner have dreamed of making highly refined emu oil available to customers around the world. Tell them a bit about yourself, your background, your experience, your experience with emu breeding during a college semester in Queensland, or whatever sparked you to be in this business.

Unless you are intensely ugly, a photo might help Jennifer feel that she knows you and you'll treat her right. Ask some satisfied customers to write a few lines about their experience doing business with you. Testimonials enable customers see you as an honest, reliable, person, and are the next best thing to word-of-mouth.

But unless Jennifer trusts the safety of her credit card purchase, she won't complete the transaction even if she likes you.

Security

In 1995 the media went out of its way to warn the public of evil hackers prowling on the sidewalk just outside your on-line store waiting to grab your customer's credit card numbers as soon as an order was made. It didn't matter that robbing Swiss bank accounts would be more lucrative for cyber thieves than lurking outside Goldfish Online. Nor did the lack of verifiable incidents of credit card theft on the Internet deter the media. It's the perception of danger, not the reality that faces the on-line merchant. But the perception has become the reality for your customers.

By the end of the year I expect the credit card companies' SET standards to be in place and hyped by a carefully orchestrated media blitz. But right now there are two things you can do to help your customers feel secure enough to place an order:

1. Run your store on an SSL secure server. This is much more widely available now than it was a few months ago. Expect to pay your ISP $20 to $50 more per month for this feature, in addition to a hefty set up fee to cover the $290 VeriSign RSA security certificate you'll need. Face it. You have to get a secure server if you're serious about on-line sales.
2. Provide an encrypted method to transmit the order to you. You can secure your front door with a dozen locks, but if you don't latch the back door, a burglar has easy access. It's amazing that many store owners offer SSL encryption of orders from the customer to the store, but absolutely no encryption when the order is e-mailed from the server to the store owner's personal e-mail access. To act with integrity we must encrypt the information whenever it is passed via e-mail. Fortunately, Phil Zimmerman's PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) is easily available in North America both as freeware for non-commercial use and as well-supported commercial software from ViaCrypt.

Then once you secure your front and back doors, be sure to explain to Jennifer how really safe her credit information is.

If you can make Jennifer feel secure about ordering from you, "force" her to trust you, make it simple for her to select your products, and give her a good reason to buy now, your Web site sales are likely to skyrocket.