Retail focus / tricks of the trade
Tricks of the trade / Retail focus
Tricks of the Trade
Tricks of the Trade is a space for retailers to share knowledge and tips on facing everyday business challenge. This month, they give advice on optimising web sales
Pink Ribbon Lingerie founder Camille Johnson | www.pinkribbonlingerie.co.uk Make your website easy to shop Keep things clear/clean, don’t other crowd your page with too much text and images Ensure your content is easy to understand, get someone to proof read it Use great images Use High Res images Where possible take your own stock images Use more than one image (showing a
variety of views) Keep your content up-to-date Change the images and content on your home pages regularly Keep your content fresh and unique Reassure your customers Show your returns policy Give customers the option to call you (Have your phone number clearly displayed on the top right hand corner) Have a ‘Contact Us’ page
Good payment methods Accept more than one type of payment (eg Debit, Credit & PayPal) Have links on your website Make sure that they work! When using social media have posts that link back to your website
Create an appealing homepage that will entice your audience and fits in with your Branding Have a product offering that women will actually want to wear! If a man buys a gift that his partner never wears, the gift has not done its job properly. Gorgeous colours in sumptuous fabrics in all sizes - fun doesn’t mean cheap and tacky Give visitors the ability to create wish lists
that they can email to their partner – it takes out all the guesswork. Offer beautiful gift wrapping. Make navigation easy for all visitors and take the customer journey yourself now and then to test it out. Existing customers will know exactly what they want and they want it now! If they’re a new visitor they will need more guidance and advice, so make it simple and clear.
Don’t rush into things - Just because everyone else is doing something, sometimes doing things differently makes you stand out from the crowd. Social media is key - We all know how important this is now, but it also
has a huge impact on your SEO ranking. Competitions -I find this really gets people interested in the site, but don’t offer an IPad mini if you want them to buy lingerie from your site. Assume all customers are shopping from their
Coco Bay founder Belinda Robinson | www.cocobay.co.uk
Make your website easy to shop Although your website can have thousands of visitors a day, converting traffic into sales is a lot harder and something that online fashion retailers strive for. There is no point having beautiful merchandise if you have poor, badly written product information and old-fashioned imagery. The colours shown on the product, the angle the
Reduce the clicks - Although we love to imagine that our shoppers browse at leisure through our collections with glass of wine in hand, the reality is that online shoppers normally have very limited attention/ patience so are extremely easy to lose along the way. It is therefore key that their online journey needs to be quick and easy to navigate. We have just launched a new website and reducing the clicks and improving search functionality was one of our main priorities.
image is taken from and the sharpness of the camera’s focus can make or break a sale. Make sure your returns policy is easily visible, as this is what customers will often look before they buy. You must ensure you cater for all delivery choices from speedy to standard delivery. Another important element is time – online shoppers often don’t have hours to browse, so retailers need to ensure the process of looking at items, and purchasing
them, is quick and straightforward with the minimum number of clicks per sale. Range is also something that plays a big part and retailers need to make sure they have a range available to cater for all tastes, body sizes and price points. If they do not, a competitors’ site is only a click away! For example, secretsales.com has over 50 lingerie brands stocked currently and are targeting more brands this year to give customers a wider choice.
Veritélouiseswimwear.co.uk was created to provide to reflect the product and brand - super stylish. You need a strong online presence to showcase independent online swimwear and lingerie. For our site, the branding is clean and uncluttered which reflects the current trend in ‘flat design’, highlighting us as a forward thinking company. Functionality has been approached with
simplicity in mind, to give our visitors an uncomplicated and engaging user experience. Keeping things up to date is imperative to keep up with the latest in swim fashions and accessories. Your site has to be fully responsive so it automatically adjusts for portable devices, in response to mobile purchasing trends. The new site is of prime importance to
LINGERIE INSIGHT / MARHC 2014 / www.lingerieinsight.co.uk
Keep your product offering fresh. You will have basic staples in continuity ranges that are always present but new colours and styles need to be highlighted with homepages and newsletters Listen to your customers. Get involved with every stage of the process from customer service to logistics, find out what
Violet’s Knickers founder Catherine Coast | www.violetsknickers.com
Secret Sales head of Intimates Melanie Mitchell | www.secretsales.com
Vérité Louise owner Verity Symcox | www.veritélouiseswimwear.co.uk
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Rigby & Peller Ecommerce manager Jo | www.rigbyandpeller.com
Be Helpful - Buying clothing online can sometimes be daunting, so detailed sizing advice can give shoppers confidence and help increase conversion rates. This is obviously particularly important with swimwear so we ensure that we give honest first hand sizing tips for each product to help guide our customers into the right size. We also have style guides so they can do a search for products based on their shape/ cup size. Create atmosphere and personality
smartphones or tablets right now. Google webmaster - I am obsessed with this. Keep checking this for yourself so that you understand it and what can easily go wrong. Don’t always rely on the ‘experts’.
- Online shoppers may be searching for the best deal but emotion also plays an important part in the buying process. Women come to our site to buy beachwear so we use location shoot imagery to instantly transport them to that warm holiday location. This creates an attractive buying atmosphere which increases conversion and ensures that customers want to come back.
Ayten Gasson creative director Ayten Roberts | www.aytengasson.com the company, serving as the flagship of all online marketing efforts and our online marketing strategy is already making waves for us.
Provide fresh content: You should show visitors and customers that you are knowledgeable in your field and provide content that is of interest, incorporating keywords and good SEO. Posts on how you manufacture, how to care for your lingerie and what your USP is should be featured on your blog - with direct links to your products. My blog post titled “Is Made in Britain the new buzz phrase? – one year on” has been my
most successful post to date, directing people to my site and increasing my sales in my ‘Made in Britain’ collections. Provide clear product images: I am currently in the process of updating all the images on my site as I have learnt the importance of clear, high res product shots. The sales of my silk bed jackets increased as soon as I replaced the images with professional product shots on a clear
mannequin. Model shots are also very important, but I have found clear flat shots sell the product. Use social media to engage with your customers, fans and followers: You should use social media to not only promote your products but to gather feedback from your customers. You can ask them questions such as what they
www.lingerieinsight.com / MARCH 2014 / LINGERIE INSIGHT
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