Brands have a unique challenge with websites. They have to combine sales, operations, marketing, customer service and channel programs into one site. These have to be organized and easy-to-follow for customers as well as partners. Here at Yeoman, we’re rather famous for our website best practices review. In this blog series, we’re going to reveal our carefully honed criteria, so you can make sure your website is engaging and converting customers with the best of them.
Yeoman research has proven that brands providing multiple buying options on their core site not only send more traffic to these sites, but they also have a higher sales rate on their own site and tend to get more requests to resell/partner. This is especially critical for new brands; showing strong retail options helps instill customer confidence in a new product.
The graph below shows the breakout of core actions from 750,000 visitors to one of our client brand websites. The brand sells at major retailers, as well as their own site. They added expanded ‘where to buy’ and ‘become a dealer’ links in 2016 as part of our recommendation to improve direct sales.
A clearly defined “where to buy” area should be included on the top menu with graphic links, especially for online options.
Yes – adding ‘where to buy’ improves your direct website sales. Why does this work?
- Instills confidence in buyer who may not know your brand
- Shows your ‘open’ about your pricing (even though your price may be higher)
- Gives them options if they don’t want to buy.
In this case, ecommerce conversion jumped almost 40% and the 5% of visitors opted to go directly to an retail partner!
Some great “Where to Buy” examples:
Brands with a strong store presence should also consider adding a map-based locator. Here is an example:
More advanced sites further integrate their channel support by providing direct links within a product page. Two examples:
How do your website’s “where to buy” options stack up? As always, feel free to contact us with questions and comments.