Are you a small retailer in a cold sweat about showrooming? This trend where customers browse in-store but then buy products online, began striking fear into retailers’ hearts a few years ago.

Who wants customers coming in, trying on or feeling the products you offer, and then buying them at a deep discount from Amazon or some other site?

The trend was especially unsettling for small, independent retailers. While big national chains with huge volume may be able to afford to price-match online sellers, independents are less likely to be able to do so without losing their shirts.

But a new report from Merchant Warehouse suggests that instead of stressing about showrooming, small retailers should welcome “webrooming.”

What is Webrooming?

The reverse of showrooming, webrooming is when consumers research products online, then come into a physical store to buy them.

Webrooming is even hotter than showrooming – and it’s creating new opportunities for brick-and-mortar retail stores.

What You Need to Know About Webrooming

It’s more popular than showrooming.

Some 75 percent of men and 63 percent of women webroom, compared to 53 percent of men and 40 percent of women who showroom. By other demographic measures, such as age, consumers are also more likely to webroom than to showroom.

What might surprise you is to learn that consumers aged 18 to 36 are equally avid webroomers as those aged 49 to 67. Sixty-nine percent of both groups webroom, but only 50 and 44 percent respectively showroom. And while 90 percent of showroomers have also webroomed, just 60 percent of webroomers have showroomed.

Why Do Consumers Webroom?

Particularly when they could just as easily order a product online – why add that extra step?

• 47 percent don’t want to pay for shipping. To make sure you capture the sale, try offering coupons good only for users who visit your site, then buy a product in-store. Or allow customers to order online and pick up in-store to save on shipping.
• 46 percent want to see and touch a product before buying it. This is especially important with “sensory” products like home furnishings, clothing and cosmetics. Encourage customers to test products in-store, and create displays that are tactile and inviting.
• 42 percent want to check in-store availability online - then go to the store so they don’t waste a trip. Look into an eCommerce system that has this capability for your store, and educate employees about the importance of making sure data is accurately maintained so customers aren’t disappointed.
• 37 percent want to be able to return products to a physical store. You can capture both online and in-store sales to these consumers by offering the ability to buy online and return in-store.
• 23 percent don’t want to wait for delivery. For those impatient consumers, be sure you have in-store availability information on your eCommerce site so they can check it out. Make sure that your clerks have accurate inventory info at hand in case the customers call the store as well.

By Jamie Smith

Interested in some real-life evidence of how A/B testing can generate significant lift in profit?

A/B testing is not something you do once and then forget about; it's an ongoing process to extract the maximum conversion rate for your website. It's a process that includes testing every last detail to find the optimal layout, text, and images for your site. Sometimes, even the smallest changes can yield significant results.

Let's take a look at five A/B tests with significant results.

1. Customer Testimonials

You can write copy at length about how your product or service will benefit your customers and do wonders for them, but third-party credibility is much more influential.

With that in mind, how would customers respond to impartial reviews from actual customers? Could the positive experience of previous customers help eliminate any apprehensions from the prospect about buying the product?

These were the questions asked by ecommerce store Express Watches. In their A/B test, they added a small widget below the Add to Basket button, where genuine customer reviews were displayed.

IMG testimonials visual website optimizer.png

The results were game-changing for the business. The positive customer reviews reduced buyer objections and boosted their sales by an impressive 58 percent.

The best thing about customer testimonials is they are incredibly easy to implement – just add them to your site or install something like the Trust Pilot widget.

Takeaway: Always use positive customer testimonials as social proof since third-party reviews carry much more weight than what you write about yourself.

2. Higher Prices = More Revenue (Sometimes)

Not all A/B tests require you to tweak your website's design; one of the simplest things you can test is your pricing strategy.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to determine that when you reduce your prices, you will generally make more sales, and vice versa. However, less certain is the impact the change in price will have on your bottom line – will your monthly revenue be better or worse for the pricing change?

That's where the economic concept related to elasticity of demand comes in.

To explain this further, let's take a look at a pricing A/B test Six Pack Ab Exercises ran.

Uncertain as to whether they were leaving money on the table, owner Carl Juneau tried increasing the price of his product from $19.95 to $29.95.

Although the number of conversions fell by 9 percent, this was more than offset by the additional 50 percent revenue he was receiving per conversion. In time, this simple price change would allow him to bank 36.48 percent more revenue.

Now, increasing your price won't positively affect your bottom line in every case – in some cases alower price will yield a higher profit – but it does highlight the importance of finding your profit maximizing price.

Takeaway: Pricing strategy is part of A/B testing. Test higher and lower prices to see what brings in the most revenue and profit.

3. Trust Symbols Boost Conversions

With all the scam reports out there, online shoppers are understandably cautious about handing over their credit card details willy-nilly. You need to find a way to put their minds at ease. After all, would you buy something from a website you don't trust?

Credibility and trust is something that you develop over time, just like in a dating relationship. But, there are ways to increase the trust level of your website, even if you're new to the Internet.

Bag Servant identified lack of trust as a primary reason for low conversion rates and small order values on their site, and set about implementing an A/B test to improve performance.

Initially, Bag Servant was dependent on social proof, and prominently displayed a badge highlighting their 4,000+ strong Twitter following in an attempt to establish trust.

This wasn't working.

For their A/B test, they replaced the Twitter followers badge with a WOW award badge they had received.

Because this badge was a relatively well-respected symbol in the industry, this improved the site's credibility and helped removed buyer's doubt.

The result? Conversion skyrocketed more than 72 percent.

Takeaway: Always look for ways to increase credibility on your site. This can be with awards, social followers, testimonials, or SSL trust symbols like Verisign, Hacker Safe, or McAfee.

4. Know Your Audience

You might think you understand what your audience wants, but just how well do you really know them?

Product quality, guarantees, offers, price, and shipping fees matter to all consumers. The bigger question is what matters most to your customers.

Smiley Cookie, a niche e-store, sells fresh, customized cookies as gifts for special occasions.

On their website, they wanted to add a new value proposition to help boost sales. They ran an A/B test to help them choose from the following:

• Next-day shipping.
• Discounted price.
• Free shipping on orders above a certain value.
• Fixed rate shipping for any order value.
• High quality, handmade cookies.

Smiley Cookie had expected that customers would be most responsive to the value propositions on price (discounts) and quality (handmade cookies).

But guess what? There was a surprise winner: next-day shipping.

How did that happen?

Because most customers tend to purchase cookies as a gift (and gifts are almost always last-minute things), making sure it arrives on time is imperative. Throw in the fact that cookies are perishable and need to arrive fresh, and perhaps the results aren't so surprising after all.

That's not to say that next-day delivery is the most important factor to your audience. It does show, however, that understanding what your audience really wants is vital for getting results with your A/B tests.

Takeaway: You need to find out what matters most to your customers and highlight that aspect of your product on the landing page or in the offer.

5. Accepted Best Practices Don't Work Every Time

Although a bit of logical thinking can often predict the outcome of an A/B test, ignorant Internet surfers love nothing more than throwing up anomalies that defy the conventional wisdom.

Here are four testing tips used to generate more revenue.

Remember, just because something works on one site – or even the vast majority of sites – doesn't necessarily mean it will work with you.

Let's look at an example to highlight this point: the Vendio signup form.

Now, any guide to CRO will tell you that an embedded signup form on the homepage will boost conversions; after all, if it takes fewer clicks for a user to register, they ought to be more likely to do so.

Sensibly, this was the approach Vendio took when first designing their layout.

Just to ensure they were taking the right approach, though, Vendio A/B tested their embedded form against an unconventional alternative: users would have to click an extra button to reach the signup form.

Surprisingly, this worked! With one extra step added to their conversion funnel, signups per visitor increased by 60 percent.

Takeaway: Don't blindly accept best practices. Find out what works best for you with independent testing.

Wrapping Up

Conversion rate optimization isn't an easy technique to master, particularly when there is such a wide range of variables and factors that go into testing.

And just because you've managed to increase your conversion rate doesn't mean you get to rest, especially if there are any major aspects of your site that haven't been tested. If you only focus on one page, you will be leaving money on the table.

Most importantly, the cost-per-click (CPC) to bring a visitor to your website is increasing and if you don't improve your conversion rate, your cost to acquire a customer (CPA) will continue to rise. Therefore, never stop testing, because even the smallest lift can yield big-time changes to your bottom line.

 

Talk about a growth market. A new survey by eMarketer indicates that smartphones are where the action is: by the end of 2014, 1.76 billion people are expected to own and use smartphones monthly. That’s growth of more than 25 percent over 2013. And that is one global Godzilla.

The data indicates that by 2017, more than one-third of all people around the globe will be smartphone users. eMarketer’s estimates for smartphone users tally the number of individuals who own and use smartphones (not the number of smartphones each of those individuals might have).

In fact, smartphone usage has already saturated more than half of the population in many countries—or will in the next few years.

“By 2015, we project that 15 countries worldwide will have seen more than half their populations adopt smartphones,” said Monica Peart, senior forecasting analyst at eMarketer. “The embrace of this technology among the approximately 500 million people in these countries who will be using smart devices by the end of next year will have a significant influence on media usage, ecommerce, and marketing.”

Consumers in Asia-Pacific will account for more than half of all smartphone users this year, eMarketer estimates, totaling 951.0 million.

South Korea is the world leader in terms of smartphone penetration, where smartphones were in the hands of more than half the citizens by 2012. Australia followed closely behind, becoming the only other country in Asia-Pacific to have more than half its population using smartphones in 2013.

Japan is expected to reach the 50 percent tipping point in 2014. Though China will not reach majority-smartphone status until 2018, its smartphone user base is already the largest in the world by far—totaling 521.7 million this year.

Western Europe—the region with the second-largest number of smartphone users, with 196.6 million in 2014, eMarketer estimates—saw three Nordic countries reach 50 percent penetration last year, and this year, the Netherlands and UK will join them. In 2015, a raft of other countries, including the rest of the EU-5, will make the majority smartphone jump.

Like the UK, the US will also reach majority-smartphone penetration among its population this year, a major milestone for two of the most advanced internet markets in the world. The US remains the second-largest smartphone market worldwide, behind China, totaling 163.9 million users in 2014, eMarketer estimates. The US will retain that status until 2016, when India is projected to nab the second place spot. Canada will be soon to follow, with smartphone users surpassing 50 percent of the population in 2015.

By Michael Essany

 

• Social: Although growing a following takes time, social media posts appear instantly and results can happen within minutes.
   

• Search: SEO is typically slow and uncertain. Even highly relevant pages take days to get indexed and rank. It often takes years to build up enough credibility to compete for the most valuable phrases.
   

• Social: There is virtually no limit to the number of people who may share a piece of content. If you’ve ever been part of a mini viral event, you know just how far and how fast things can spread.
   
• Search: The amount of traffic a page will get from a search engine will never exceed a certain number. That’s the number of people who search for that phrase each day. The search volume for the phrase is the maximum amount of traffic the page will get from search engines.
   

• Social: Content that stirs an emotional response often does best, especially emotions such as anxiety, anger, and awe. See Brain Science and Web Design Tips for more information.
   

• Search: Research-based content often performs best, such as detailed, how-to instructional posts, and articles that answer common questions.
   

• Social: Visuals perform best in social media. Images and video are the most shared content on the web. Posts with images generate 53% more likes than average on Facebook.
   
• Search: Long form text performs best. The average page that ranks high in Google has 1500+ words. See the Ideal Length Guidelines for more information.
   

• Social: Visitors from social media marketing are typically less likely to buy since they were likely browsing through a social network when they found you. But they are more likely to share and spread awareness. Social fans and followers often influence potential buyers.
   
• Search: Visitors from search are more likely to be ready to buy, but less likely to share and interact. These visitors enter with a specific purpose, need, or question.
   

• Social: Marketing with social media involves many short-lived actions. Most visibility and traffic happens within minutes. This is why social media requires a continuous, ongoing effort.
   
• Search: Once it’s working, search traffic can lead to durable visibility, creating an ongoing, passive source of visitors. Depending on the phrase and the page, high rankings may endure for weeks or months.
   

• Social: It’s easy to measure social engagement. Shares, likes, and comments are all highly visible. But it’s hard to measure reach. The total visibility and traffic of all social activity is not easy to report on. There are many platforms and each has its own reports. Social traffic reports in Analytics are not very accurate.
   
• Search: It’s easy to measure the reach in search engines. The total visibility and traffic from search is centralized in a just few reports, showing keyphrase, impressions, and clicks. But, it’s harder to measure engagement. Keyword data at the page level is no longer provided. It’s difficult to know which keyphrase led to which activity on the website.
   

• Social: High ranking content brings search traffic that can drive follows, comments, and shares. Social media profiles often rank high. Google Authorship puts social right into search results.
   
• Search: Smart SEOs know that ranking and links are the outcome of relationships. Blogger relations, PR, and many other search tactics are actually social activities. Skills such as list building, outreach, and pitching are critical to SEO.
   

More organizations are paying attention to Hispanics and Hispanic Millennials are drawing a great deal of that attention for reasons discussed in our recently released project:

• Hispanic Millennials make up the second largest Hispanic cohort living in the U.S. – accounting for 25% of all Hispanics

• Hispanic Millennials account for a sizeable proportion – 21% – of all U.S. Millennials

• Hispanic Millennials now make up the majority of Millennials in key DMAs

Our findings, like other studies on Hispanic Millennials, are captivating marketers to focus on this key demographic today. The present focus of most companies is on how to better market to Hispanic Millennials to get them to buy their products and services. However, after having pored through the detailed data underpinning the project, I realized there is more to this research than some supporting data points on the how to better market to Hispanic Millennials today. Hidden in the data is a fascinating glimpse into a future marketplace where organizations have to fundamentally change their approach to the Hispanic market.

I introduced the concept of “futurecasting” the Hispanic market in 2011. Futurecasting is a heuristic technique that helps envision future consumers, products, industries, competitors, challenges, or marketplaces; by combining forecasting and imagination to model future states.

Using the data in the Hispanic Millennial Project Wave 1 research, we can begin to futurecast Hispanic Millennials – looking at how Hispanic Millennials will impact the marketplace in 5, 10 and 20 years. Three key insights emerged: 

• Hispanic Millennials will be very attractive consumers – educated homeowners with children, likely to own their own business
  • 46% plan on completing college (vs. 31% of non-Hispanic Millennials)
  • 47% (of those without children) say having children is a future goal 
• Hispanic Millennials will drive business starts and entrepreneurship
  • 47% of Hispanic Millennials perceive owning their own business as a strong indicator of success; 48% view it as a future goal.
• Hispanic Millennials are the ideal brand advocates of the future
  • They are satisfied with their lives, optimistic about the future and have a strong belief in the American Dream
  • 67% of them say they want to stand out as a Latino

Futurecasting Hispanic Millennials provides us a glimpse into a much different Hispanic marketplace than before. Historically, most organizations have focused their efforts on selling to Hispanics. However, as large, forward-thinking organizations begin to plan out their Hispanic “initiatives,” this future Hispanic marketplace necessitates a new, more holistic Hispanic approach. Specifically, moving from one dimensional marketing to what I am calling “Three Dimensional Hispanic integration.”

Three Dimensional Hispanic Integration Model

Marketing – Marketing to Hispanics has been the dominant focus of Hispanic efforts by organizations in the U.S. the last 50 years. However, there is an opportunity to centralize these efforts. One way is by leading with Hispanic insights – something I’ve described in my posts around Total Market Approach and the emergent opportunity for cross-cultural marketing.

Procurement – Many large Fortune 500s have developed sophisticated supplier diversity efforts over the last 10-15 years to increase the number of minority-owned – particularly – Hispanic-owned businesses they do business with. But the futurecasting exercise shows us the central role Hispanic entrepreneurs will have in driving new business growth. For companies looking to continue innovating, they will need innovative, young business partners and suppliers – many which will be Hispanic-owned. This necessitates raising the bar on supplier diversity efforts.

Hispanic Products – This is the keystone of Hispanic integration. Some CPGs and movie studios have experimented with this strategy. The idea is two-fold – create products and services that connect with Hispanics at a cultural level and involve Hispanics in the creation of new products and services. The studios have been starting to do this by cultivating Hispanic talent in front of and behind the camera. CPGs have tested out new products incorporating Hispanic flavors and heritage. However, companies will have to go well beyond one-off experiments and make this a central part of their corporate strategies, to leverage the large, attractive population of future Hispanic brand advocates.

By Jose Villa

Also Read:
Engage Hispanics A Quick Review Of What You Need To Know About Marketing To Millenials