Learn from others’ mistakes
January 19, 2012 No CommentsDo you have an online store that you think looks cool? Maybe you’re right, or maybe not. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to look at our work objectively. Not our business, not how we look, not how we act.
One of the things to be avoided is to seem that you are trying too hard. At best, potential customers will say that you are uncool. At worst, they will see you as being desperate and few will want to do business with a desperate businessman.
One way to have a better perception of your own online store is to look at your direct competitors and see what they are doing right, and where they are falling flat on their faces.
Study the language that they use. Do they use the same words over and over? You can be sure that they’re not getting their message across, all due to bad writing or editing.
What about the images used? If you see the same images in several other sites selling products or services similar to yours, then you know that consumers will not be attracted to the generic look.
The entire template that is used by your competitors also needs to be studied and reviewed. Your site may be easy on the eye when you first set it up, but if too many other sites adopt the same look, you will end up looking like just another online store. This is not what you want. It’s a lot like attending a party and finding out that not one, not two, but several people are wearing the same thing you’re wearing. You might as well put up a band and start singing classic pop songs from the ‘70s or ‘80s. Definitely uncool.
There is this overused line that still holds true. Think outside the box. Don’t make your site a carbon copy of another site or sites. What you want is to be a little – or a lot! – different.
Whether you are selling cakes, clothes or cock rings, the point is to have a visually stunning sight, with words and text that appeal to your target market.
Look at as many sites of your competitors as possible, and do this as often as you can. Don’t be a follower. Instead, have them eat your dust. This is what brick and mortar stores do. They seek to have distinctive looks that appeal to the people they want to sell to. They also tweak their looks every so often, to keep their competitors on their toes.
Even the way that the goods sold are displayed has become part art, part science. The big stores call it merchandising.
You know that even the biggest stores have made tactical errors. Remember how The Gap changed its logo last year? It wasn’t appreciated by the store’s clientele, so they had to go back to their old logo.
There’s the saying, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If your store is doing well, keep on doing what you’ve been doing. Alter the look and everything only when you see signs of a shrinking market share.
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