You are what your customers see
January 26, 2012 No CommentsAn entrepreneur who owns an online store has one advantage over brick-and-mortar store owners. He can be as visible or invisible as he wants.
Owners of physical stores may have employees, but they will still have to face their customers some time, particularly their most important ones.
Online entrepreneurs, on the other hand, need never face anyone if they don’t want to since every transaction is done online. What the customers get to see is his avatar and the images he has chosen to represent his store.
So while physical stores have the site plus the personnel that customers can actually see, online stores only have the site that is seen on PCs and telecoms devices.
It is therefore of paramount importance that everything that is seen on the site be easy to understand and appreciate. If there are promos being offered, the online buyer should be told straight off what he is getting into.
The images should be of the actual products being sold. To show one product and deliver another “similar” or substitute product is to invite trouble, legal trouble. This is an old marketing gimmick – known as the bait and switch — that is not only illegal, but unprofessional and immoral.
You’re not that kind of a businessman, are you? One other word about images of products being offered. Avoid having it Photoshopped. There has been a lot of controversy ever since commercial and graphic artists discovered what Photoshop can do. This software can do wonders for photographs which have imperfections, but at the extreme it can be used to alter a person, product or place to the point of being unrecognizable.
To show how Photoshop can be used to mislead, a nationally distributed magazine once had an apparent picture of Oprah Winfrey looking unbelievably sexy. It turns out that her face had been pasted over the body of Ann-Margret.
This example does not qualify as artistic license, but is in fact completely misleading. The magazine later issued a public apology.
With a clear image of what your online store sells, the other important thing is the language that you use – to describe your products and your special promos.
Use the A-B-Cs of good writing – accuracy, brevity and clarity.
Accuracy means that you will state exactly what you are selling. Give the complete specs to go with the pictures. This should include the weight, size and dimensions, as well as the available colors.
Brevity means keeping your body text as short as possible. No need to state the obvious.
Clarity means using words that everyone understands, and which are not subject to misinterpretation. Go easy on the superlatives.
What your site should be doing is to make it easy for all potential clients to make a buying decision, and to guarantee that what he sees (and reads about) is what he gets.
As Sgt. Joe Friday used to say, just the facts, ma’am, just the facts. Satisfied customers may not be able to reach out and shake your hand or pat your back after you have sold them products that made them happy. But as long as they feel like doing so, you’ve done your job.
Keep it up!
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