Here are a few of the best tips for achieving eCommerce excellence.

1. Make it Easy for All Buying Levels

Some people want to come to your website and buy right away. They want to land on your page, pull out their credit card and be done with the whole thing in two minutes or less.

Still others will want to come to your page and do a few hours of research.

Your site needs to be able to accommodate both. Amazon for example makes it very easy for people to order right away with its buy button above the fold. However, people can also spend ages researching reviews and related products to find the perfect thing for them.

2. Trust and Security

Trust and security is a big issue online when credit cards are involved.

Make sure you have 128-bit SSL encryption and that you have a secured server certificate. That means that your checkout page should say https:// rather than http://.

Also make sure your site is very well designed. Poor design indicates lack of trustability.

Finally, work on building your brand. That’s not something that can be done overnight, but absolutely plays a big role in conversions. Amazon converts 12% of their visitors into buyers – not because of brilliant copy, but because of a brand that’s built up over years.

3. Simplicity

It shouldn’t feel difficult to order from you. Try to take as many steps out of your checkout process as possible.

People who land on your site should at most have one or two choices. They can browse products or they can search. They can keep shopping or they can check out. They can pay by credit card or by PayPal.

Try not to overload them with choices. Avoid crowding your site with too many features. Make it very, very simple.

4. Return Policy

Make your return policy crystal clear. Try to be as generous as possible.

One place you can see the effect of return policies in action very clearly is eBay.

EBay is often filled with people selling very similar products for very similar prices. The margins are so low that it’s very hard for anyone to undercut anyone.

However, one area where certain sellers get an edge up is their return policies. Sellers with generous return policies will almost always outsell sellers with stingy return policies.

The same is true with eCommerce. If people know that they can get a full refund if they’re not satisfied, they’re a lot more likely to want to order. The risk to them is much reduced.

These are some of the top tips for achieving success in eCommerce. If your produce exceptional customer service, in the long run you’ll achieve exceptional results.

This is the kind of knowledge that can really make a difference when planning your next marketing campaign, since the longer your material stays on the minds of your target audience, the more you get from each dollar spent getting that message out to them.

The book breaks down the creation of sticky ideas into a formula made up of six element; simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions and stories. Using examples from the real world including sticky ideas ranging anywhere from real world ad campaigns to urban legends that everyone has heard of and no one can forget, the brothers do an excellent job of clearly demonstrating the application of the principals that they write about.

Over the next few weeks we’ll do an series of six posts, an element by element review of the theories put forth in Made to Stick, analyzing the ideas set forth in each section and seeing if the ideas the brothers are presenting are in themselves sticky! Make sure to check back often, so as not to miss any of the six parts!