The Shopping Cart Junkie

Over the past thirty days I’ve tried out the demo version of Expression Web - Microsoft’s successor to Frontpage.

I’m thoroughly unimpressed and underwhelmed.

As far as I’m concerned, Microsoft took a giant step backward with  this software.

Before I begin criticizing - let me tell you what I liked.

um…… well….. er….. hmm…..

Okay, I liked the split screen feature.

Other than that, I found this software to be good for absolutely nothing better than to send as a Christmas gift to people I despise a whole lot.

The number one complaint I’ve heard about frontpage over the years is how it writes bloated source code.

Expression web takes this to a whole new level. Attempting to write css and doing it badly.

The worst part, though, is that any php page I edited in expression web ended up with these weird little characters on the page.

Not since Windows ME has microsoft struck out so badly.

Once you have garnered some trust with your visitor, and have your foot in the door, so to speak, it’s time to actually make the sell.

People buy the deal.

Let that burn into your psyche and repeat it to yourself every single morning.

People buy the deal.

My job, as an online vendor, is to put together the best deal possible, then sell the benefits of that deal.

What do I mean by the best deal? Do I mean the lowest price?

Not necessarily. Price is important, but the deal itself consists of all of the benefits which the customer receives as a result of buying my product or service. You don’t have to compete on price, at all, if you can give the customer more perceived benefits than your competitor.

Benefits can be tangible or intangible. The important thing is – how will purchasing this product or service enhances the purchaser’s life?

Let’s look at a real world example?

Let’s say that there are two espresso stands in my town.

Both offer identical lattes for identical prices.

The first stand is owned by a faceless corporation in Seattle.

The second espresso stand is owned by an enterprising young man named Jake who is using the income from his espresso venture to put himself through college.

Where do I buy my Latte?

Obviously, I go to Jakes place because he offers the better deal.

“Wait a second, Larry! Didn’t you say that the lattes are identical and the prices are identical?”

That’s right. But the deal is more than the price and the product. The deal is the sum of all of the benefits which I derive from the purchase.

The fact of the matter is that I like this kid, Jake, and receive a lot of satisfaction from knowing that I’m helping to put him through school. That sense of satisfaction is a huge benefit. In fact, I’d even pay slightly more for the Lattes at Jakes place, but don’t tell Jake that.

Because I receive more benefits from frequenting Jakes espresso stand, that’s the better deal.

People buy the deal.

The deal consists of the benefits I receive.

That being the case, doesn’t it make more sense to sell the benefits than to sell the product?

All too often, we try to sell the product, and spend all of our time talking about the features of the product or service we’re trying to sell, instead of talking about how this product or service will benefit the purchaser.

I fall into this trap all the time. Because I’m kind of a techie, and because 123 eCart has so many cool features, I sometimes slip up and begin selling the features.

Let me give you an example:

123 eCart has an affiliate program built right into the software. This feature allows you to launch your own affiliate program which is already integrated with your online store. For those who don’t know what an affiliate program is, it’s where I persuade website owners to place my ads on their site, and I’ll pay them a commission if anyone clicks through and makes a purchase. It’s a great way to drive traffic to my site without putting out a lot of upfront advertising dollars.

Now my tendency is to try to sell 123 ecart by pointing out this feature.

I might say something like:

“You should buy 123 eCart because it has an embedded affiliate program.”

See – that was selling the feature.

Instead, I should have pointed out how this feature will BENEFIT the purchaser. I should have said something more along these lines:

“Because your 123 eCart store has it’s own built-in affiliate program, you will be able to drive more traffic to your site, meaning more money in your pocket, and you won’t have to mess around with trying to integrate off the shelf affiliate software with your shopping cart. It’s already been done for you”.

Do you see the difference? I sold the benefits of more money and less hassle instead of the feature.

People buy The Deal, and the deal consists of all of the ways this benefits me.

Sell the benefits, not the product.

When I was going to college, I took a night job as a telemarketer. I worked hard to develop a good pitch, and to engage my prospects in pleasant conversation. I guessed that this would be an effective method for selling over the telephone, and I was right.

In the cubicle next to me was a big, loud and obnoxious fellow by the name of Jim. Jim incorporated his offensive and pushy personality right into his sales technique. I would often listen in absolute horror as Jim would outright demand that his prospect make a purchase, and refused to take no as an answer. I found myself wondering when they would fire Jim.

A couple of weeks into this job, I found out an amazing thing.

Jim, with all of his rudeness, obnoxiousness and offensiveness, was selling just as much as me.

I’ve thought about this a lot over the years, and the conclusion I’ve come to is that Jim’s technique appealed to some people, and my technique also appealed to a certain number of people. Jim made sells to the people who his techniques appealed to, and so did I. The people who bought from me would most likely not buy from Jim, and vice-versa.

That being the case, my job, as a sales person, is to find those people who are receptive to my personality and style. These are my people. I speak their language and will be most effective trying to sell to them.

In order to find them, I have to search through a sufficient number of people.

It’s all in the numbers.

Let’s apply this to our online sales effort.

Let’s suppose that I set up an online store to sell widgets. Being an intelligent person who is committed to success, I set up a 123 eCart storefront. I put in some time to make the store attractive, add articles and content, and display my widgets in a very attractive and enticing way.

A certain percentage of the people who visit my website will like what I’ve done with the site, and will be receptive to the notion of buying from me. Let’s arbitrarily say that this number is 20%. Of those who are receptive, I’m able to actually persuade half of them to make a sale.

This tells me that out of 100 people who visit my widget store, 10 of those people will purchase widgets. If I want to sale 100 widgets a day, I need to get 1000 visitors to my store each day. It’s all in the numbers. If only ten people visit, I’ll only sell one widget. This is what we call a conversion rate. If you’re talking to an Internet Marketing guru, and they ask what your conversion rate is, In this case you would answer that it’s ten percent.

There are ways to increase your conversion rate, and we’ll get into that a little later, but for now, I just want you to realize that with even a poor conversion rate, if you get sufficient numbers of people to your store front, you’ll still make sales.

That’s why it’s extremely important to promote your site as much as possible, and important to rank well in the search engines.

123 eCart will help you to do well in the search engines, because we’ve built features into the software which produce stores that typically show up higher in search results. The higher you show up in the search engines, the more traffic you’ll get. The more traffic - the more sales. It’s that easy.