As a digital merchant, you know your product is valuable to customers around the world. But you can’t just set up shop in a new market and expect overnight success.

To increase your global revenue, you must have an in-depth understanding of exactly how customer preferences vary from place to place. Then use that understanding to design unique shopping experiences for your customers across the globe.

Now, localization entails more than just translation. A true localized shopping experience depends on things like:

• Speaking your customer’s language
• Letting them pay how they want
• Setting the right price
• Designing for usability
• Displaying tax for optimal conversions

Let’s dive into each one, shall we?

Speaking your customer’s language

Truly localize your content by using words that make sense to your readers and puts them at ease when making a purchase. For example, in your U.S. store, the word for where a shopper’s products are kept is called the cart. The preferred nomenclature in Great Britain, however, is bag.

From a tactical perspective, avoid making assumptions about which language to display to your customers based solely on their geolocation. Instead, rely on the preferences customers select in the browser. Use those preferences to deliver the right customer experience for sign-up pages, marketing emails, customer account sections and in-app messages.

Letting your customers pay how they want

Letting your customers pay how they want involves two elements: currency and payment method.

Localizing currencies

If someone in the U.S. were to walk into a brick-and-mortar store and see items marked for sale in euros or Japanese yen, there is a good chance they would walk right out of the store without buying a thing—it’s too confusing and not worth the hassle.

The situation is the same when shopping online. Consumers do not want to see product prices displayed in an unfamiliar currency. Show pricing in currencies that are relevant for the customers in that country.

Localizing payment methods

Know which payment methods are the most popular and make sure you offer them. Always keep an eye on the latest trends in the markets you serve, and add payment methods accordingly.

Do your research, because what is typical to you as a consumer in your home country may be a barrier to conversion for someone buying online on the other side of the world.

For example, most Americans use credit cards for ecommerce purchases. However, the situation is very different across European countries. In Germany, customers tend to use PayPal, wire transfers and direct debit payments more than they use credit cards. In the Netherlands, the vast majority of shoppers avoid using credit cards and prefer to use the local iDEAL system. Your carts must support your shoppers’ payment preferences in order to convert them effectively.

Setting the right price

Dig deep into fluctuating exchange rates and local purchasing power to determine how to price your products.

Just because U.S. customers will purchase your product for $50 does not mean that someone from India or China will too. A $50 product (converted to local currencies, of course) is probably unreasonable in these areas considering that the average income per person is well below what it is in the U.S.

If you are a merchant located in a market with a strong currency you might have to drop your prices in other markets just to stay competitive. It may result in lower revenue than you would like, but it goes a long way in improving conversion rates and decreasing piracy for your products in countries that cannot afford to pay your typical asking price.

Conversely, if you are a merchant located in a country with a weak currency, you might consider raising your prices for markets that can bear to pay a little more. If you don’t do this, you may be perceived as offering a lower quality product that consumers won’t trust.

The key is to determine the purchasing power equivalence of your global visitors to help you understand the relative value of a currency. Don’t forget to research how your competitors price their products in your target markets.

Designing for usability

Know what successful design looks like in the countries you are trying to reach.

For example, in English language homepages, you’ll often notice a heavy emphasis on the search field, few featured images and a minimal amount of text.

In other regions like Japan, one sees many more links, a lot of text and less emphasis on the search options.

To ensure that you’re assuring customers with proper presentation, research the most popular websites in the countries you are interested in, and have native industry experts help design your site if possible.

Displaying Tax for Optimal Conversions

Although ecommerce removes many barriers to global selling, there are challenges that occur no matter how you sell your product. One of the most important issues is calculating, collecting and remitting sales and/or consumption taxes when required by the laws of the countries you are selling in. Compliance is achieved by consulting your own legal advisors, so don’t take this as legal advice.

However, we do know a thing about optimizing conversion rates by localizing the way you display the tax on the sale.

In the U.S., sales tax is added to the advertised price. Customers who go to a brick-and-mortar store and see a price of $79 know they will ultimately pay more than that. In Chicago, Illinois, the sales tax is 10.25 percent, which means that the tax on a $79 product is $8.20 So, on a website, the product would be advertised for a price of $79. However, once the customer enters the shopping cart, the tax is displayed and added to the price, resulting in $88.19. This is how U.S. customers are used to seeing prices, so this is how they expect it will be displayed in the cart.

In the European Union, however, Value Added Tax (VAT) is a tax on the perceived value of a product and is marketed as a component of the final price. European customers who see an advertised price of €79 expect to pay exactly €79 at checkout. Usually, an additional note on the marketed price indicates how much of that price is actually the VAT.

As you can see, it is important to be aware of not only what the tax rate is for a country when selling globally, but also how to present it to customers. Make sure your store supports these important details and are easy to implement. They make a huge difference in conversion rates.

Keystone

Once you’ve successfully localized your ecommerce, you’ve got to stay on top of it. You should continue to monitor your regional traffic and conversion rates, test different layouts for conversion rate optimization, and always research new payment methods. Localization never ends.

For a deeper dive into localization, check out our 7 Tips for Growing Your Global Subscriber Base.

The post Localization 101 — Five Elements to Optimize Conversion Rates appeared first on cleverbridge.

Visual Website Optimizer, who brought us many gems of content like the ecommerce survey, now bring us this infographic about the perfect checkout page. It lists the four strategic areas addressed by the perfect checkout process: functionality, usability, security and design. They are explored in helpful detail and accompanied by tactical suggestions.

For example, do your customers have to create an account if they want to complete a purchase? You better think twice about this requirement. You can harm conversion rates by adding a few extra buttons to click or forms to complete.

Did you know that 30 percent of card declines can be saved by offering additional payment methods in your checkout page? Do not leave your customers hanging there with their pockets out. Include regional alternative payment methods to capture even more customers.

Do not underestimate the impact a confirmation page has on usability. It is an essential reference guide for your customers, so make sure it goes to the right email address, and include contact information in case your customer needs to get in touch.

This infographic also comes with excellent sources listed at the bottom. Dig through them to find useful information about conversion optimization from reputable sources like the esteemed Baymard Institute and conversion rate optimization expert Justin Rondeau.

What have you done lately to create the perfect checkout page? Share your tips in the comment section below.

The post Ecommerce Eye Candy — Anatomy of a Perfect Checkout Page [Infographic] appeared first on cleverbridge.

• Fast load times
• Ease of use
• Accurate product descriptions
• Seamless checkout experience
• Clear policies

“A two second delay in load time during a transaction results in abandonment rates of up to 87 percent. This is significantly higher than the average aban-donment rate of 70 percent.” – Radware

Fast Load Times

Convenience is one of the primary benefits of ecommerce.

According to statistics compiled by Radware, more than half of customers say that a slow load time is the primary reason they’ll abandon a site. Not only that, but, “A two second delay in load time during a transaction results in abandonment rates of up to 87 percent. This is significantly higher than the average abandonment rate of 70 percent.”

Successful ecommerce merchants know the devices and most popular browsers that their customers use to shop, and design sites with those parameters in mind.

Ease of Use

An ecommerce site’s design and architecture must be aligned with how its target audience searches for product information.

The Baymard Institute studied how consumers navigate the ecommerce sites of several major retail brands. Specifically, they looked at “home page, category navigation, subcategories, and product lists.” They discovered that product categories should be clickable, and named in a way that reflects the search terms its customers use to find items. New merchandise should be given prime site real estate to encourage return visits. Ecommerce sites should also include a history of recently viewed items — so customers needn’t navigate using the back button.

Accurate Product Descriptions

Remember #thedress controversy that took hold of the Internet this past winter? It was essentially fueled by the fact that some online viewers saw a blue dress, while others saw one that was white and gold.

Though the event generated publicity for that merchant, your typical ecommerce site must strive to eliminate any discrepancies between site information and the reality of the product. When a product description does not match the reality of a product’s features, it creates a costly business problem. Not only is the customer less likely to purchase in the future, but there are operational costs associated with returns.

Every good ecommerce site should ensure that product descriptions are clear, and that product specifications are accurately represented.

Seamless Checkout Experience

Ecommerce shopping cart abandonment is a challenge for all online sellers, but the more seamless a checkout experience is for the customer, the less likely it is to occur.

Effective ecommerce sites make it as easy as possible for customers to complete transactions by eliminating potential hurdles in the ordering and payment process. They offer customers the ability to log in, using social media credentials, to account information they’ve created in the past to retrieve stored information. They also offer an option to checkout as a “guest.”

They test form fields to ensure that a variety of scenarios (like a hyphenated name or an address that contains a ½ number) are accommodated. Information like city and state based on the user’s zip code is pre-filled and includes a checkmark that pre-fills the billing address when it’s the same as the shipping location.

Recognizable credit card logos and site security symbols are included in the checkout process to assure customers that their payment transaction is secure.

Customers are notified by email as soon as the transaction is processed, and they are provided with contact information to a customer service representative who can assist them with live help, online or by phone, if needed.

Clear Policies

Buying from an online merchant often requires that the customer makes a leap of faith in regards to the product quality, service and satisfaction guarantees a merchant may offer.

Effective ecommerce sites are forthcoming about policies regarding product returns, exchanges and warranties. They dedicate space on the website where customers can easily find such information, along with the processes customers should follow if they have to make a refund request.

Keystone

Though the ecommerce space offers significant revenue opportunity and a captive marketplace, merchants must meet and exceed customer expectations on all fronts, including site functionality, product quality and convenience. By combining customer insights with the best practices established by ecommerce leaders, businesses of all sizes have the potential to succeed in an online selling capacity.

Kristen Gramigna is Chief Marketing Officer for BluePay, a credit card processing firm. She has over 20 years experience in the bankcard industry in sales management, direct sales and marketing.

The post Five Features of Effective Ecommerce Sites appeared first on cleverbridge.

Most people go about their day-to-day lives carrying around one currency in their pocket. They are familiar with how much things cost or are able to make a value judgment at a store as to whether they can afford (or are willing to pay) the advertised price marked on a product.

In the online world, it’s very likely that people will shop outside their region without even knowing, because there are few borders for international selling. With this in mind, what does someone, who is used to seeing one currency, do when confronted with an unfamiliar currency? Most users at least pause, if not abandon, because a product’s price is not shown in their familiar currency.

The vast majority of U.S. customers are unfamiliar with spending money in any currency other than the U.S. Dollar. Seeing a Canadian Dollar, Euro or British Pound price will surely cause at least the 72 percent of Americans without passports to struggle to calculate what the cost is in U.S. Dollars, facilitating cart abandonment.

Similarly, the 75 percent of Japanese who don’t own a passport would also pause when presented with a U.S. Dollar, Euro or British Pound product price. Furthermore, the German population with 71 percent not owning a passport will probably be pretty unhappy about paying in British Pound, U.S. Dollar or Japanese Yen.

On the other hand, 76 percent of the UK population didn’t have passports in 1984 compared to just 20 percent not holding a passport today. So, are British citizens less sensitive to prices set in currencies other than the British Pound?

During the first wave of ecommerce, selling globally in a single currency was accepted. Companies required customers pay in the currency from where the company was based. The obvious drawback is customers’ unfamiliarity with the real cost of the “foreign currency.”

The second wave of ecommerce resulted in many companies using a floating exchange rate to automatically calculate the price of a product based upon that day’s exchange rate. This practice addressed the issue of customers knowing how much a product costs but results in unfriendly “crooked” prices (see image below). Depending on how you manage product marketing pages, this practice becomes a management challenge because the prices may or may not be pulled from the same place in your system, resulting in duplicate work.

Your customers should see product prices in clean, rounded numbers to further simplify the purchase decision-making process. If you show a European Union customer a product priced at €23,81  rather than a more customer friendly price of €25,00, you are increasing ecommerce friction unnecessarily and making them aware of the fact that your company is obviously not located in their home country.

Once you decide to price your products in clean, round numbers, the next thing to consider is pricing your product not only based upon the exchange rate of that local currency, but also based upon what the local market will bear for your product.

Keystone

Decrease ecommerce friction and cart abandonment by setting prices in clean, round numbers in every local currency, and don’t forget to price your products appropriately for the market.

The post Set Customer Friendly Prices in Local Currencies appeared first on cleverbridge.