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The Christmas season is well underway for retailers which means customer service departments will be facing a battle to maintain standards. With many customers shopping online for the first time as w...

We don't do a lot of posts on branding on Get Elastic, but I had to blog about Seattle-based ski, snowboard and wakeboard shop evogear. evo is an example of a retailer that has taken its corporate culture and incorporated its personality into nearly every aspect of its marketing.

If you've added an item to Amazon's cart without purchasing in the same session, Amazon remembers. For a long time. On my last trip to the Amazon, I added a couple new items to buy. Not realizing I had left some products in my cart, I was greeted with this notice on the cart review page:

To follow up our recent post on customer motivation and optimizing your website for hunters (e.g. moms armed with Christmas lists), I want to show you some examples beyond the search box and navigation menu. I'll use a personal story - I'm in the market for a car GPS. Previously knowing nothing about them (features, brands, prices etc), so I started off a howser. I decided I want to check Crutchfield (great product filters and product descriptions), Amazon (access to more products, the seller marketplace and more customer reviews) and Best Buy Canada (Canadian pricing, option to pick up in store).

Understanding what your visitors actually do on your website is an essential part of usability. Find out how to go about doing this!

how to achieve superior customer service

One of the hazards of product recommendations is that you may suggest the wrong thing. But online shoppers love product recommendations, so it is helpful to use them. And they can be great marketing tools. The key is personalized product recommendations.

We've already looked at some classic response-boosting offers along with offers that lower risk, reduce price, and increase urgency. Now let's look at offers that improve terms or that offer services or bribes.

In ecommerce, one of the most important things is search. And right now, search has been moved to a whole new level with what is called blended search. Blended search is when the search engine takes it beyond text links to include pictures, video, blogs, news and just about anything else. This is changing ecommerce search especially, because now product search is part of this.

Over at The Email Wars, there is an interesting post about personalized links in ecommerce emails. Instead of linking to the relevant email topic, many times an ecommerce marketing email will simply send me to a homepage, or a broad category page.

One of the most important elements of your ecommerce Web site is the checkout page. This is the first page from the cart, basket or bag (or whatever you call it on your site) after you offer the option to "check out."

One of the most important pages on your ecommerce Web site is the customer service landing pages. This page often has contact information, and maybe even FAQs. The idea is to make it easy to find, and ensure that the information on the customer service landing page is easy for the customer to use.

Many good ecommerce Web sites know that the product details page can have a material say in whether customers stick around - and even whether they come back. Customers like to learn as much as possible about a product before buying, and product details pages can allow customer to explore a product.

Loyal ecommerce shoppers often like to set up an account with etailers they visit frequently. This means that how you set up the "My Account" page can be important. In terms of design and usability, it is important to cater to your ecommerce shoppers. All of the examples below are the My Account pages for various etailers. Each represents the first thing that comes up when the My Account selection is made on an ecommerce Web site.

Today I'm going to share my thoughts on gift registries. It is true that most ecommerce Web sites these days call them "wishlists," but there are a few companies out there that make the distinction. Additionally, wishlists are often kept private and then sent out by choice, or made public by choice. Gift registries are usually public and searchable (makes it easier for guests to make use of it).

Not too long ago, I did a post on "Welcome" emails. Since I had to sign up for all those accounts - and newsletters - it only makes sense that I take a look at newsletter emails sent by ecommerce Web sites.

good e-commerce portal site