How to sell complex products on the Internet

Online retailers of clothes and shoes gathered during the Online Retail Forum to discuss what features of their product should be considered in order to achieve the best sales.

The discussion was attended by:

Dmitry Aksenov, Head of Digital Marketing, Sela

Julia Buckman, Marketing Director, DDShop, Big Breast Clothing Store

Irina Poddubnaya, Head of Internet Sales, Shoes of Russia

Andriyashkin Dmitry, founder of the online store Butik2.ru

Vasily Fedoseyev, Alpindustria online store

Size matters

“Size didn’t fit” is one of the most common reasons for rejecting a product in an online store. How to minimize the risk of selling a product to a buyer that does not fit him in size?

Dmitry Aksenov: If your segment is clothing and shoes, forget about the existence of Russian and European sizes. So far, there are only Chinese sizes that do not match either one or the other. They differ even within the delivery, in which the same shoes of the 40th size may come a little different. What if the customer lives far away and cannot come to your physical store to try on a model? Seriously work out the size tables on your website: you can measure shoes in centimeters and translate the resulting value into the Russian size, hammer these data into the CRM database so that they are automatically displayed on the website.

Irina Poddubnaya: In fact, in shoes it is not enough to measure only the length of the foot, because parameters such as leg fullness, leg fullness, and even the height of the boot are also important. When the supply is small, it is still possible to measure, but if the collection has more than a thousand articles, to measure all this - even with the help of a laser ruler - is very expensive and not quick.

Julia Buckman: We first tried to compare the sizes with other rulers, but in the end we created our own measurement system. A detailed table has been published on our website describing which waist and chest girth matches the standards of our products. We even guarantee that if a client takes her measurements and compares them with ours, her underwear or clothing will definitely suit her. At the same time, the error of the factory cannot be excluded, therefore we measure each delivery and indicate on the website whether this model is small or large with respect to our measurement system. In addition, when photographing a thing on a model, we indicate the size that the girl model wears, her height, and also the length of the sleeve and back of the product. This is necessary so that the client can match her figure with the figure of the model and understand how a thing sits on it. Finally, we have a very active group of the Vkontakte store, where there is a friendly and friendly atmosphere and clients help each other determine the size: they not only upload their photos from the fitting and leave comments on the model, but even try on individual models in our Moscow store for requested by girls living in other cities.

How to make a client take measurements?

Dmitry Andriyashkin: Maybe not show the client the button “Put in the basket” until he enters data on his own measurements?

Dmitry Aksenov: No, we as sellers do not have the right to discourage the buyer. You can force the client to click on the “Check your size” button in other ways. Experiment a little with the size of the button, its color, location and see in which configuration the button is clicked most often. The button can be placed directly below the information about the size of the thing, then the client will click on it purely intuitively.

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Julia Buckman: When consulting clients on social networks or by phone, we always tell them that we cannot give competent advice without the girl measuring herself with a soft meter.

Vasily Fedoseev: We literally force the client to measure his foot, because our products have their own characteristics, for example, rocky shoes should be 2 sizes smaller, shoes for high-altitude hiking - on the contrary, more because legs swell at a height. Therefore, the call center first checks the length of the insole of the buyer, and only then sends the order. Thus, we were able to achieve a minimum number of returns due to inappropriate size. Now we have also implemented a fitting clothing tool Fitting Reality, in which technology models a thing in a person’s photo. We do not intentionally advertise it yet in order to avoid hype and objectively measure its relevance. Unfortunately, it does not cause much practical interest yet.

Julia Buckman: Few retailers use virtual fitting rooms, because it is expensive, and the client must upload their photo in the correct form. In general, virtual fitting rooms are still rather an image component that works well in the general concept for large companies.

Dmitry Aksenov: The presence of a virtual fitting room does not affect direct sales. We have cases of such fitting rooms integrated into social networks when users publish their photos on Vkontakte or Facebook. I can say that this is an image advantage for the long term, and not an advantage for immediate sales.

Dmitry Andriyashkin: There are other ideas on how to get the client to take measurements. For example, you can convince a client to enter their parameters in a personal profile during registration and give him a 5% discount for this. If it’s difficult for the client to measure himself, you can bring several models to choose from, as Sapato or LaModa does.

Dmitry Aksenov: Sapato, by the way, is gradually abandoning this and at the same time forcing the buyer to purchase at least one model from those that he ordered for fitting. As for small business, it simply will not pull the delivery of several goods to choose from, the logistics service will simply ruin it.

How to achieve color accuracy?

Julia Buckman: After we have shot all the things, we independently compare the color of the product and its color in the photo, and make color correction. At the same time, photos are processed on professional design monitors, so the color rendition may differ from that which is on users' computers. What to do? Firstly, give a textual description, and secondly, recreate the basic settings of the user's computer on the designer’s monitor and check the color of the thing with such settings.

How to eliminate the effect of disappointment when receiving things?

Julia Buckman: To tell the user as much information as possible about the product, you can show it not only in the photo, but also in the form of a video. The quality of the recording is not so important, the main thing is that the thing in the video is visible in dynamics - for example, a girl in shoes goes back and forth along the catwalk, and it is immediately clear how high and stable the heel is and what wrinkles appear on the top. The video will allow you to get the most clear picture of the product. In addition, impulse purchases account for 80% of sales on the Internet, therefore, in order to avoid customer disappointment in receiving things, you need to clearly explain to him and show products in different figures, and not just on slender models. You need to teach him how to dress and choose what suits him, using social networks.

Eugene (dress store): The presence in social networks of photos of our customers in the things that we sell helps us a lot: potential buyers see that a real woman looks like this in this dress, and not like in the photo with the model, and this is not bad, it's normal. Thanks to this, we were able to increase repeat sales through social networks to 40%.

How to reduce promotion costs?

Dmitry Aksenov: In online sales, the cost of attracting one client is more than the margin, and the cost of a click on an advertising link is very expensive. At the same time, the average conversion is 3%, and with an average check of 1,5 rubles, it is impossible to recapture expenses on “one-time” customers. Therefore, in e-commerce, the most important thing is not to sell the product, but to make sure that the buyer returns to you, and, preferably, made friends. Therefore, the user, even before buying in the online store, must be sure that he will return the money for the item without any problems. He should have access to several methods of payment for the goods - not only in cash to the courier, but also payment by card and payment through special services in which the buyer receives a check after he confirms receipt of the goods. In addition, you need to encourage buyers of the online store to leave reviews about the store on any thematic resources like Yandex.Market so that there are not only negative reviews that users write most often, the rest they write just laziness, but also positive ones that can destroy the doubts of potential customers. Use all modern technologies, for example, advertising technology that remembers a client who bought your shoes in the winter and shows him summer summer advertising, retargeting technology, which segments the audience by gender, age, place of residence, interests. This will reduce the cost of a click from one or two dollars to three rubles per click, and organize cross-sales in the best way.

How to get rid of regular sales? In order to buy goods without a discount, you need to create emotions with the buyer and play on his feelings - take photos with images that encourage you to buy right now. There are delivery services that allow you to deliver goods to Novosibirsk in three days. It is also known that most of the citizens get paid twice a month: on the 10th and 20th day. You can send these days messages like "Today you get a 5% discount!". We also noticed that customers often open emails on Fridays, the conversion on this day is 75%.

Julia Buckman: And on the contrary, the best conversion of e-mailing is from Monday to Thursday, and from Friday to Monday our letters do not open at all. Therefore, you need to try different methods and see which ones are best for your audience.