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A Tale of 3 eCommerce Sites

April 6, 2006 By Joe Rawlinson

My wife and I recently purchased some products from three sites we had never before used. I’m usually a little apprehensive about purchasing from a new online site because they haven’t yet established a relationship of trust.

The big thing that helps build trust for me is the professional appearance of a website. Take a look at the following three sites. Which one do you think would deliver the order accurately and in the most timely manner?

  • dentaldepot.com
  • isokineticsinc.com
  • currentcatalog.com

So my guess is whichever one you picked to be the best, it wasn’t dentaldepot.com. Well to our surprise, dentaldepot.com came through with a timely and accurate delivery. The other two sites left us wondering “where is our order?” for too long.

Judging a Book by its Cover

How many customers has dentaldepot.com never gained because its website isn’t quite as spiffy as it could be? What does your site look like to a new customer? What message is it sending? Amateur or professional? Trustworthy or shady?

Dress the Part

Your ecommerce efforts should be wrapped in a clean, usable, and professional-looking design. These characteristics are then associated with your company. If you really are a great customer-centric company, your website should convey that message.

Dress Up

You may be a small company with a limited budget. Nevertheless, the web is a great leveling field. You can compete with the big boys because you can look like them. Now, I’m not saying go and copy somebody’s design, but you can dress up your site so it is professional. Doing so will at least alleviate people’s fears when they first visit your site. Once they’ve gotten over the initial hurdle, you can take that trust and deliver a great customer experience.

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