Applying Store Principles to Web
Design is one of a series of
articles written by David S. Ahl
and Peter Temes on Web
tracking and consumer behavior on the web in 1995 to 1996. At that time, Ahl
was the general manager of Direct Media’s CatalogLink request service. He also headed
the
Applying Store Principles to Web Design - scroll down to see original article
Don’t call the walk-in trade browsers; call them consumers
What do you call the people who visit World Wide Web sites? Browsers? Surfers? How about consumers?
The vocabulary matters, because the old Internet demographic of information professionals scouring the information superhighway for technical data just doesn’t work anymore.
Many of today’s typical Internet users – and the vast majority of tomorrow’s – are people in search of easy solutions to common problems. They don’t particularly love the technology, and flashy, cool sites mean less to them than many site designers imagine.
These people are consumers through and through, and smart Web sites are coming to resemble stores more than clubhouses for this very reason. Thoughtful direct marketers also will notice that effective Web site design follows the principles of retail store design and layout more than in-the-envelope direct mail structure. Retailers have a bagful of useful tricks that haven’t meant much to direct marketers yet, but which the Web will clearly reward.
Two of the most important tools that capitalize on store traffic patterns are the concepts of shelf sets/plan-o-grams and point-of-purchase ads/promotions.
Shelf sets are the collective arrangement of goods on shelves, typically in supermarkets, chain drug stores and mass merchandiser locations. Shelf sets work hand in hand with total store layout. High-demand, frequently purchase items are usually put in sections of the store fairly far from the entrance. This layout forces more buyers past the other, less frequently purchased (and higher margin) items. Numerous retail store tests have proven that the more goods consumers pass as they traverse the store to pick up that gallon of milk or pound of hamburger the more they will but.
The plan-o-gram is a map of the shelf with the brands, sizes and varieties arranged to maximize sales. Products at eye level sell more than those on the bottom shelf. The plan-o-gram is the retail equivalent of catalog square-inch analysis.
These concepts carry over to the Web well. If your site offers some popular goodies – free software downloads or the chance to enter a contest – where on your site do you want to place the “download now” or “enter me” buttons?
Shelf-set theory suggests you put one or two screens of other products and information about your company between the first teaser for the contest or download and the actual activation button. Clearly the Web has huge advantages over a retail store in this area. It’s much easier to test alternate locations for a sweeps entry button than it is to move a salad bar to different locations in a grocery store.
The impact of point-of-purchase communication on a sale is also a fine idea for Web marketers to keep in mind.
Catalogers understand how position in the book affects sales. Front and back-cover positions, as well as order-form adjacencies, are high-traffic locations that usually generate above-average results.
It’s all about the impulse purchase or increasing the average order. This is an area where both direct and retail marketers who look at those end-of-day sales figures can agree: Good point-of-purchase material adds a nice boost.
Thinking about Web site visitors as consumers first and foremost opens a number of doors to good marketing ideas – and every new idea is an experiment that can be carefully tested in this data-rich medium.
Like everything in direct marketing and retailing, what works in one site – whether conventional or virtual – may need to be modified or optimized to work in another. There is no substitute for running your own test on your own Web Site. Compared with retail, Web tests are relatively easy to implement.
