People who shop online tend to exhibit certain psychological characteristics. In order to market your business and your products effectively, it’s important to understand what drives your customers. A masters in psychology, specifically in consumer psychology, hones your marketing skills by teaching you how your customers tick — and therefore, how to reach them.

Here are ten important characteristics of online buyers:

Egocentric – Yes, it’s all about them, and that’s okay because (remember this?) the customer is always right! Online buyers are online for their own reasons — because it’s more convenient for them, because they want to find the best price or research a product first, or because they suddenly thought of something they have to have at 3am. By learning how to cater your website to this customer, you can achieve a personal connection in an increasingly impersonal experience. Instant chat applications on your site, using Facebook to as a customer service portal or catering shopping experiences to frequent visitors can help you deal with the egocentric online buyer.

Impatient - Everything about the frequent online shopper screams impatience. If you write copy for websites, you already know that long sentences and paragraphs don’t work, because no one wants to waste time reading wordy pages online. By the same token, people who shop online do it because they don’t want to wait in line or deal with crowds. Customers can buy practically everything online now, from postage to groceries, so it’s important to know how best to streamline your site so that shopping is fast and easy. Shortening the purchase process, reducing the number of fields on a sign up form or allowing users to sign into your shopping cart with Facebook are examples of appeasing impatient online buyers.

Impulsive - Similarly, people who buy online can be rather impulsive. Making a purchase can be as easy as clicking a button. Downloadable products such as ebooks and music can be especially impulsive, as they offer instant gratification, much like the candy in the checkout aisle at the grocery store. Honing your marketing techniques will enable you to utilize this impulsivity in order to make a sale or add to a customer’s order. Upsells at checkout and “customers also purchased” sections in online shopping carts are examples of catering to impulsive online buyers.

Educated – Studies show that online buyers tend to be fairly well educated, with most having college degrees. This may be because their education makes them more comfortable with computers, or because education typically leads to a higher income level. By knowing who your target market is, you can tailor your marketing approach. Producing onsite content that is both educational and informational for the advanced online user with a college degree.

Informed – This may seem a bit contradictory, since we recently talked about how impulsive people can be when shopping online. However, the Internet also makes it easier to research a product or a company, and many online purchases start out as research. Providing product information, articles, and reviews on your site can help drive traffic to your website, as well as help potential customers make a decision to buy.

Thrifty - Just as you can easily research products or companies online, you can also price shop without spending as much time (or gas!) on driving around from store to store. As a result, online shopping often appeals to folks who want to save money. This makes pricing important, of course, but a good consumer psychology program will also teach you how to build in benefits that customers can’t easily put a price on, such as stellar customer service or a warranty. These kinds of considerations can outweigh price considerations, even with your most thrifty customers.

Private - Online buyers tend to be fairly private people. Sometimes they are making their purchases online because they are embarrassed and don’t want others to see what they are buying. But more importantly, they often don’t want their information shared with other companies, especially spammers. It’s therefore important to learn how to build trust with your customers, starting with a promise to protect their privacy.

Cautious - Another fact of buying online is the need to watch out for fraud and scams. The seriousness of this problem might cause one to ask why people buy online at all, but the answer is usually because customers feel safe buying from a certain company, whether that’s because it’s large, well-known, has a good reputation, or has a guarantee that reassures them. Consumer psychology will teach you how to establish that trust with potential customers.

Indecisive – While some online shoppers are impulsively decisive, others can take a long time to make up their mind, especially if you are trying to convince them to buy something you sell (rather than them coming to you looking for that product). Studies show that customers often have to have a product put in front of them a handful of times before they’ll buy it. By learning about the psychology of your buyers, you’ll learn how to do this without being annoying — with approaches such as newsletters, social media, video, etc.

Pleasure-driven – Let’s face it, most shopping that we do online isn’t for things that we need, but things that we want. Online buyers shop for fun — whether the fun is the shopping experience, the item they are purchasing, or a little of both. In marketing, therefore, it’s your job to make sure that nothing about the experience — the website, the buying process, etc. — spoils the fun for your customers.

If you’ve ever listened to a commercial or looked at an ad and thought about why it works — how it appeals to its audience in order to produce sales — you will love the challenge of working in consumer psychology!

About the Author:
Vern Marker writes on behalf of a masters in psychology graduate program and frequently blogs about industry careers. When Vern is not blogging or writing, he is an avid reader and enjoys traveling the world. Follow him on Twitter@VernMarker.

“I am so excited about this tool. I have never seen an online merchant provide immediate monetary incentive to customers to Facebook Like their products. With our new Facebook Like & Save Feature, all of our clients have a new tool to take their online sales viral. If you think about the concept, it just makes sense. I suspect that one day this will be a standard feature in the ecommerce industry. For now, I pleased that we are the only ecommerce provider offering it because if gives our clients a competitive advantage,” explains Craig Ross, VP of Sales at Nexternal.

The tool is easy to use for both customers and merchants alike. When a customer visits a product in the merchant’s online store they will see the Facebook Like button and the sharing discount they receive for simply liking the product. Once they select the Like button they will instantly see their discount in the shopping cart. At this same point, the Like notification will instantly appear on their Facebook News Feed with a direct link back to the merchant’s online store. With a simple click the customer has posted product info on their Facebook News Feed because the savvy merchant provided the incentive for them to do so.

For Nexternal merchants, simply select the checkbox for Facebook sharing and in the preferences specify the Sharing Amount. Turning on Facebook Like & Save is that simple. Not only does this tool provide an instant source of links into a merchant’s store it also makes a merchant’s products more attractive to the search engines now that social signals are a factor they use in their rankings.

Napa Valley’s Goosecross Cellars was an early adopter of this marketing technology with the intent of enhancing communication and enriching the overall customer experience. Owner and President of Goosecross Cellars, David Topper, states, “We have been using the Facebook Like button in our Nexternal powered store for quite some time to successfully increase brand awareness. Now that we can provide added value for our fans with an immediate incentive, I think our Facebook Likes will grow exponentially. We love the fact that we can now reward our customers automatically for posting links about their favorite Goosecross wines and sharing their experience with others. This is a clever concept and is just another reason why we continue to partner with Nexternal.”

About Nexternal
Nexternal is a leading provider of web based ecommerce software. Founded in 1999, the company’s unique ecommerce system is used by hundreds of clients in many diverse industries. Nexternal’s software features an always-on screen shopping cart with integrated marketing and fulfillment tools allowing merchants to maximize revenue while minimizing operating costs.

Nexternal’s software was rated five out of five stars by Internet.com and is a three time SIIA Codie awards finalist for Best E-Commerce Software. Clients include Weyerhaeuser, USA Today, Ste Michelle Wine Estates, Taser International and Hershey. With locations in Carlsbad, CA, and New Canaan, CT, Nexternal provides industry leading customer service. For more information, contact Nexternal via phone at 800.914.6161 or visit them online at http://www.nexternal.com.

With more than 500 million active users spending over 700 billion minutes a month on its site, Facebook has become a premier platform for socializing, sharing, searching and, now, shopping online.

Many stores are leveraging social networks to allow consumers to execute transactions in the comfort of their own Facebook pages, where attention is high and the user’s likes and dislikes are clear. The Social Commerce premise is that the focus is on people instead of products. There is a treasure trove of data based on users’ interests on their Facebook pages, and businesses can finally tailor the presentation of merchandise to offer a truly customized shopping experience. Businesses can now sell consumers exactly what they want, and consumers are reaping the benefits.

Social Commerce helps businesses offer consumers exclusive deals and special promotions while enabling them to connect with, listen to, understand and engage with their customers to improve the overall shopping experience. Furthermore, the information and content on Facebook is “shared,” meaning that friends can update each other on their recent online shopping sprees.

But in addition to benefits and opportunities, emerging communications channels always come with some new potential risks, and Social Commerce is no exception. The main concerns for consumers are security and privacy. Especially when phishing scams, identity theft and hackers are constantly in the headlines, consumers are more aware than ever of the need for online security and identity protection. With Social Commerce, cybercriminals are more likely to exploit the inherent trust that social networking sites enjoy. So how can consumers gain confidence in Social Commerce?

To know if a website, link and transaction are safe, the first thing to look for is an SSL Certificate, a technology that enables encryption when users connect to a website. When the lock icon appears in an Internet browser, this means SSL is in place, encrypting the site visitor’s information.

Symantec, the provider of VeriSign® SSL, has been working with a number of social commerce platform providers to offer enhanced security to organizations with a fan store on Facebook. When fans visit a fan store protected by VeriSign SSL, they will see the familiar “VeriSign Trusted” seal that more than 100,000 online businesses choose to show that their transactions are secure.

When consumers buy directly on their Facebook pages and see SSL, they know they can trust the businesses they “like” and that their transactions are protected with the most advanced and proven security technology.

“This project began as a way to inform friends and neighbors on one of the best ways to revive our economy: buy local,” said Bill Brunelle, Independent We Stand spokesperson. “Buying products and services from people who work and live in your town means more money goes back to your local area. Through taxes, payrolls, and the business owner’s own local purchases, that reinvestment stays where you live, making your own community a better place.”

Independently owned businesses provide numerous benefits to their local economies that most people might not be aware of. According to recent studies*:

• When you spend $100 at an independent business, $68 returns to the local community. Spend that same amount at a national chain and it drops to $43.
• Small business accounts for 75% of all new jobs.
• Locally owned businesses reinvest in the local economy at a 60% higher rate than chains and internet retailers.
• Small businesses create more than half the non-farm private gross domestic product (GDP).
• Locally owned and operated businesses create higher-paying jobs for you and your neighbors.
• More of your tax dollars are reinvested in your community to fund local schools, hire more police officers and improve roads.

The Independent We Stand website also provides tools for businesses and consumers to further the cause. The newly launched site, IndependentWeStand.org, features a database of locally owned businesses across the country, a resource center for business owners to share news and statistics on the importance of buying local, and posters and flyers to help promote the message.

Independent We Stand is sponsored by STIHL Inc., a manufacturer of outdoor power equipment that has never sold its products through mass merchants, but instead sells through thousands of independently owned servicing dealers across the country. For more information, to pledge your support for locally owned businesses, or to register your own business in the database, visit http://www.IndependentWeStand.org.

About Independent We Stand
Independent We Stand is a movement of independent business owners across the country to inform their communities about the importance of “Buying Local” and how these efforts bolster their local economy. This movement supports all local and national causes committed to boosting local economic development projects. The Independent We Stand movement is powered by STIHL Inc. For more information, visit
http://www.IndependentWeStand.org.

*Sources: U.S. Chamber of Commerce – Small Business Nation; Civic Economics – Andersonville Study of Retail Economics; Civic Economics – San Francisco Report on Retail Diversity; U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census.

Free to download and use, CheckPoints lets shoppers earn points by “checking in” to over a million U.S. retail locations and scanning barcodes on featured products from major brands, including Belkin®, Energizer®, Seventh Generation®, Tyson Foods®, Kmart and more. Points are instantly redeemable for real-world prizes like gift cards, gadgets, and airline miles.

CheckPoints’ arrival in the Android Market comes on the heels of its breakout consumer success this fall. Launched with an initial founders’ investment round, the app already has over 200,000 users – 100,000 of whom joined in just the last two weeks. CheckPoints users have proven highly engaged, using the app almost three times a day, and scanning featured products in stores hundreds of thousands of times.

“From the moment we debuted in the Apple App Store, we’ve had requests to expand to the Android Market – in fact, we’ve got a waiting list of over 10,000 people,” said Todd Dipaola, cofounder and President. “Android users are enthusiastic about finding new and unique uses for their phones, and we’re thrilled to welcome them to the CheckPoints family.”

Get in on the Action

ESB Journal's QR code

Would you like to have your product or website feature one of those nifty barcodes? Or, are you at a loss for what you could use them for? Here’s a brief overview:

QR Codes and DataMatrix are 2D Barcodes. Information is encoded horizontally and vertically in a matrix, which stores more information per square unit than 1D Barcodes. Both QR Code and DataMatrix are highly resistant to errors.

Free scanners for QR Barcode and Data Matrix are available for mobile phones.

How You Can Use This Tool:

• Convert URLs, email addresses or phone numbers to Barcodes.
• Create a vCard and print it on your business card.
• Let people send you a SMS.
• Hide information from non-tech savvy people.
• Link real-world physical objects to objects in the Internet.

Interested in creating your own QR (quick response) code for your website or product? Get one here for free — http://invx.com/.

To download your own copy of the Checkpoints app for Android, visit this link - http://www.checkpoints.com/android/download/.

As an entrepreneur, it can sometimes be quite difficult to find new customers and build business, especially given the current economic situation.

Two years ago, Dr. Chris Woolaver launched his state-of-the-art orthodontics practice, Woolaver Orthodontics, in Ahwatukee, Arizona, on the outskirts of Phoenix. A Canadian by birth, Woolaver opened his office amid some fairly challenging circumstances.

“It was the middle of a recession and we were going into a well-established neighborhood,” Woolaver said. “I knew we’d have to work hard to get noticed, so we focused heavily on branding and building a reputation for providing the latest in advanced orthodontic treatment in an edgy and progressive atmosphere.”

His award-winning facility has more of a sports-bar feel — definitely not your typical dental or orthodontist office. Patients who come to Woolaver Orthodontics feel confident they will receive the most advanced treatment with the latest technology from the moment they walk in the door.

With his focus on branding and marketing, Woolaver is a master at maintaining and supporting his brand message throughout every aspect of his business. It’s a strategy that any branding expert will attest is spot-on for growing any kind of business, but one that isn’t exactly commonplace among private-practice medical or dental professionals.

In fact, Woolaver has even carried the branding theme through to his referral program, giving patients a $100 custom-branded Woolaver Orthodontics prepaid Visa debit card for each new patient they refer who begins treatment. Woolaver says that, while offering patients rewards for referrals is quite common in his industry, most practitioners might hand out Starbucks, Walmart or AMC movie cards, which essentially promotes those brands, rather than the practitioner.

“We’ve taken it to the next level by making it consistent with our brand. If I’m going to reward my patients for referrals, I’d rather do it in a way that promotes my business, rather than another company,” Woolaver said. “I hope to see thousands of these cards floating around the neighborhood. The more people use them, the more likely someone will see them and maybe ask, ‘hey, where’d you get that?’ That top of mind awareness creates continuous exposure, which helps build brand recognition and bring in new business.”

To create the cards, Woolaver uses IncentiveCardLab.com, a service of CardLab, Inc., that allows him to design his own customized card, complete with the Woolaver Orthodontics logo, and whatever message he’d like to include. The cards can be loaded with any denomination desired, but Woolaver says the $100 cards provide a compelling incentive for his patients. He gives out an average of 15 cards per month-meaning the cards bring in at least 15 new patients to his practice each month.

“Considering that the typical fee for complete orthodontic treatment is around $4,500 to $5,500 in this market, I’ll spend $100 for that,” Woolaver said. “The ROI makes it well worth it for me, and it’s great for patients too. There’s no limit on the number of cards patients can earn. I have some patients who have literally paid for almost half of their own orthodontic treatment by referring their friends.”

Woolaver issues the cards to both adult and adolescent patients (or their parents), and says the relatively small investment of $5.95 he makes to customize each card is well worth it to continue promoting his brand and his business. The cards can be used anywhere Visa is accepted and can be reloaded, if the recipient desires.

As Woolaver has found, when it comes to growing your business, it sometimes takes a bold new approach to a tried-and-true tactic. By thanking customers for their referrals with a unique and memorable gift like customized, prepaid Visa cards, any small business can create the kind of top of mind awareness and brand recognition that can increase revenue and build long-term growth.

About the Author
David S. Jones is CEO of CardLab, Corp. the global leader in customized, pre-paid Visa incentive cards for employee incentives, customer rewards and personal gift-giving. The company’s easy-to-use custom card design and distribution services make it simple, fast and affordable to send FDIC-insured incentive cards in any denomination from $5 to $2500 to anyone, anywhere, with no minimum order and no setup fee. For more information, visit http://www.giftcardlab.com.

Start leveraging social and mobile commerce to pull in more shoppers this season.

Volusion, a leading ecommerce provider for entrepreneurs selling online, has released “101 Tips to Boost Holiday Sales” to help its customers and other online merchants optimize revenues with the uptick in holiday traffic. Garnered over their ten years in business, the tips are intended to help online merchants compete in a more crowded online retail market this year.

In addition to the 101 tips, Volusion’s ecommerce design team also released free holiday web graphics to make it easier for e-retailers to update websites for their busy, gift-giving season.

Industry Stats

• The National Retail Federation (NRF) predicts that online sales will increase 15 percent this November and December and 2.3% overall, which analysts say will be the best year for retail since the recession began. (source: Internet Retailer)
• In a recent survey, the NRF found that 27 percent of U.S. smartphone owners will use their mobile device to research or purchase gifts this holiday season. (source: Internet Retailer)
• According to eMarketer, 27 percent of holiday shoppers last year used social networks to help determine which gifts friends and family might like.

“Leveraging social and mobile commerce will be critical to pulling in more shoppers this season, and the 101 tips can help online merchants take full advantage of these and other tools at their disposal,” said Clay Olivier, CMO/COO of Volusion. “Our mobile commerce solution and AddThis features are simple and effective ways to catch potential shoppers in the gift research mode and capitalize on these growing shopping trends.”

Top 10 Tips
Volusion’s tips range from logistical improvements in shipping and inventory to more innovative marketing tactics, such as how to utilize the latest technologies in social media to optimize your campaigns. Following are ten sample tips:

1. Ensure the mobile-optimized version of your online store has its logo and the categories are arranged properly.
2. Share your holiday discounts and highlight featured products daily via social media – this creates a sense of urgency and helps extend your online reach.
3. Enable social sharing features like Add This™ and the Facebook “Like” button on your product pages. This allows your site visitors to plant the idea for the perfect gift directly on various social media pages.
4. Update your homepage graphic or slideshow to be completely holiday focused, pointing customers to holiday-related categories or your top-selling products. Volusion released free holiday web graphics to help get customers in the mood for shopping.
5. Never, ever let holiday shoppers be surprised by shipping charges once they reach the checkout page. Explicitly state the shipping cost before they push the final “Checkout” button. Surprise shipping charges are the #1 reason for abandoned shopping carts.
6. Don’t skimp on the time spent analyzing orders for fraud. With an influx of orders, it becomes easy to quickly process them without looking for the tell-tale signs of fraudulent activity.
7. Create bundles or gift baskets of your products and create a specific category for them. You can also place these bundles in other categories you already have. Talk about cross-selling!
8. Offer exclusive discounts for Black Friday (day after Thanksgiving) and Cyber Monday (first Monday after Thanksgiving). These are both huge days for online sales.
9. Resubmit your site map sooner than later with your new holiday products and categories so search engines can index and rank them before the selling season takes off.
10. Submit your products to Comparison Shopping Engines (CSEs). If you’re new to the game, get started by listing products on free engines like Google Product Search, Bing Shopping and TheFind. Once you do some testing to see which perform the best, consider moving to paid CSEs or hiring a CSE management service. While not as many use CSEs as typical search engines, those who do use this type of product search are more likely to buy.

To view the complete list of 101 Tips, click here.

Got a great idea for a Web site, but can’t find a decent .com Web address that suits you?

If the Web address you want is owned by someone else, you can offer to buy it — but sometimes sales can range from several hundred to several hundred thousand dollars.

Using an alternate domain extension, such as .net, .org, .info and .biz, might help you find the name that you want, but Internet users can easily overlook these target niche audiences.

Perhaps the best way for you to get the Web address you want is with the new .CO domain extension, which launched in July and generated nearly half a million registrations in the first few weeks alone!

Here are just a few reasons why the .CO domain extension has been such an immediate success:

It’s Familiar: .CO is very similar to .com, so it’s easy for people to remember. People around the world already associate “co” with “company,” so it’s easier for them to make the leap from .com to .CO. Also, it’s already used in 20 country-specific domains like England (.co.uk), Canada, (.co.ca), Japan (.co.jp), and others.

It’s Available: Since there are so many .CO names to choose from, people all over the world are jumping on the .CO bandwagon. You can search for available .CO domains through registrars such as GoDaddy.com, Register.com, Network Solutions and others.

It’s Safer: .CO takes a tough stand on all forms of domain name abuse. They’ve taken steps to protect the rights of brands and trademark holders and have made it harder for cyber-squatters and fraudsters to hide from authorities.

Thousands of major corporations, such as Apple, Coca-Cola, Disney, McDonalds and Sony, have already secured their .CO domain names. Many companies like Overstock.com (o.co) are using .CO to create new content, reach new audiences or offer new services.

It may take a while for .CO to catch up to .com, but at least you can get in on the ground floor and secure the .CO domain that best fits your online business, blog or personal Web site. For more information, visit www.cointernet.co.

Interested in learning more about domain buying and selling? Contact Traci through the ESB Journal Facebook page for details on an upcoming teleseminar on the subject.

Five years after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast

Silk Road Collection, a New Orleans-based seller of antique Chinese furniture, lost most of its customer base when Hurricane Katrina shattered tourism in the region. They needed to find new sources of clients and revenue. Then Yahoo! Small Business sent a team of volunteers to the region to help Gulf Coast businesses get back on their feet. The team built 150 online stores for free in one day, including an online store for Silk Road Collection. Today, online sales account for 80 percent of overall sales for this Asian antiques company.

Lessons Learned Over Five Years
Even five years after Hurricane Katrina, Silk Road Collection will never forget the volunteers from Yahoo! Small Business who created its online store and helped put it back in business.

“We are thankful to everyone who helped New Orleans over the last five years, so we want to share the business lessons we’ve learned since opening our online store,” said Robert Turner, co-owner of Silk Road Collection. Tips include:

Pursue your passion. Whether you’re starting a new business or looking to fine-tune your existing one, you’ll be more successful if you sell products and services you love. The enthusiasm will be contagious!

Seek trusted advisers and partners. From your website to your accounting services, seek the help of trusted brands and trusted advisers.

If you’re starting a new business, consider minimizing the startup costs. Online storefronts can cost as little as $40/month to start up.

Communicate with your customers. Make sure you capture e-mail and physical addresses, when possible, to enable you to develop long-term relationships with your customers. Should disaster strike, as it did for Silk Road, having e-mail addresses would still allow you to communicate with your customers, even if they moved, as did many residents after Hurricane Katrina destroyed their homes.

Make sure customers can find you. Today, having a website and being listed on local online sites is a must for businesses whose customers want to be able to research them online.

Learn More
Learn more at http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com and http://SilkRoadCollection.com.