How Your Ecommerce Website Can Mimic What Makes Amazon Successful

By Derik Mansfield

Amazon

Amazon.com is the largest retail website on the internet. So much so that nobody else even come’s close, having nearly three times as much revenue as second place Staples. Founded just 15 years ago they have a market cap of 52.81 billion, which already surpasses long standing giants like Target (market cap: 37.03B), and many other well known retail chains.

So the question is how did they get where they are today? What are some of the keys to their success, and more importantly how can we incorporate those things into our business? We can make reasonable arguments that it was their large investments in extra warehouses and fulfillment centers that allowed them to handle the busy holiday seasons, and undoubtedly that played a role. But lets take closer look at some of the things they do on their front end that we can emulate.

Here are two key areas that have the greatest impact

1. The first thing that I believe makes them so successful is their review system. They actively encourage people who have purchased from them to leave reviews. These instant testimonials tend to be quite honest, good or bad, and they play a huge part in whether the prospect will make a buying decision. I’m sure most of you like me have decided against buying a product after reading honest reviews of the product. Likewise we’ve probably all bought something after hearing about how great something was from a friend. Seeing positive reviews will put your mind at ease, which helps lower any resistance you might have in making a buying decision. This is a powerful tool that can significantly improve your sales… as long as your selling a quality products of course!

2. The next key to their sales success is the “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” section where they try and to cross sell you. How many people have bought an iPod and then immediately afterwards went ahead and bought the case for it? Or maybe after you decided to buy a car the salesman got you to upgrade for the leather seats, or just after buying a bag of chips you decided to get the dip too. Most sales people will tell you that the easiest sale is the one that happens just after they made the first one. They are striking while the iron is hot. The reason this works is that a person’s actions tend to be consistent their previous action, at least in the short term. So if you get the prospect to make that initial buying decision, they are much more likely to continue to buy from you as long as what you’re trying to cross sell them pairs well with the previous item.

But how do you go about trying to incorporate these selling strategies into your store?

Well you should be able to find a web developer who can build these features into your webstore, or into a Yahoo store. The Shopify platform has a marketplace for apps that fully integrate with the site, such as ExpressRex Recommendation Engine (which mimics the “customers who bought X also bought Y” feature from Amazon), and then there is also the app called Grapevine which allows customers to rate and review products on your website.

Whatever platform you use to sell your product, it’s definitely worth taking a look to find out how you can incorporate these ideas into your store, they are powerful selling tools.

-Derik Mansfield

DropShip – Learn how to start a business using drop shippers.

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