Finding or Fixing your eCommerce Foundation

Our regular listeners know this, but 2 Regular Guys are all about garment decorating, a bit of fun, and no rants or lectures or selling. We are not doing this for our employers, but rather for our industry. Since February 2013, The 2 Regular Guys have been the first and the most listened to garment decorating industry podcast on this planet! We are humbled by all of you tuning in each week. We work hard to bring you information that will make your business better, and our industry better. Take a look at our incredible weekly guest list and you’ll understand where this industry goes for news, interviews and the heartbeat of garment decorating. Thanks for listening!

News

• Screen Printing Magazine announces the first-ever Women in Screen Printing Awards. To honor today’s female leaders, Screen Printing magazine is looking for six accomplished women who, through their careers, industry involvement, and philanthropic roles, have sparked innovation, spurred business growth, improved their communities and enhanced the screen printing industry. Nominees must hold a leadership position at a company that produces screen printing as its primary function. Honorees will appear in the Screen Printing magazine October/November 2020 issue and be recognized during Printing United in Atlanta. Deadline to submit an nominee is August 4th. 

• ASI Show announces new Fall Dates for ASI Chicago. The Chicago trade show, rescheduled from July to September 30-October 1. According to ASI, “We’re rescheduling ASI Chicago because we want to be an integral part of the next, all-important phase of the recent crisis: economic recovery for our industry, our members, and the great city of Chicago.” Check the ASI website for more details: https://www.asishow.com/

• Terry: Katie at NBM asked me to point out that NBM Charlotte dates are November 5th & 6th. Originally NBM had the 6th and 7th printed and realized that the convention center had them reserved for the 5th and 6th.

• No updates from Impressions Expo beyond Josh saying everything is still a “go” with Ft Worth, Orlando and Atlantic City.

• When/if there’s a trade show this year, will you go? Will you attend seminars? What will you do differently? Tell us if you’d be there (or not) as a vendor or an attendee.

  Dad Joke: Did you hear the rumor about butter?

  Well, I’m not going to spread it.

eCommerce Foundation

5 Pillars of eCommerce

Ease of Use: No matter how you employ ecommerce or your particular percentage of eCommerce to standard brick and mortar business, one of your chief aims is to use technology to make the process of ordering decorated goods easier. Everything you do, from how you design forms, what platform you use, how you accept payment, to how you organize your goods should all be done with the mantra in mind that you never increase complexity for the user unless it is absolutely necessary. I see so many people making it hard to give their companies money! How have you seen this go wrong and what would you do to make it right?

Accessibility: Your site must work on the platforms your users are likely to use, be accessible and easily found in the places where your customers interact with you, and should be readily navigated without question of where one is going and how to get to the next step. Your site must be both literally accessible, as in live, easy to get to, and able to be used on any device your customers rely on, and figuratively accessible in that it must be easy to understand and navigate. This is not just structure, but bleeds over into content, the text of your descriptions and your policies, how you communicate and how able your customer is to communicate with you as well. To ensure trust, you personally also must be accessible. How have you seen decorators tackle Accessibility?

Applicability: In my mind, you can never target everyone- applicability means that your garment selection, decoration style, site function, content, stock designs, your branding and style are all aimed at your chosen audience. Everything you do should be targeted to their needs, wants, and interests. There’s nothing like a mismatch between the style and communication of a site with that of their user base to cause a feeling of alienation. This is why I’m a proponent of branded single-customer stores for larger clients and/or multiple styled storefronts for custom decoration as needed. How do you see people win and fail at Applicability?

Consistency: Consistency is key to building trust with a customer. No matter what aspect of your site or process we are talking about, the customer should be able to trust in the outcome. Your policies need to be evenly applied across the board, your content and descriptions should feature the same pertinent information, and every order should receive similar contacts and treatment. From your site branding, to your product setup, to your packaging, a highly consistent and honestly predictable process will help your customers get comfortable with your service. Surprise and delight are great, but the packages need to arrive on time. How do you guys ensure consistency, and do you have some good/bad examples to share?

Experience: I fought with whether or not to include this as a pillar, but I think it’s become increasingly important that we focus on customer experience and feeling as we are all competing in the online space with similar tools and products. From the way, we choose to present our products, to the way we talk with customers, to our policies, and throughout the experience of working with us, we should be looking to provide an experience that delights, surprises, and shows care for our customers. From product selection to packaging, from store branding to follow up contact, Experience has to be a watchword. How do you see decorators ensuring that above and beyond memorable experience that keeps them top-of-mind with their clients online? 

Bonus: Promotion! You have to market to make it. 🙂