wedding gift idea

WITH THE holidays just around the corner, now is a great time to add some special features to your website that will likely increase sales. There are four specific things you can do, according to the 2004 Online Holiday Mood Study. The study found that the most successful website feature for driving sales during last years holiday period was a gift-idea center according to 56 percent of online retailers.

The study, which polled 1,612 online buyers and more than 100 online retailers, also named these features as runners-up: a suggested-items page 32 percent, a clearance or sale page 32 percent, and a featured sale-item page 31 percent. Heres a closer look at how you can use each feature to benefit your e-business.

1. GIFT-IDEA CENTER: A gift-idea center allows consumers to browse for suggested gifts by gender, price or category.

When an internet-based seller presents me with information from a gift-idea center, it should increase my willingness to pay the e-tailer, since pany is solving a problem for me, says Robert Kauffman, a professor and merce expert at the University of Minnesotas Carlson School of Management in Minneapolis. A gift-idea center paid off for Francoise Shirley, 39, who added one to her website in 2003.

Inc., pany she founded in 1999 with her husband, John Shirley, 39, sells pajamas and other types of sleepwear and accessories, and expects sales of $2.2 million this year. The Hopkins, Minnesota, business has a gift-idea section where shoppers can choose gifts from categories such as Bride-To-Be, New Mom & Mom-To-Be and Boyfriend Breakup.

Every month, the gift section, which can be accessed through a link on the home page, is updated with new items. So often on the web, people are looking for very specific things, so it is nice if you can modate them by having [a gift section] ready and available on your website, says Francoise.

Since adding the gift center, s average order size has increased from $75 to about $100 to $125. But a gift-idea center wont necessarily work for all e-tailers, warns Kauffman: It might be good for books, music CDs [and] baby gifts, wedding gifts, anniversary gifts and graduation gifts.

But this approach may not work puter-related equipment or clothing, and other kinds of products where there will still be uncertainty on the part of the gift-giver about whether the equipment patible or the clothing will fit, and so on. 2.

SUGGESTED ITEMS: A suggested-items page lets you list multiple pieces of merchandise on a web page specifically for cross-selling or upselling opportunities after a consumer has selected an item. For example, if a shopper is buying a pair of pants, she is plementary items that may also interest her, such as a matching belt or a pair of shoes.

This popular feature helps drive online business because, like a gift-idea center, it offers consumers help from the retailer about what to purchase, says Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org, a division of the National Retail Federation in Washington, DC. Silverman adds that this feature is important because it replicates the in-store experience--where a customer may be more likely to browse and be tempted by another product--online.

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