Your Ecommerce Return Policy, Farting Hippos, Poor Web Design

The Conversion Scientists are reading some good stuff at the moment. Do you have any to add?

From Venngage – “7 Reasons Why Clicking This Title Will Prove Why You Clicked This Title”

“I don’t know about you, but anytime I see or hear mention of a story about a dog or a cute panda sneezing or a hippo farting, I get excited and immediately need to read or see more.”
The kind of traffic that comes to a “Clickbait” headline is often not well qualified. People come because of the headline’s hook, not because they need a product or service.
Having said that, the psychology of these headlines can be used to draw a more qualified audience to a content piece or landing page. Many of the best-performing headlines we’ve tested are abrupt and unexpected. It’s something they have in common with clickbait headlines: 79% of the ones analyzed in the Venngage used the element of shock.
So I offer this little study of click bait headlines. It’s worth the read if only for the dog videos. (Plus it turns out the farting hippo thing is real.)
Read more.
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From Medium – “Making a Murderer: 7 Hilarious Things Wrong with Ken Kratz’s Website”

We don’t normally advocate for website redesigns. In fact, we think there are only two good reasons to do them:

1. Rebranding or repositioning
2. A poor content management system (CMS)

Kratz’s website might fall into both of those categories.
“If Ken Kratz had a child build his website without his awareness and did not make changes at the fear of hurting their feelings, then that would be a permissible excuse.”
Enough said.
Read more.

From The Washington Post – “The surprising psychology of shoppers and return policies”

“Overall, a lenient return policy did indeed correlate with more returns. But, crucially, it was even more strongly correlated with an increase in purchases. In other words, retailers are generally getting a clear sales benefit from giving customers the assurance of a return.”
It’s counterintuitive that sales increase when you give people more chances to return what they buy, but the data is there. Return policies are important: two thirds of eCommerce shoppers look at them, and these policies are a large part of how consumers choose where to buy what they want.
Read more.
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Trina Bolfing

Trina Bolfing is a frequent contributor to the Conversion Sciences blog.

Latest posts by Trina Bolfing (see all)

• Correlation, Causation, and Their Impact on AB Testing - July 28, 2016
• 3 Very Different Meanings of the Word “Redesign” - April 28, 2016
• Your Ecommerce Return Policy, Farting Hippos, Poor Web Design - April 7, 2016