In my previous blog, I shed light on the category of gifts/flowers that makes up 15 of the top 500 e-commerce sites. Additionally, 3 of the top 500, ProFlowers, FTD, and 1800Flowers.com, have been ranking in the top 10 e-tailers by conversion rate according to MarketingCharts.com for the past few months. So after reviewing some interesting stats, let’s take a look at 5 of the top 15 site’s homepages: ProFlowers, 1800Flowers, FTD, JustFlowers, and GiftTree.

Of course, the first page that pops up after visiting any ecommerce site is the homepage. Its role is crucial in keeping the site visitor interested enough and directing them to their desired destination. ProFlowers, 1800Flowers, and FTD do a great job, clearly, from their outstanding conversion rates. JustFlowers and Gift Tree are not doing so shabby either making it to the top 500 etailers.

Let’s try to learn lessons and sometimes mishaps from the very best

From a distance, the look entirely different:

ProFlowers utilizes vibrant colors and plenty of incentives throughout the homepage.

1800Flowers and FTD are a bit simpler by letting the flowers do the talking.

FTD.com includes a slideshow application and every 2 seconds or so the picture advertises another bouquet.

JustFlowers.com has a very simple page with a list of the various bouquets available and interestingly enough their top navigation is placed in the middle (which can cause confusion to visitors accustomed to the traditional top navigation).

My main impression of Gifttree.com is that the site has a lot of text around the main photograph of the bouquet. It’ll be interesting to take a closer look at their site.

Let’s take a closer look at the top converting site Proflowers.com

Clearly, on the ProFlowers page you can see the large logo on the left with the phone number listed below it.

1. The yellow box in the middle of the page is trying to point to a certain urgency to purchase, which is a successful tactic many ecommerce sites use to entice the visitor to make a spontaneous decision. However it does take away from the main logo because of its vibrancy.
2. The top navigation utilizes drops down menus as you move the cursor on each category.
3. The middle section of the main page (high value real estate of the page) uses two different offers
4. The left section is promoting a single category: birthday collections.
5. The right section displays a slideshow of rotating bouquets and the option to purchase immediately rather than wait.

ProFlowers keeps it simple and gives visitors numerous options to move forward with their decision to purchase flowers. Whether it’s someone a bit more methodical who wants to investigate, or someone who wants to get in and get out and quickly as possible; ProFlowers attempts to satisfy the various personality types as well:

Impulsive:

On the middle right section of the page,10 different bouquets are displayed in flash-mode. This tool can help the Impulsive user to see what they like and decide to “Buy Now:”

Aggressive:

In the lower middle section of the page, Proflowers offers specials to appeal to the aggressive persona. Specials are an Aggressive Persona’s dream come true. Show them that they are making a great deal and they’ll be persuaded to move forward.

Caring:

Including this tagline at the bottom of the page really let’s the caring personalities relate to the millions of fellow flower lovers.

Logical:

Letting the user discover the birthday collection and “get the real dirt” on the company is addressing a logical persons first inclinations.

Clearly, they do many things right, however, the vibrant colors plus the competing messages can be a bit much at first glance of the page.

Let’s take a look at 1-800-flowers

1. Again, the logo is large and clear and the number is obviously right there in the name.
2. There is nothing that detracts from the logo on the top. The top navigation also is a drop down when the cursor moves over the various categories.
3. In the middle section, there is an incentive pointing to the Summer Gift Center which can easily be missed.
4. Below the top navigation there is some text that indicates Summer gifts and incentives, but is small and can be missed.
5. There is an incentive for Same-Day Flower Delivery and Sale items as well, which is also in small text and can be missed.
6. On the left there are more categories to choose from, a sign in, and an advertisement for Martha Stewart.

There is no immediate way of going to the checkout straight from the homepage for the impulsive visitor. These type of visitors are forced to navigate more through the site to find the bouquet which could impact their decision to continue. If you scroll down on the main homepage, you can see some helpful tools and urgency indicators for the impulsive user:

Notice how 1-800-flowers decided to repeat their product categories on the middle right section of the home page. Repeating the categories in that manner only indicates that they had no idea what to do with the rest of page. All in all, I believe 1800flowers.com has an amazing average conversion rate, and they do many things right, but I think their homepage could be a lot better.

Optimization Best Practices from the Top Ranking E-commerce Sites

When it comes to purchasing flowers/gifts there is usually a strong motive behind the visit to the site in the first place, which can explain the high conversion numbers. However, even with a strong motive, anything above 15% is extremely unusual.

What can you do to your site to see such results? Learn from the best:

1. Make sure that your logo and value proposition are clearly displayed so that the visitor knows exactly where they landed.
2. Try to address all 4 personality types throughout the page.
3. Try not to clutter the homepage with too many images. Make the transition from homepage to product page, home page to category page, and homepage to checkout simplified.
4. Try to create urgency to purchase by either listing a limited time offer, items that have free shipping for a short period of time, etc.

We can learn a lot more from these sites and will continue to analyze them carefully in blogs to come. In my next blog I will tackle the homepages of JustFlowers.com and GiftTree.com, which are the two sites at the lower end of the spectrum. What observations can you make about these sites?