One of the trickiest questions in marketing is ‘what should we put on our website?’ So where do you start? With your business goals, of course.  Yet you’d be amazed how many sites don’t work that way.

For instance, grocery retailers love to put list-making apps on their sites. You’ve seen them – ‘make your grocery list now and print it out to make your trip to the store easier!’ It sound like a reasonable feature.

Except.

Except study after study shows that most consumers fill their carts with unplanned purchases — up to two-thirds of their choices are impulse buys. Furthermore, they spend up to TWICE as much on unplanned purchases! So why would any retailer in their right mind encourage a shopper to plan!? 

I don’t know a faster way to make every store look the same (and equally boring) than to push the same name brands online. What you want to do is build anticipation and discovery, emphasize your expertise and popularity, and make them feel like they’re missing something new if they don’t come in to the store.  Think about that, retailers.

*Shopper Engagement Study by Point of Purchase Advertising International http://www.popai.com/engage/docs/Media-Topline-Final.pdf