Increasing Conversion Rates: Prevent Below-the-fold Blackout of displayed search results

Before I begin, let me explain two terms:-

(a) Above the fold page. When you visit a webpage, what you see in your screen as is, without having to scroll down is called the Above-the-fold page.

(b) Below-the-fold page Using the same logic as above, for convenience sake, let us then define that part of the page we see only after we scroll down, as Below-the-fold page.

Below-the-fold Blackout. 

Let me explain what I mean by Below-the-fold Blackout with an example. When you search for a video in msn, the search engine rank orders the results are per its algorithm, and displays 16 results per page neatly stacked in after the other, and the total results runs into several pages. There is a navigation button on the top and bottom of the search results display, to move from one search results display to the another. Normally, 8 videos are displayed on the Above-the-fold page, and the rest of the 8 videos on the below-the-fold page. (depending upon your screen size), something like this

If a user is impatient, or just plain lazy to scroll down, he might navigate away from one search result display page to the next, without scrolling down and seeing the entire search results on page 1. So effectively, out of the first 16 most relevant search results, the viewer has viewed (skimmed) only 8 videos, and when he uses, the top navigation button to go to page 2, he is served the display results from 17-32, out of which only 17-25 are visible in the above the fold of page 2; Thus, the search results 8-16 that were displayed Below-the-fold of page 1 were blacked out from the viewer. If the viewer follows the same pattern of skimming the results in each page before moving to next page, he is served the results
1-8----->17-24----->33-40---->49-56 and so on. The intermediate results 9-16, 25-32, 41-48 are blacked out, and this is a whopping 50% of the search results.

What are the implications of Below the fold blackout? When ecommerce sites siuch as bestbuy.com displays search results of products in the manner how msn video is doing, the users experience a discontinuous display of search match. By the time he is in page 3, he is seeing 33rd match of his search querry, without having seen the 50% of his best available matches that were served to him anyways (only that he didnt scroll down to see), and the ecommerce site will eventually lose the visitor because the chances that he will find his product are now less and less.

What can we do to prevent Below-the-fold blackout?

One simple way is to not provide the top navigation button. Keep the navigation button at the bottom of the screen. Let the users scroll down fully, and then navigate to the next page. But this can be irritating for the user , especially if your page is long. So, another method could be to incorporate a simple logic in your search display. Using javascript such as this, we can detect whether a portion of the screen has come to the viewing pane of the viewer. Now, when the viewer moves to the page 2 of the search results, we can then display from the results beginning from which the viewer has not viewed in page 1. In our example, it would be mean that the viewer is now served the results 9-24 if he has navigated from page 1 using the top navigating bar without scrolling down the page 1 to see the results 8-16.

I am not very sure how complicated this coding process would be, and there could be better ways of doing the same thing. But the fundamental idea is more effective conversion, and customer centricity. Putting ourselves in the shoes of the average customers, and giving what the customer wants and optimizing our ecommerce site to suit customer's natural behavior will certainly increase conversion rates. Many users have very limited  attention span in a page - about 3-5 seconds, and we cannot force the user to scroll the page down. A web analytics software may not be able to give you such detailed information and visibility of how a viewer (customer) "actually" navigates in your page, within your page. But what we can do is to alter our scripts and codes to serve the search display without such Below-the-fold blackouts, because, in ecommerce, Customer is King, and Conversion is Cash.

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Earning your customer's trust - The foundation of customer relationship and customer intimacy

In today’s world of technology services hosted in cloud and the resultant growth in commoditization of technology, the space for product differentiation for internet/ecommerce firms are getting narrower and narrower. Today, anyone can start an online retailing business without having to develop the technology, using services from integrated ecommerce solutions sites such as ecommercehub.com, google apps and enterprise solutions, and payment services such as paypal, google checkout, and Amazon payments. What you can do, your competitor can also do. So in order to have a competitive advantage, many companies including leaders such as Amazon .com don’t rely just on technology and product leadership, but rather concentrate on the other two aspects of value disciplines – customer intimacy and operational excellence, as enunciated by Michael Treacy and Fred Wisrsema in their book Discipline of Market Leaders: Choose Your Customers, Narrow Your Focus, Dominate Your Market.


With hundreds of ecommerce and gaming sites mushrooming, earning customer trust is one of most important means of attracting and retaining customers. Trust is the foundation of any relationship, including customer relationship. When customers are sharing confidential credit card information and paying for goods and services in your ecommerce site for the goods and services they purchase, all other things being equal, a site that appears and that is trustworthy is more likely to have higher conversion rates from visits to positive transactions. Customers, in the absence of any bricks and mortars, look for information in the site before they make a purchase. Some of the ways a site can radiate trustworthiness in their webpage


(a) About me. Having an about me column, and detailed description of who you are, what you do, and some information about the management team, investors, and other customers (if they are big and noteworthy) will certainly help establish the legitimacy of the company and the company interface. Remember, a webpage is the face of the company, and first impression is the best impression. Any customer who gets a negative impression is never likely to come back. Any customer with negative experience while doing business with the site, will not only never come back, but also spread the word around virally and cause negative publicity and prevent his network of friends from doing business with your site.


(b) Live webchat / Toll free number service support. This is not an element found in small sites, yet this can be very powerful tool to increase the trustworthyness of the site.


(c) Transparent terms and conditions. Lets face it. Even the biggies use fine prints. But any stealthy sign ups, deceptive offers, customer recruitment drive using partnership sign ups, affiliate marketing etc are more likely to catch customers off guard when they actually see their credit card bills later. As per Dan Ariely, a professor behavioral economics at Duke, a visiting professor at MIT and the author of the book “Predictably Irrational”, people often spend researching a product online after buying it than they do before buying it, to prove that they should not regret the purchase. Most customers who feel cheated, might not issue a chargeback, but many are not likely to ever come back for repeat purchases. This can have long term consequences in terms of increased churn rates and higher customer acquisition costs, which could be costlier than the deceptive promotion sold to customer.


(d) User Generated Content. It will be very useful if your site has testimonials, product reviews, and user generated content from real customers or users. A customer is likely to believe reviews and content generated by other people from his own content or network. One way to make this happen is to be able to use tools such as facebook connect and encourage users to post reviews using their facebook IDs. Then when a user logs in or browse information, then one serve the user review written by someone from his network, if any. Such advanced tools for collaborative filtering, and precision serving of reviews, can also be a product differentiator apart from improving customer intimacy.


Here is one example of an untrustworthy site and service with hidden charges, disguised acquisition, and deceptive promotion. The site is called make-my-baby.com I clicked their ad on my facebook page, and visited their homepage, uploaded the photo of me and my fiancee, blindly [trusted?] clicked on the terms and conditions, entered my phone number, received a pin through sms, entered the pin, and waited for the promised baby photo of my would be baby. Nothing came. I forgot about the whole thing, until I saw my telephone bill. I was charged $19.99 for apparantely signing up for some receive through the website www.make-my-baby.com for receiving mobile ranging from $9.99 to $19.99. I was signed up without my conscious consent for $19.99 plan. I was shocked, and I called the ATT customer care and cancelled the plan immediately. The site make-my-baby.com is dubious but they are mere customer acquisition tools for the mobile content company that is in the invisible second layer, and the payment is extracted from the customers through the legitimate third layer, which are the mobile service providers such as AT&T, Verizon, etc.


Such disguised customer acquisition using proxy websites, and deceptive promotions are at best suited for fly by night cheaters. If you are wanting to establish a long standing business, then better make earning your customers trust, your no 1 priority. If only you have customers who visit your site often, you can learn more about them and develop intimacy. That is why, I feel that earning the trust of your customer is the first step to developing long standing customer relationships, and developing customer intimacy.

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Aftermath of Google pullout from China - An alternate viewpoint for foreign internet companies operating in China

Recently, Google pulled out of China due to its stated inability to work with the Chinese government on issues related to censoring of search results, and alleged hacking on gmail accounts by elements from within the Chinese soil. Google currently has pulled out from China, and the search results are being delivered using Google’s HK servers, and the Chinese government promptly laid out the iron curtain of firewall and has begun censoring Google search results. But could Google have achieved more holistic results by staying than by leaving? Could Google have served as instrument of US government policy in a different way? Here is an alternate view point for foreign internet companies operating in China.

Executive Summary

China has the world’s largest online population. But the Chinese government veils strict control over the internet using every instrument at its disposal. The internet is heavily censored, and the Chinese authorities use personally identifiable information obtained from the internet service providers and content providers, to identify, and prosecute dissident Chinese for violation of local laws. This has a serious implication on foreign internet companies that do business in China as they are now caught between the demands of the institutions of democracy and free speech they embrace, and the demands of the repressive Chinese government. But foreign internet companies must take a long term view of their business, and continue to do business in China, because they could be the catalysts of the very change they want to see to be able to do business in China smoothly.

Introduction

With 298 million internet users , China has the world largest online population. Yet, the online population of China is only 22.6% of its total population of over 1.3billion. Leading internet companies are eager to do business in china not only to tap the huge potential in the internet market in China, but doing business in China is wrought with several challenges, especially for foreign companies. The communist regime in China exercises very strict control over the internet and limits the flow of information within China to what the leadership wants China’s citizens to know about their own country and about the world . There are a number of cultural, technological, institutional and market barriers that demands a deeper understanding of the dynamics of doing internet business in China. The scope of this essay is to give a brief overview of the institutional challenges that foreign internet companies encounter, and outline a few suggestions that internet companies could do to surmount the institutional challenges.

Institutional Challenges.

Government Censorship of Internet. The Chinese government not only censors the internet heavily through a sophisticated firewall, but also demands voluntary compliance to self-censorship from internet companies. It also uses internet as a powerful tool for repression by collecting personally identifiable information from internet companies to prosecute chinese citizens who “misuse” internet to promote agendas that are against with the state policies. Any internet company in China must comply with the repressive policies of Chinese communist regime, in order to do business in China. However, such mute complicity to repressive policies invites public wrath in the home countries of the internet companies. The 2006 congressional hearings of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Cisco, highlights how the internet companies are caught between demands of the institutions of democracy and free speech, and the demands of the communist totalitarian regime in China. No doubt, the opportunities for internet business in China are huge. However, as the Electronic Frontier Foundation writes, internet companies can become unwitting conduits of Chinese propaganda and repression machinery: Internet routers can be turned into powerful wiretapping tools; web email servers can become a honey pot of stored communications plundered by state police to identify dissidents; and blogging services and search engines can turn from aids to free speech to easily-censorable memory holes .

Perils of Policy Lag. The government and law significantly lag behind the business and the growth of internet in China. For example, a number of companies advertise in the internet portals even when they don’t have the necessary licenses from government to do so. Many of these risk takers may in fact be big winners if they have the right contacts or if they can get their license changed at a later date when the new category in recognized. The danger, however, is that less well connected companies or those who become too visible often are punished by closure or other penalties which can make investment capital disappear without little warning or recourse. This could also make the internet companies liable for prosecution for complying with illegal methods of the advertisers.

Intellectual Property Rights. China has a poor track record of IPR. The experience of Ebay, which was sued in a Paris court for not checking its Chinese users who sourced and traded counterfeit goods is a good example that highlights the poor institutional support to IPR and the inefficacy of the Chinese laws to protect ecommerce business. This is a big challenge, especially when ecommerce portals provide access to Chinese nationals to trade goods across borders.

Internet Companies can be the Catalyst of Change. Due to serious institutional challenges in China, foreign internet companies are faced with umpteen conflicts of interests that require a lot of compromise on their core values. But internet companies must take a long term view of the situation. The focus must be on where China would be tomorrow, and not on where China is today. China is increasingly moving towards aligning its economy with the rest of the world. China’s recent inclusion into the WTO is a testimony to this fact. Given this direction of movement, China cannot remain but move towards greater freedom of its society in some form, and the internet companies can greatly accelerate this process. The internet companies can significantly empower the common man by giving him access to vast information that are not censored, and in this process, expose him to the power of information and free speech, albeit in bits and pieces. For example, the “Super Girl” TV Reality Show saw young Chinese citizens campaign and vote for their favorite singers, using electronic media such as mobile phones and internet, giving young Chinese citizens an opportunity to taste democracy and power of free choice, albeit in a completely different area. The Internet companies could accelerate the transition to a free society by merely being there and continuing to provide services. Sooner than later, the values of the rest of the free world will seep into the Chinese society through the internet,

Refraining from doing business in China is not a solution. Refraining from doing business in China is not a solution simply because a number of Chinese companies such as Alibaba are ever ready to comply with Chinese laws , and would jump to occupy the space vacated by international companies. Such an eventuality will wipe out the possibility of effecting any institutional reform through foreign businesses after they grow big enough in China to be able to effect the desired policy changes.

What Businesses must do, and What can be done?

Internet companies must comply with the local laws. However, they must not mutely comply with all the repressive laws. The companies must exhaust all legal options before it turns in personally identifiable information to the government. Companies must take preventive measures to save themselves from embarrassing situations. They must hold user information only to the minimum possible time, and must not provide those services that will require holding large volumes of personally identifiable user data in its servers inside China. The companies can also fund development of new technologies that can defeat firewalls. In the words of an Amnesty International report, “The need to comply with local law should not obscure the fact that these companies operate in a global economy regulated at different levels” . The foreign internet companies doing business can form an association, and lobby with the government in general to effect policy shifts to favorable terms, and in particular, whenever there is a conflict of interest. The companies must also partner with the local Chinese firms to be able to maintain good relationships with the Chinese government. The possible solutions are limited by our imaginations, and a collaborative solution must be evolved to help foreign internet companies do business in china smoothly.

Conclusion

Internet business in China is lucrative but there are serious institutional challenges that need to be overcome to do business in China without creating conflict of values for the internet companies. Nevertheless, foreign internet companies in China need to take a long term view, because they can be the catalyst of the very change they are seeking to be able to conduct business without conflict of values. The idea of a free society in China appears only more achievable with the Internet companies in China catalyzing the change that most Chinese citizens want, that most Chinese citizens deserve.

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