The golden test to discover what customers want

You’ve tried beta testing on your customers. You’ve asked your wife and kids to play on your website. You’ve even hired an overpaid design consultant to tell you what’s wrong with your ecommerce business. Forget all that – here’s the golden test that all ecommerce entrepreneurs must do.

By Jason Hesse

Have you ever wanted to know what a customer really thinks of your ecommerce website?

Understanding how customers use and interact with your product is the key to growing sales. Get your offering right and your business will flourish. Get it wrong and the results could be disastrous.

A successful entrepreneur once shared with me what he called “the golden test”. It’s easy, it’s cheap, and it will give you better feedback than you’ve ever experienced before.

THE GOLDEN TEST:

1.    Take your laptop to a coffee shop.

2.    Find a random person (that meets your target demographic) whether you can borrow them for a couple minutes. (In fact why not offer to pay for their coffee if they’re reticent?)

3.    With your laptop connected to the wifi, open up your ecommerce website and ask them to have a browse. Don’t tell them anything else – no need to explain what it is you’re doing, just ask them to play around with the site for a couple minutes.

4.    Now, watch how they interact with it.

5.    After a few minutes of them playing with your site, ask them to stop and ask them what they think. What did they think of its functionality? Did they find the site easy to navigate? Do they like how the products and information are displayed? Would they feel safe buying from it?

This feedback will – I guarantee you – be more valuable than any other feedback.

Seeing how a total stranger (who doesn’t know anything about you or your ecommerce platform) interacts with your site will help you understand what areas you need to improve upon and what customers really want from you. Plus, their opinion won’t be clouded by their relationship with you – they have nothing to lose by being honest!

So why not try the golden test a handful of times. It will only cost you a few lattes and could give you that nugget of feedback you had never thought of before.

Don’t forget: every pixel, every picture and every word matters. Make your ecommerce site a delight for visitors and your business will flourish in no time.