Every Site Has A Unique Selling Point

Every shopping cart should have one. It's something that sets you out as different from your competitors and makes online shoppers return again and again to buy from you. It's called your Unique Selling Point, or USP for short, and it may persuade an online shopper to buy from your site instead of somewhere else.

Every e-commerce site has a USP, just some sites get their message across better to their buyers than that of their competitors.

So, what determines a site's USP?

• Free phone 24/7 customer service


• Contactable via an instant messenger service is a good USP


• Easy-to-exchange, no-nonsense return policies


• Cheap product prices


• Buy one get one free product deals


• Reliability and honesty

There can be a host of selling points that sets you apart from your competition. But it has to be visible to the person browsing your site. You also have to back-up your claims if you don't want your online brand to fizzle like a damp squib.

Have a look at your competitor's sites. How does their brand hold-up? Go through their site, analysing each stage of the process. Is their product descriptive enough? Are there any other aids that they use to help build consumer confidence? Do they offer deals, how does their shipping, returns policy or terms of sale work. At the end of your marketing report measure your findings against your own site. Be honest when comparing your site against your competitors it may be the key to your own success.

It's important to understand that investment at this stage should and will bring a return if managed correctly. Every promotional or advertising campaign has a limited budget and will not be sustainable if you do not have sufficient revenue coming in consistently. You must be aware of what is happening around you in your own marketplace.

Once you have established your USP, make it noticeable to the consumer. Use some of that prominent real estate space on your website to get the message across. A great example of a company promoting their Unique Selling Point is Archers Beds. Within the site at the very top of the page they have their contact sales hotline number. Backed by contrasting colours to the rest of the site their message gets across. Down the left-hand side they use a how-to-buy guide, again prominent in colour, to highlight just how easy it is to order from their site. Underneath this is their payment gateway partner, reassuring the potential customer that an on-line transaction through Archers is safe and secure.

Remember, one of the tools of being a success online is to figure out your Unique Selling Point and promote it to gain consumer trust.

Paul Steven writes for 360innovate a specialist Search Engine Optimisation Company.