The first cool week of the year changes what people buy. Sandals give way to boots, the patio set goes on clearance, and a shopper who has not bought a winter coat in five years starts comparing insulation ratings.
Most of those products are new to your store, or new to this season's staff. The questions arrive faster than the answers.
A Nielsen Norman Group usability study, reported in 2014, attributed 20% of the purchase-task failures it observed to incomplete or unclear product information. That finding comes from test sessions, not from your order history. It is still a good reason to check the fall pages before the traffic does.
List the questions the fall range raises
Seasonal products bring their own questions. How warm is it, and down to what temperature? Does it fit over a sweater? Will it work with the model I bought three years ago? Is it waterproof or only water-resistant?
Go through the new range with the people who will answer those questions and write them down, product by product. Include the ones last fall's customers asked by email.
Then check each product page against the list. A question that appears on the list and not on the page is a sale that depends on someone being available to answer it.
Brief the team before the stock sells
An advisor who unpacked the summer range knows it well. The fall range may have arrived last week.
Give the team time with the new products before anyone asks about them: handle them, compare them with last year's equivalents, and agree on who each one is the obvious choice for. A short written note per product line is enough, if it is kept where an advisor can find it during a call.
Pay attention to the products that replace something familiar. "How is this different from the old model?" is one of the most common questions of any changeover, and one of the easiest to prepare.
Sell the end of summer with advice, not only markdowns
The summer stock that is left still needs to leave. A lower price moves some of it. A clear explanation moves more of it to the right customer: the shopper who needs a tent for a trip in October, or who is closing the pool now and wants next year's cover at this year's price.
Say plainly on the page what the product is still good for and what it is not. A clearance sale that turns into returns in November has not cleared anything. The return you could have prevented covers how to spot those.
Use the quieter weeks to learn
For many stores, early fall is calmer than the months on either side. That makes it a good time to see what shoppers actually ask about the new range, while there is still time to act on it.
Log the questions your team hears in the first weeks of the season. Where the same question comes up twice, add the answer to the page.
Live shopping helps here because an advisor can show the lining of a coat or the thickness of a boot sole instead of describing it. What they are asked to show is also what the product photographs should have shown.
Source
Nielsen Norman Group: 3 Tips for Better Product Descriptions on Websites, August 2014.
