A Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) page is an important part of any fashion eCommerce website for a multitude of reasons. (By the way, when we refer to a “fashion” webstore, we’re really including anything a consumer might put on their body, including clothes, shoes, jewelry and other accessories. These techniques apply to all of these.) Beyond addressing common customer queries, a well-written FAQ page will have a positive effect on your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) results, while making your web store more searchable. It can also reduce some of the burden on your customer service employees and be a proactive way to prevent customer complaints, by spelling out everything your shoppers need to know. A great FAQ page can even make your brand come across as more transparent and trustworthy, as it can help you share your knowledge and expertise in the industry. 

Each brand needs to use their judgement as to what is appropriate for them and their customer, but there are common topics and tactics when it comes to fashion brands’ FAQ pages. 

Here are some tips for how to create your fashion eCommerce website’s FAQ page, followed by a list of common questions it should include, and some key takeaways.

Reinforce your brand

Often the FAQ page is seen as a place to simply share questions and answers, but it’s also an excellent place to reinforce the brand story or mission that you’ve established on your homepage and About page. Shoppers click on your brand’s FAQ page because they have specific questions about your brand or the products or services you provide. A good FAQ page will help them get to know and understand your brand better.

For example, sustainable fashion brand Vetta’s core brand offering is a capsule collection, which allows shoppers to get 30 outfits out of five dynamic pieces. They answer the question “Can the five pieces really make 30 outfits?” to alleviate any customer concerns about the veracity of this claim. Similarly, outdoor brand North Face includes questions about their Company Background on the meaning behind their name and what their logo represents, to reinforce their brand’s narrative.

Categorize your Q&A

Brands that want to cover many questions and answers on their FAQ page might want to consider implementing a FAQ database so that topics can be easily searched and categorized. Adding drop-down folders and/or a search bar also makes for easier navigation. Search bars tend to be favored by larger brands that are asked many varied questions, but most fashion brands will find a handful of categories sufficient for their needs. Footwear retailer Zappos is one such example: they divide their FAQ into sections including “Returns”, “Shoes/Brands,” and “Payment Information.” They also include broader categories like “Across the Board,” which encompasses fabric care, gift cards and more.

Another large fashion retailer that does this is Levi’s, who combine their FAQ and Help information on one page with sections dividing common queries about accounts, orders and shipping. They also don’t format their FAQ as questions, even though the page is labelled as such. Instead they position the queries as statements, with headings and body copy. Either questions and answers or statements work, depending on the tone your brand wants to convey.

Showcase your expertise

Your FAQ page is also a great opportunity to boast about your unique materials, products, design techniques and other innovations. You can go into more detail here than on a product page, where minimal copy is key.

Sustainable brand Christy Dawn showcases their unique offering well on their FAQ page, explaining how their use of deadstock fabrics contributes to the differing sizes of their products, and why some of their items that are dyed with plant-based pigments can bleed dye when they’re washed. In their trademark friendly, down-to-earth language, they gently reinforce the special care that some of their items require due to these idiosyncrasies, which are also outlined on the individual product pages for full transparency.

Make it SEO friendly

The importance of clarity in your FAQ page cannot be overstated, as this is a crucial page for your brand in terms of SEO. So while you are taking pains to continue to speak in your brand’s language and sing all of its fine, unique qualities, you also need to ensure there is straightforward, simple information on the page that will answer your customers’ common queries.

Remember, it’s not just humans that are finding and reading your FAQs. With the rise of voice search and AI-driven personal assistants, many people are finding your FAQs with the help of artificial intelligence. So be sure to share your information in simple terms that can be easily parsed, and link to other pages on your website where applicable.

Have fun with it

While your FAQ page does need to be clear enough to be parsed by search engines, it shouldn’t be so simple that it loses all personality. Your FAQ needs to reflect your brand and its voice, so be sure that everything you write here is given the same attention to detail in terms of tone, even if you are basing it off of the mostly generic list below.

Youthful online retailer Dolls Kill includes questions about things like fees and student discounts in the same witty, rebellious tone of voice that you see all over their website and social media. For example, they start the answer to the question “Can I work or intern at Dolls Kill?” with another question: “Are you a bad ass?” Before getting into more practical issues of location and qualifications, and linking to their careers page.

Where to start

We’ve provided a number of specific suggestions and IRL examples of best practice FAQ page tactics, but you still may be asking: “where do I start on an FAQ page project”. Well here are some common questions to include in your FAQ page:

• What are your shipping options? 
• What is your return policy? 
• Where is my order? 
• Can I change my order after it’s been placed? 
• How do I know what size to order? 
• What do I do if I receive a defective order? 
• Where are you based? 
• Who started this brand? 
• Is this brand sustainable? 
• Where do your materials come from? 
• How can I contact you?
• Can I work for you?

Get these developed for your site and you’ll likely think of a few others that are specific to your business.

Key takeaways:

These days many fashion retailers are selling face masks for shoppers to wear to help stop the spread of COVID. It should be noted that no medical or legal claims should be made in your FAQs unless they have been shared or expressed by professionals from these fields. Link to any reputable sources where appropriate.

It’s impossible to answer every person’s potential question, so provide a link or means to contact you or your team with any questions that are not listed on your FAQ page. This could come in the form of a message form on the page, listed contact information, or a link to a separate contact page.

As your brand, the industry and the world evolves, so should your FAQ page. It may be helpful to keep note of customer queries as they come in through your various communication channels, and take time to regularly assess and add to your FAQ page to keep it relevant. An up-to-date FAQ page is essential to ensuring your customers remain satisfied and consistent shoppers with your brand.

For help with FAQ’s or any other site maintenance or optimization efforts, please feel free to reach out to us via our contact form.

On average, mobile users spend about 1.5 hours on social media a day, and due to COVID-19, consumers are spending more time on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter. With users spending almost two hours a day on some type of social media platform, there are plenty of opportunities for your apparel and accessories brand to stand out and make a connection with users. 

As social media traffic has increased so has the reliance on eCommerce sites for apparel and accessories brands. Now’s the perfect time to sync these assets towards a single goal. In this guide, you’ll learn how to better utilize social media platforms to increase traffic on your apparel and accessories eCommerce website.

Invest in Influencers

A few years ago the term “influencers” began to gain traction in the marketing world. Today, influencers play a significant role in social media marketing. An influencer is a social media personality, who’s status and large following can influence or persuade potential customers to buy a product or service by promoting or recommending items on their social media accounts. Influencers like Kylie Jenner, Chiara Gerragni, Jeffree Star, and Roman Atwood can be found on platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook. 

We know that finding authenticity in social media can be hard especially when using influencers. Influencer marketing isn’t for every company because it can be expensive when executed correctly and disastrous when done wrong. That’s why we recommend influencer marketing to fashion companies that are edgy and youthful with an engaged audience. We also recommend working directly with experienced marketing firms who have influencer knowledge and connections rather than trying to find and employ them on your own. When creating a brand deal with influencers, make sure to determine KPIs and assess ROIs and that your social media campaigns such as brand awareness targets an audience or a specific product. 

Shoppable links, posts, and ads do not have to be just for one item. Shoppable links give you the opportunity to upsell multiple products or even completely-styled outfits. While shoppable posts and ads on Instagram and Facebook have been an option for some time now, recently Pinterest has also joined in with their new ‘Shop’ tabs. These shop tabs have the ability to connect with your webstore and accurately display all in-stock inventory empowering customers to find specific items by typing what they are looking for while surfing Pinterest.

Be Present on Instagram & Pinterest

Just like influencer marketing, Instagram and Pinterest marketing is not for every company. However, if your brand does decide to use Instagram or Pinterest to market your products, then you’re opening yourself up to a potentially wide and diverse audience. Pinterest and Instagram are the most visual and shoppable out of all the social media platforms. They give brands the opportunity to offer purchases and direct users back to your webstore.

To fully utilize Instagram, you should follow trending hashtags or hashtags that resemble your company’s brand or image to reach a bigger audience. Also, remember to include call-to-actions like shop now or buy now on your posts to entice customers. Since you cannot add links on Instagram posts, make sure to either include them in your bio, Insta-Stories, or shoppable posts. 

As we previously mentioned, to get the most out of Pinterest join the new Shop tabs, so customers can directly purchase from your in-stock inventory. Pinterest also empowers apparel and accessories brands to create fashion boards and paid advertisements to display on existing and potential customers’ news feeds. 

Promote Contests & Giveaways

Contests and giveaways have been shown to be useful when attracting new customers. However, they can also come with legal challenges if you do not properly explain the rules, requirements, and disclaimers. We recommend partnering with a marketing firm that is familiar with the pitfalls and peril of contests rather than trying to run and manage one yourself. 

Maximize SEO

Maintaining an active social media page can potentially boost your traffic even if users are not arriving at your webstore from a social channel. This is because having active social channels can increase your SEO rankings.

Profiles Rank in Search Engines Results – Your social media profiles aren’t just confined to social media; they also rank in search engine results. They are prominently visible in branded search results, often on the first page. So your brand can increase your search engine visibility and drive more traffic by creating social media profiles and optimizing them.

Local SEO – Social media also affects your local SEO efforts in a few ways. As you already know, your NAP (the name, address, and phone number of your business) plays an important role in local search rankings. If you maintain consistent NAP information across all of your listings and website, Google will consider your business as more credible. And that can boost your rankings in local search results. Which makes it crucial to use the same NAP information across your social media profiles, local listings, and website. Additionally, some social media platforms let you geo-tag your Stories and posts. This is a great way to gain more visibility among a local audience, helping you expand your reach.

Conclusion

These tips are all great social media tactics to increase traffic on your apparel and accessories eCommerce store. Also, check out our social media page.  To learn more about how to connect your Magento webstore to your social channels or to find out how InteractOne can help you use social media to increase traffic on your webstore, contact us now.

Your email marketing strategy  needs to focus on building customer loyalty, increasing your conversion opportunities, boosting customer acquisition and raising brand awareness. With so many vital requirements for your email marketing requirements, it’s important to take time to investigate which email platform not only connects best to your eCommerce store, but which ones are uniquely equipped to handle your needs. In this blog we’re going to take a deeper dive and explore our  recommended solutions for email marketing.

Emarsys

Emarsys is an innovative, plug-and-play marketing platform that virtually eliminates the need for IT overhead and allows for a seamless flow of data between your eCommerce site and the Emarsys platform. This support allows for your Magento data to automatically be put to work creating automated, multi-channel campaigns with trigger responses based on a wide range of customer actions and data metrics.

Benefits

Reduce data management tasks:

Merchants are empowered to manage all their marketing activities from a single platform by unifying shop data with Emersys’ campaign data. This will give merchants a better understanding of their customers and allow them to create more engaging omni-channel campaigns.

Natively triggered mapped events & Intelligent personalization

With Emarsys, the extension’s data collection scripts allow for merchants to monitor every customer interaction with your Magento site to gain a more complete understanding of your customer’s habits over time. Customer’s activities will also trigger external events such as transactional emails or an automated omnichannel campaign. By mapping the interactions customers have with your site, merchants are empowered to connect with them with context-sensitive content and create offers that are truly personalized. This will help you remain top-of-mind for your customers and increase conversions.

Listrak

Listrack for Magento offers a solid range of customizable options, designed to broaden the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. Listrak is able to work beyond your eCommerce site and become fully integrated with your mobile and social channels. It is through this omnichannel connection that Listrak’s robust reporting tool is able to give merchants a wider range of customer data, enabling merchants to produce highly personalized, seamless marketing campaigns that engage buyers across a multitude of touchpoints.

Listrak may be one of the pricier email marketing solutions on the market but it is also much more feature rich and most email marketing tools alone. Listrak is ideal for larger businesses who want to consolidate their marketing channels on to one platform.

Benefits

All-in-one data location

Listrak provides merchants with an all-in-one data portal that pulls from multiple customer and campaign data sources, including social channels.

Automated Recurring & Lifecycle Messages

Automated timed messages are sent to past customers to re-engage them with your store and encourage continued buying. These automated messages can be created from a single template, from which personalized messages are inserted before distribution.

Integrated Product Reminders

Shares targeted content across all consumer channels to connect with customers via product alerts and recommendations via website, social, mobile, and email marketing. These reminders can be based on a customer’s left pages, or an abandoned shopping cart purchase, with a timed personalized message to remind them of their last interaction with your webstore.

Back in Stock and Inventory Alerts

With Listrack you can automatically reach out to customers when the product they desire is now back in stock and available. Listrak will sync up the customer’s profile with the product and send personalized emails if the product is delayed or discontinued.

Bronto

The Bronto Marketing Platform is another drag-and-drop cloud-based email marketing automation software. Bronto was designed to compile all customer data in one place, allowing merchants to create customized campaigns and send targeted messages through multiple channels, such as email, mobile or social media. The Bronto dashboard provides insights that enable simple monitoring and outreach towards customers in all stages of the selling lifecycle, from acquisition to conversion. The Bronto Marketing Platform is intended for mid-size to-large, multichannel retailers due to its ability to control multiple storefronts from the same account & dashboard. The Bronto email app also easily integrates with Bronto’s pop-up and coupon manager apps to provide even more advanced customization options.

Benefits

RFM Metrics & Importing Information

Recency, Frequency, and Monetary-Value metrics regarding purchase history are used to identify target groups within your customer list. This, along with the ability to import past purchase information, with entire order history and product details,  provides in-depth customer information perfect for creating effective marketing campaigns.

Support for Multiple Stores

Bronto allows you to adjust the map data and configuration settings between each webstore you manage, all from the same account dashboard.

Automated messaging

Bronto will allow merchants to automate the distribution of a wide range of messages, based on each unique customer’s current spot in the life cycle. These include: cart abandonment messages, coupon codes, product recommendations and wish list reminders.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is one of the most popular email marketing solutions on the market today. It’s another drag-and-drop platform that makes it easy to design and distribute emails, giving merchants complete control over subscriber profiles & campaigns. Mailchimp also boasts an impressive native analytics and reporting feature that is ideal for merchants who want to generate ‘ad hoc’ reports.

Benefits

Segmentation & Automation

When it comes to marketing automation, MailChimp can automatically segment customers based on conditions, including; purchase history, sign-up date, demographic information and much more.  Allowing merchants to target and manage customer groups based on a wide range of factors. With these segments created, merchants can then begin targeting segments with specialized messaging and an automated workflow. For example, Mailchimp can be used to re-engage dormant subscribers or lapsed customers by creating a win-back email series using custom triggers that meet the unique needs of their business.

Personalized Recommendations & Messaging

The automization of Mailchimp extends to the individual personalization of its messages too. Merchants are able to generate unique email messages with product recommendations, based on each customer’s previous purchases and pages visited. Email autoresponders can also be triggered by special events such as a customer’s birthday, lack of activity over time, recommendations after purchases, abandoned cart reminders, and more.

DotDigital

DotDigital (formerly dotmailer) Engagement Cloud is the platform of choice for businesses seeking to engage customers across all touchpoints. Users can connect customer data, surface powerful insights, and automate intelligent messages across email, SMS, social, and more.  This extension enables a seamless integration between your M2 store and your dotdigital Engagement Cloud account. Engagement Cloud for Magento ensures your subscribers stay in sync, and your key customer/retail data is available in Engagement Cloud to empower your email marketing.

Benefits

Marketing Automation

DotDigital’s Omnichannel automation empowers merchants to connect with visitors and customers over a wide range of channels, including Email, SMS, social re-targeting, Google ads, push notifications and web chat. Through these messages merchants can reconnect with visitors and customers to revisit abandoned carts and campaigns.  Welcome, post purchase and birthday messages are just a sample of the automated marketing pieces that can be programmed to connect with clients, leaving merchants free to direct their energies elsewhere.

Commerce Intelligence

RFM-Modeling within DotDigital creates commerce personas for website guests and then empowers merchants to ‘watch’ how contacts move through the customer lifecycle. This way, you can track your most important metrics with customers and crosssell and upsell with best sellers, highlight ‘most viewed’ as well as also-bought product recommendations.

Klaviyo

Klaviyo’s is a favorite amongst the developers and solution specialists at InteractOne. Its power lies in its segmentation and targeting. Klaviyo’s web-tracking system uses specific browsing behavior to segment visitors so they receive tailored ad campaigns and emails based on their on-site activity. Klaviyo will help you identify the visitors to your site: who looked but didn’t buy, who is a frequent visitor, who hasn’t visited recently, who left their cart full without purchasing, etc. Then, you can implement a campaign designed around the visitors’ site-specific actions.

Benefits

Automation

Klaviyo’s automation and interface are pleasant and easy to use. This tool makes setup enjoyable while driving improved results. Automate prospect and customer communications using customer lifetime value, lifecycle stage, and other metrics to make messaging relevant and timely.

One Click Integration

Klaviyo was designed to virtually eliminate the need for traditional marketing tools such as spreadsheets. The software was designed to seamlessly integrate with your existing tools and pulls data from Salesforce, Magento and Shopify. It also offers an Open API, allowing merchants to build custom integrations.

Ease of Use

Klaviyo is built from the ground up to be easy to use. The solution comes with a WYSIWYG editor that enables you to create compelling emails without a struggle. Also, there are multiple responsive email templates that are optimized for all types of devices including mobile devices.

If you would like to discuss your customer and prospect emailing requirements, we would be happy to help you choose the correct platform for your needs. Just drop us a line.

Having taken effect on January 1st of 2020, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is widely regarded as one of the most expansive privacy laws in the United States to date. The CCPA places limitations on the collection and sale of a customer’s personal information, while also providing certain legal protections when it comes to that same personal information. But the CCPA isn’t just a US version of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). While you won’t have to start all over if you’re prepared for GDPR, that doesn’t mean you have all your bases covered for CCPA. 

In this blog we’ll be covering the basics of the CCPA, how it compares with GDPR and some of the FAQ’s that have arisen around each and their implementation in US businesses working domestically and internationally.

Who does the CCPA apply to?

The CCPA applies to any business that satisfies one or more of the following conditions:

1. Does business in the state of California
2. And satisfies one of the following criteria:
   • Annual gross revenue in excess of $25 million;
   • Alone or in combination, annually buys, receives for the business’s commercial purposes, sells, or shares for commercial purposes, alone or in combination, the personal information of at least 50,000 consumers, households, or devices; or
   • Derives at least 50 percent of its annual revenues from selling consumers’ personal information.

The biggest differences between the GDPR and CCPA lie in the scope of the application, the extent of collection limitations and the rules around accountability for breaches and challenges for non-compliance. In this chart, you’ll see some of the subtle, but important differences between the GDPR and the CCPA.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does this apply to businesses not located in California? 

A business does not need to be located in the state of California to be subject to CCPA. This means any business that is ‘doing business’ via online transactions with California residents or has employees that live in the state.

Can companies be fined for non-compliance?  

The private right of action in the CCPA is limited to data breaches. Under the private right of action, damages can come in between $100 and $750 per incident per consumer. The California AG also can enforce the CCPA in its entirety with the ability to levy a civil penalty of not more than $2,500 per violation or $7,500 per intentional violation.

I don’t think we really collect personal information. Does the CCPA apply? 

CCPA has an extremely broad description of what constitutes personal information. If you collect resumes for job postings, your website tracks cookies or if you have a ‘Contact Us’ form on your website you are collecting personal information.

Is there an exemption for B2B businesses?

Sort of. B2B Companies are given a limited reprieve from complying with each of the requirements of the CCPA when it comes to the transactions and communications with other organizations, companies and government agencies. Personal information that is collected in the course of B2B communications or transactions from or about an employee, owner, director, officer or contractor of a business or government agency is exempt from most CCPA requirements. But this exemption will expire at the end of 2020. Even if your B2B company is not selling business contact information you still need to determine to what extent the information you collect for marketing purposes must comply with CCPA.

How to cover your bases?

The CCPA requires companies to keep detailed records of all personal information categories dating back to January 1, 2019. You should begin to inventory all the data you have collected since that date. You will also need to update your privacy notices and add a “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” link to your home page.

Additional Resources for Business Owners

Magento also provides an excellent, more detailed guide to making sure your site is GDPR and CCPA compliant. It is available here.

For an even greater in-depth review of the CCPA law, please consult this great article from the National Law Review.

While the CCPA has some restrictions that currently limit it to the state of California, there is little doubt that it will have reverberations across the US and the world. California is, after all, the 5th largest economy on earth. With something as complicated as this new law and as important as your business we recommend that you consult with your attorney to confirm if CCPA applies to your business before taking action on compliance.