by Paul Koks

Why?

• Often the structure of your competitor's website and features are untested or barely tested. Or the design of the website is simply the web designer's idea and/or partially copied from the competitor.
• What works on website X may not necessarily work on website Y. Are you addressing the exact same customer group?

In this blog post, I describe six reasons why ‘copying’ won't get you success. Your (potential) customer determines whether you are successful or not. To illustrate and clarify, I zoom in on e-commerce giant Amazon.

“Don't focus on the competition, they'll never give you money.” - Jeff Bezos

1. Many returning customers

Amazon is known for a high percentage of repeat purchases. A great diversity within the assortment and ordering is very easy. They make it as simple as possible for (repeat) visitors to place an order. For example by making ordering with 1-Click possible:

I can imagine that you would like to implement such a ‘feature’ on the one hand, but are hesitant on the other. A visitor who clicks just a little too quickly and accidentally places an order, you don't want too many of those. Unless your back-end process for canceling orders is set up perfectly and it doesn't happen too often, you might want to stay far away from this.

And what if your product and customer base is particularly focused around one-time purchases (first-time customers)? Then perhaps a different strategy, to demonstrate the added value of your company and products, will work better.

In short, the mix of your customers might be very different. And with it, the experience your visitors expect on your Web site.

2. Other buying funnels and visitor flows

Amazon's organic findability is top notch. For many products, they are visible in the top three search results. On your website, do many visitors land on an internal product page or do they mostly come in through the homepage? And do they particularly use category pages when finding a suitable product or the internal search engine? What percentage of your visitors use the internal search engine and then convert? What about your category pages: do you have many or few?

In short, the flow to conversion can be quite different. Forcing a visitor to follow a certain path can also be counterproductive. So when designing and optimizing your site, also consider the search and navigation behavior on your site.

3. Different mix of traffic sources

From which channels does the largest percentage of visitors come to your website? It makes quite a difference whether visitors come to your website the first time through organic search or are triggered a second time by a retargeting campaign.

The design should contain seductive elements that match the consumer's ‘willingness to buy. So your traffic sources are also partly what determines what works and what doesn't.

A party like Amazon is quite capable of recognizing your traffic source and optimizing the Web site experience. Your resources are probably a lot scarcer and so are your opportunities to capitalize on them. In addition, spending your budget on other things may be much more effective.

4. Even market leaders can make ‘mistakes’

A website is never perfect and can always be improved.

Example:

When you create an account, you must provide a password. Even the best websites may not have this process set up optimally. What if you simply copy a competitor that does not specify at the ‘password field’ how many characters and which characters a password can consist of? This is potentially a big conversion killer!

This would mean copying a sub-optimal process which could also create a conversion blockage. Amazon is not perfect either, and they leave stitches here and there.

5. You learn nothing at all

If you really want to get to know your Web site visitor or customer well, you need to optimize the entire online dialogue. Optimizing the online dialogue lies at the intersection of quantitative and qualitative data, psychology, usability and testing. This is a step-by-step process. Along the way, you learn more and more about your visitor and what works and what doesn't.

Two negative effects when you ‘copy’ a website:

• You learn nothing at all about your visitor, her behavior and desires.
• Your conversion rate is even dropping or you think you see an increase but can't show what it's caused by. Which works negatively for long-term optimization.

6. Other experiences

Consumers have different expectations and experiences towards the Amazon brand compared to your brand. In practice, this often impacts trust and the type of interactions a consumer may or may not want to engage in with your brand.

Maybe you have to work just a little harder on your ‘authority’ to convince the visitor to become a customer with you. And the overall review score of your shop is also decisive in whether or not to order. Amazon has been on the market since 1996 and will have less to prove in some areas.

Data-driven optimization

One more tip I want to give you: use relevant data when improving your website!

You can measure everything on your website.

• When do people click and what do they click on?
• When visitors scroll, which e-commerce category pages perform well?
• At which funnel step do most visitors drop out?

These and countless other questions can be answered with data. The ‘Why questions’ are best explored with qualitative surveys and other forms of data.

If it is not measured, it cannot be improved. Keep that well in mind.

Conclusion

Simply copying a competitor or market leader is not the best way to improve your website. This strategy is similar to participating in a lottery: your chance of success is based primarily on hope and luck. Do you want to depend on that?

This does not mean that Amazon, for example, has not set up its Web site properly. What might be a best practice for Amazon may not necessarily work for your website and audience.

Taking inspiration from industry leaders and seeing what specific features they have on the website is fine. Just make sure you actually test everything (what works well and what doesn't) before simply implementing it. And let reliable data guide your decisions.

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This article was published on Dec. 15 at Marketingfacts.co.uk