Rule 5: List a customer service number on every page
Per the experts, listing a customer service phone number on every page is a must-have if you are selling to people 50 and up. And forget about automated answering systems. These shoppers want and expect a live person to talk to.
"We have members who call us just to tell us they received their package and wanted to say 'thank you,'" reported Clarke. So an avenue for live communication is very important.
At Gold Violin, there's a toll-free customer service number on every page, so if at any point in the purchase process a customer gets confused or has a question she or he can just pick up the phone. "You have to do that with this target customer," explained Hallquist, "otherwise they'll get frustrated and you'll lose the sale."
Rule 6: Make checkout easy
While people disagree over whether to make checkout one page or to break up the information into chunks, everyone agrees the process should be quick and easy and as non-frustrating as possible. That means:
Give easy to follow directions and include prompts (buttons or arrows combined with written cues), especially if checkout is more than one page.
Give customers plenty of space to type in their information.
Clearly state shipping costs.
And be careful about those security words. Many older people have difficulty making out blurry or fuzzy text, which could easily result in a lost sale.
Rule 7: Don't forget SEO and traditional marketing
Lastly, don't forget that just because you have an e-commerce site that caters to seniors that they will find you. As with any site, you need to optimize it with key words ("senior" being the most obvious, and most used, one) and phrases the search engine bots and crawlers will latch onto.
You may also want to invest in paid search on AOL (considered very senior friendly) and Google or take out ads on or include links to sites that provide free information to seniors, like well-regarded health/medical, travel and financial services sites.
Other good sources for leads are print catalogs (if you have one) and/or magazines (your own or someone else's).
"Right now we're circulating about 3 million catalogs a year, and catalogs are a very familiar medium for seniors," said Hallquist. "They like to shop via catalog… and we call out in our catalog that there are even more products online. So we try to use those types of tools to get people to migrate from the print tool that they have in their hand to look online for more products."
Jennifer Lonoff Schiff is a regular contributor to Ecommerce-Guide.com.
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