I noticed that when a user goes to order a game, or clicks order from within a game, the order form comes up, but the rest of the site menus are not present.

I presume that this is so the customer can clearly see all the ordering info and not be distracted. I am considering going to a similar layout. My question is, has anyone collected data about this and how it affects sales?


-Mike

I've done extensive experiments with our order form since 1999. I found that extraneous links on an order form will reduce overall sales by as much as 30%. When someone clicks to go to the order form, you don't want to distract them with anything else unless it's really important. We do link to our privacy policy and guarantee pages, but that's it. Hardly anyone clicks those links anyway though, since they aren't very prominent.

I've also done a lot of testing with the order form when someone clicks an ordering link from within the demo. For instance, do you just show an order form with that one game, or do you list all your products? On the one hand, you won't get any multi-game sales if you just list one game, but on the other hand, you might distract them from buying the one game they would have bought.

What I've found is a bit complicated... but interesting. If someone clicks a link from the demo to buy a game, sales are best if the order form lists only that one game... unless we offer some kind of bundle or discount for buying more games. In that case, sales are higher if we list multiple games on the order form.

As an example, if someone clicks a link in Fitznik's demo to buy the game, sales are lowest if we show an order form with every game listed. Sales improve if we show an order form with just Fitznik listed. But sales are best if we show an order form with all the games and an incentive to buy more, such as the Dweep Gold / Fitznik bundle or a discount to buy multiple games. A year ago we used to have a mega bundle of all our games for $49.95, and that did very well.

These experiments of course may not apply to all developers, but I've run them several times to be sure, and the results always seem to be the same. If, for instance, we add the sidebar to our initial ordering page, sales drop by about 30%. Instead of buying games, people get distracted and download more demos.

Based on what I've seen, some developers may be hurting their sales by including unnecessary links on the order form. An example would be linking to a page to order a compilation CD from your registration service. About the only links that make sense are those for a privacy policy and/or a guarantee or refunds policy page. When someone makes it to your order form, you want to close the sale.

An interesting ratio to check is your number of sales divided by the number of hits to your order form page for a given time period. For us this figure has varied from 16% to 31% this year. One factor that influences it heavily is the mix of products we sell -- some games generate many "just curious" clicks to the order form, while other games close more sales.

Excellent reply, Steve... I will modify my form today and see how the week's sales go :-)