11 Tactics to convert visitors into customers
If you are starting an eCommerce business, you need to find ways to convert visitors to paying customers. This is determined by how well you nurture the customer journey.
You need to consider and plan ahead for how your customers will connect with your brand and how they will come to know, like, and trust you before they will be willing to purchase your items. We have prepared a guide with 11 tactics and some real-world business cases to help you succeed.
1. Video over photos
If a customer were asked, “would you prefer to flip through a catalog of photos or view a video instead?”, there is a good chance the video will win. Our customers’ attention span is slowly decreasing, and that’s why leveraging video is a great way to grab customers’ attention quickly and effectively.
Instead of adding multiple photos to show off different angles of their product, the video easily provides the information customers need to make a confident purchase.
2. Augmented reality
We spoke about how video can be a more effective approach as an alternative to product photos. But what if there’s an even better alternative to video? That’s where augmented reality comes in.
For those who aren’t very familiar with AR, it’s a way of displaying 3d render of your products and displaying that product anywhere your camera can see.
This is especially useful for merchants selling furniture. With online furniture shopping, customers always hesitate to purchase items online because they don’t know how big this sofa is, and how it will contrast in comparison to other furniture.
3. Back in stock
It’s no surprise that running out of inventory happens, regardless of whether you are a new or experienced merchant. But the main problem is you are probably spending your hard-earned dollars directing traffic to a sold-out product.
To avoid this, you can add to your product page a “join our waiting list” feature that allows eager buyers to enter their email or SMS to be notified when the item is back in stock. Besides, for those who are trying to introduce backend stock functionality, you most likely will achieve the same result with those email marketing tools.
4. Reviews
In some cases, reviews are just as important as those dollars you put into your bank account, but reviews are no longer trusted as much as they used to be. Luckily, there are ways to make your reviews more impactful — you can use reviews more effectively by associating images with those reviews. Reviews and images, or videos are likely to be perceived as trustworthy instead of text-based reviews, which can just be easily faked. This also allows you to leverage those images or videos for marketing initiatives, which are a great cost-effective way of reaching out to new customers.
Here in Shoplazza, we have an effective tool Review Crawler which can help you grab reviews from some mainstream platforms and import them to your site.
5. Customizations
Product customization allows customers to personalize a product according to their needs and preferences.
If you are selling a product or service that requires your customers to input information in order to purchase the product or service, it can be challenging to find the perfect way to achieve a customizable experience. But if applied successfully, it can greatly drive customer loyalty and increase customer satisfaction. One example of product customization is Care/of, which provides personalized daily vitamins to consumers.
6. Subscription
It’s a growing model that allows customers to purchase items on a recurring schedule after they pay for the access. It’s a great way for businesses to forecast future sales and enhance loyalty. Meanwhile, costumes will be able to enjoy a better price for the products they purchase, so win-win. Consumable or disposable products are a great choice for eCommerce subscriptions.
7. Cross-sells and up-sells
Without a doubt, upselling and cross-selling are probably one of the best ways to increase the price of your customer in total.
Take Everlane as an example. They display their complementary items on their product page below that add to bag button. Although this might not be considered a true cross-sell since the item isn’t immediately added to the cart on click, it’s a fantastic way to get more than one product in front of your customers and to communicate that you sell more than just one category of products.
8. Competitive advantage
At times, the products we sell can be heavily saturated in the market. So how can we convince users that they’re getting the best from us in comparison to others?
Let’s take a look of Caraway. As we scroll down their incredible product-looking page, we can see that they even incorporated a comparison chart that easily explains why their product outperforms. It highlights major factors that customers take into consideration when purchasing a product. Caraway does a great job of identifying problems with traditional goods and heavily emphasizes where their product is better simply with a good-looking comparison chart.
9. Wishlist
Have you ever been on Netflix and seen a movie or a show that you wanted to see but didn’t have time to watch, so you click add to list to watch it later? That’s what essentially a wishlist is. A wishlist is powerful that large brands utilize to ensure that customers who can’t purchase immediately have a chance to save the product, view it later, and purchase it afterward.
Instead of customers leaving that product in hopes of having a little bit more money in their pocket, but realistically forgetting about that product, SSENCE have a text-based call to action to the right of the add-to-bag button where you can just click it, add that product to your wishlist, and take a look at it later on. This is actually quite an effective experience since a. It will require your users to create an account, so now you have that data, which is super important, and b. You can set a reminder down the road to remind customers that they have that product in their wishlist that they can, later on, view and hopefully purchase.
10. Incentives
As a brand, once you have a clear value proposition — how you can ensure your customers with everything they need, that’s where a value or incentive comes in. Incentives are little things that can help tip the scale in your favor to incentivize your potential customers to make a purchase. For example, provide free shipping on orders over $55 incentive.
It’s true that every eCommerce store does this, and that’s exactly because in the end it just works. According to Forbes, free shipping is a sales incentive 88% of the online shoppers want the most. The idea of this incentive isn’t about actually saving money, but it’s about the psychological perception about saving money. This approach alone can make your customers feel good about their purchasing decision.
11. Customer support
One of the biggest factors that define whether a brand is going to be successful or not, in the long run, is whether they offer good support or not. Your customers want to feel special during their purchasing experience. One example is providing an instant chat on the page. Solid support pays in dividends, and the best part is it doesn’t cost an arm or a leg to integrate.
Want to start your eCommerce business today? Sign up for Shoplazza to build your own store and try the ideas above!
(Contributed by Frankie Zhang & Min Chen)
