8 Ecommerce Tips to Turn Your Store Browsers Into Buyers
October 15, 2021
Browsers are great, but do you know what’s even better?
Buyers.
After all the hard work put into getting visitors to your ecommerce website, it can be easy to overlook the last step—persuading them to purchase. In 2020, e-retail totaled over $4.2 trillion, so getting your ecommerce game right definitely pays. The trick is convincing customers that your business is the one for them.
No, you don’t need to learn mind tricks or some fancypants programming to boost your ecommerce conversion rate. All it takes is a common-sense approach to your website and a couple of quick fixes. Sounds good?
Let’s have a look at eight persuasive tips to boost your purchases and improve your browser-to-buyer conversion rates.
1. Design a Clear, Appealing Webpage
We all know first impressions count and your website design is no different. As the first thing potential customers see, your website must be easy to navigate and attractive. If it looks too overcrowded or difficult to find your way around, visitors won’t hesitate to take their business elsewhere.
Use IoT automation technology to promote certain products to visitors, and have a range of filters available to help your browsers easily find what they’re looking for. On top of this, keep your website up to date with what’s in stock to avoid wasting customers’ time. There are few things as annoying as spending ages searching for a product just to find that it’s sold out.
2. Give Plenty of Information
As mentioned, easy navigation and a pleasing design are priorities for an ecommerce website. However, you should not compromise in giving your customers enough information. Both your images and your descriptions should provide the buyer with all the information they need. Some important details you can include are:
- Product information (product name, features, customization options)
- Price
- Discount or offers
- Call to Action (CTA)
You can also include size comparison images or product warnings, both of which create a well-honed product offering. Make sure images are high quality and allow customers to see the details; this shows you have nothing to hide.
Information regarding postage, packaging, or payment methods can also be helpful. Rather than getting partway through checkout before realizing there are multiple additional costs, be upfront and allow customers to make fully informed decisions. Difficulty in finding this information, or discovering it too late in the purchase can be a customer pain point and result in browsers, not buyers.
3. Personalize the Customer Experience
Online shopping can become hard work when customers are overloaded with choices. Of course, you want to promote as many of your products as possible, but this can be detrimental to your own business. Instead, providing browsers with a smaller selection of options based on their viewing patterns and other products they’ve recently searched for is more likely to convert them into buyers.
Group your products into similar categories or recommend products often bought together. This shows you’re thinking about the digital customer experience as more than just a potential purchase and trying to assist customers’ specific needs. Personalized advertising can also target specific people who are likely to want what you are selling rather than taking a broad, undefined approach.
4. Use Marketing Psychology
Certain words and phrases stick in our minds, such as “one left!” or “last chance!”. These encourage browsers to get a shimmy on and buy the product before it’s too late. By creating a sense of urgency, the visitor moves from browsing to making quick decisions. Marking up items with these labels can draw particular attention to them based on human behavioral principles.
Likewise, customers can respond to a variety of labels based on what they value. Whether they need an expert opinion from a “staff pick,” something modern and “new,” or something ethically and sustainably made, these categories can appeal to customer psychology. They can also help you in working out what other products to recommend and discovering what your buyers value most in your line of products.
5. Display Social Proof
People listen to recommendations from other people far more than those from your company. Providing social proof that your product is desirable solidifies in the buyer’s mind that this product is popular. It’s one of those psychological triggers that make us want something even more and convince buyers to make a purchase.
Whether displaying customer reviews alongside your products, showing customer ratings, or allowing buyers to “like” their favorite products, social proof is the virtual equivalent of showing up at school with the new, trendy product that everyone’s talking about. It also boosts your credibility and trustworthiness if you have a good number of reviews recommending your products.
6. Meet the Buyer Where They’re At
According to a PayPal report, 77% of recreational mobile browsers make impulse purchases. If you want those impulse purchases to be made on your website, you’d better have a website that’s optimized for mobile.
No longer is a simple webpage that looks good on a laptop screen enough. Whatever device your customers are using, you want them to have a good experience with your website.
Shopping via social media is also on the rise, with apps such as Instagram and Facebook introducing more shopping features, and the popularity of shopping apps is skyrocketing. If your target buyer is scrolling through these, you need to have a presence here too. Omnichannel marketing can help you to manage these and present your company well across any retail channels you choose.
7. Make Your Checkout a Breeze
As the last hurdle stopping a browser from becoming a buyer, you want your checkout to be as problem-free as possible. By using auto-fill features for addresses or previously saved information, you can make your customers’ checkout experience quick and painless. Be careful not to create any barriers at this stage, such as required sign-ups or demanding non-essential information.
When taking payments, ensure your website has a variety of payment options available to suit whichever customer may come your way. Each of these must provide secure payments and promptly send receipts to customers to maintain trust with your new buyers. Whether you’re just starting your ecommerce business or you’ve been around forever, when it comes to money, everyone wants to be assured of their security.
8. Keep in Contact
It’s pretty standard practice to send email reminders for abandoned carts, and for good reason. Reminding people is a whole lot easier than finding completely new customers, as they already have an impression of your company. And if they have something in the basket, they are considering buying from you. Your reminders draw the potential customer back in and remind them of what they are missing.
Likewise, retargeted adverts can make browsers 70% more likely to become buyers on your website. So, it’s in your interest to keep targeting page viewers. The more people who give you an email address or social media follow, the easier it is for you to make contact again and continue from where they left off.
All It Takes Is a Bit of Persuasion
Whether ecommerce is new territory for you or you’ve been in the game from the start, there’s always something more to improve. Keeping your ear to the ground for the latest developments can be hard work, but making things as clear and simple for customers as possible is always a good start. How you present your website can consistently convert your browsers into buyers, using just a touch of persuasion from your end.
