As a follow up to the Feed Manager Christmas Ecommerce Guide we wanted to summarise our views on why consumers don’t buy from websites.
Often merchants can spend a lot of time on increasing the amount of visitors they receive, rather than the conversion rates from their visitors.
Great conversion rates would be upwards of 5%; a conversion rate of less than 1% should raise questions about the efficiency of the website.
Also, do look at your “abandonment” rate which measures how many prospective buyers put goods into their basket but do not buy. If that % is high, why is that? What is discouraging your customers from buying from you?
Below are our top 7 reasons why this happens. We hope you don’t do any of these as they all put off customers from buying from websites in general (and for less well known websites in particular).
1. Hidden prices
Websites that don’t clearly state shipping cost and/or include VAT and throw this in at a later part of the buying process will really annoy potential buyers.
2. Poor product information
Clearly explain what the customer is buying. Consumers typically want to know quite a lot about the products they’re buying. In the same way, make sure your image is a good and accurate reflection of the product. Poor and inadequate product information will result in lost sales.
3. No information about shipping & delivery
Be sure to tell your customer what they will pay, and make it clear at the beginning of the transaction what your delivery terms are. If you don’t have stock, don’t list the product on your website unless it is obvious that is not immediately available, with a clear statement on when it will be.
4. No security settings on the payment pages
Be sure to advertise to customers that your website has payment protection. People are not going to risk an unsafe website.
5. Make sure your basket works
You would be surprised at how many websites baskets don’t work correctly. There are lots of reasons for this, such as poor visibility of the basket itself, customers can’t exit out of it to continue shopping, inclusion of functionality that doesn’t even work.
Try and test your basket so that it is user friendly (better still, get some independent people to test your basket and tell you what they think)
6. Long sign up processes
When it’s not needed don’t include a long sign up process before products can be bought. People shop online for convenience and speed. If you delay this process by a longer time than the norm, customers are likely to back out.
7. Website responsiveness
Is your website accessible to everyone? You don’t want the accessibility to stop anyone being able to buy from your site. Is it viewable on tablets and smart phones? Is the website too slow and not loading properly? Remove all unnecessary and slow functions. They just stop people from seeing what they want quickly, and stops them buying efficiently.
These are our top things not to do when we buy as personal customers. Make sure these are all elements you consider. There is nothing worse than spending a lot of money on marketing online products, when the conversion engine (i.e. the website), just is not up to the job.
Contact us on 0800 033 6090 or contact us if you want any further advice.