E-commerce is booming, but ever thought about why exactly your target audience wants to shop online? Despite the fact that the very idea of retail stores remains very popular?
Even though businesses spend a considerable amount of time trying to define their buyer personas and ideal customers, they often overlook the main psychology behind shopping online.
Customers don't really buy anything from anyone online. They have a way of thinking that either encourages them to complete a purchase or drives them away to another retailer. For example, products having a big price often face a challenge in selling online. And then there are items that people would like to get a feel of before purchasing.
But with all the changing times, e-commerce has turned into a way of life and businesses have discovered a way to suffice the decision-making needs from the customers.
1. Wide range of products to decide on from
Having an internet store provides you with an opportunity to get at night shelf space issues and can include more inventory to your business.
While it could seem like a challenge to most retail business holders, the opportunity of being offered many products online is one in the primary reasons for the shift to digital shopping. More and more people today seek for brands online rather than stores - they have more product variations, sizes, availability, etc.
For example, Amazon started as a web-based bookseller. But today, it sells everything from clothes, shoes, bags, watches to even peanuts.
2. Competitive prices for all those products
Today, there are a variety of people who visit physical stores to test a product, its size, quality as well as other aspects. But hardly any of them make the purchase from all of these stores. They tend to ascertain the same product online instead.
The reason being, the expectation of your competitive pricing. These customers are commonly known as bargain hunters.
If it is possible to, offer competitive pricing to your products as compared to that with the physical stores. You could also elect to put a couple of products on every range, on discount sales to draw the attention of bargain hunters.
For example, Snapdeal provides a 'deal of the day' - the location where the pricing of items is considerably low in comparison to what they would cost in stores. This makes the shoppers think these are bagging much, along with the sense of urgency round the deal raises the number of conversions.
3. Reviews business online shoppers
According to Internet Retailer, 62% of shoppers look for online reviews on a product or service or service before purchasing it.
In physical stores, it's impossible to get a shopper to know what other clients are saying about the products - especially while using sales people ensuring they hear only the good. And that's one more reason, why they prefer visit our website.
Offer reviews, ratings or customer testimonials to your products and display them clearly around the product pages. The better the rating, the higher are the odds of it to offer.
4. Ability to check prices
Moving from brand store to a new can be really tedious. On the other hand, switching sites to compare prices of products from different brands is easier. Apart from the reviews given on different online stores, prices include the next thing that customers seek out.
The best method of doing so is displaying an authentic price along with the price that you are offering. It becomes easier for the crooks to notice the difference, and hence, the chances of these seeking to other retail online stores become a lot lesser.
For example, in case you are running a winter sale, ensure you display the original price, the percentage of your offering and the new price around the product pages. And don't forget to highlight the offer on the homepage as well.
5. Saving plenty of time
Traveling to stores which are not close by simply because you want to purchase from a certain brand, can be quite a put-off. That could be the reason why most customers seek to online stores instead. The ability to browse through the products and purchase whatever they want, from wherever they may be, saves them plenty of time.
But what these customers generally ask for is the efficiency of delivery that an internet retail store offers. Be it a 'next day delivery', '48 hours delivery' or perhaps a 'standard delivery within a week of order', maintain the delivery information absolutely clear. And if possible, give them the ability to choose their delivery date.