What Do Online Shoppers Really Want?
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Want to attract more buyers to your ecommerce site? By understanding what online shoppers really want, you can help to convert more visitors into customers. Sometimes it’s not all about having a huge inventory or snazzy homepage – some of the most fundamental needs can often get overlooked. Here are just some of the main things that online shoppers look for.
Positive online reviews
Building trust is a number one priority when running an ecommerce business. When buying online, you can’t inspect products in person or talk to someone face-to-face – as a result, shoppers tend to look for other signs of credibility.
Positive customer reviews are one of the best ways to show online shoppers that you’re a trustworthy company. Nowadays, it’s almost impossible to hide from reviews with the likes of Google allowing people to leave reviews on any company that is listed – so you may as well embrace them. You can encourage customers to leave reviews by following up their purchase with an email asking them to review you. Obviously, to ensure that they are positive, you need to provide good customer service and good value.
A straightforward checkout process
Overcomplicated checkout services are one of the major turnoffs for online shoppers. Make sure that buyers don’t have to trawl through pages and pages of information before they can check out. A minimum of three pages could be all your need – personal details, payment and order confirmation. Having a progress bar could also help to show shoppers how near they are to completion.
Consider whether buyers need to create an account to buy through your site – it’s always worth having the option to create an account, but making it mandatory could put off one-time shoppers that have no plans on returning.
You should also consider your payment gateway API. This needs to be secure and also flexible so that you’re able to accept multiple payment options. This could include accepting multiple currencies if you ship overseas and possibly accepting credit card.
No hidden shipping fees
Expensive shipping fees are another cause of last minute shopping cart abandonment. If there’s no way of reducing these fees, you’re next best option is to make sure that these fees are advertised upfront. If you throw these fees in the last minute, some buyers may feel they’ve been conned – therefore it’s best to mention it alongside the initial price.
A return policy
Buyers like to know that they can return items if they don’t meet their needs. Even if the product isn’t defective, there may be cases where a buyer orders the wrong size or buys a gift that the recipient already owns.
A return policy can build trust by showing confidence in one’s product and one’s customers. However, you do need to be careful of being overgenerous – certain customers may take advantage of a long guarantee. Have a guarantee of a few months and consider your form of refund payment (refunding the money as a gift card ensures that they have to spend the money at your store). You may want to hire a professional to write up your refund policy terms and conditions.
Fast and accurate delivery time
It’s important to offer a fast delivery time. Unless you’re shipping overseas, anything over a couple of weeks isn’t acceptable and you may want to find a better courier. The best couriers are able to offer next day delivery for most items – this may cost the couriers extra and so you may need to charge extra for this service.
You should also ensure that any delivery time given is accurate. If you set a specific date, make sure that your product arrives by this date at the latest – some customers may want a refund if it arrives later than specified. This is again something that is down to the quality of the courier that you choose.
Loyalty discounts
Customers are more likely to keep returning to your site if there’s a chance of a loyalty discount. The most common loyalty schemes allow customers to build points with each purchase. The number of points collected is generally determined by the price of the product. These points can then be spent allowing customers to get discounts on products or potentially buy products for free.
Another option is to offer surprise rewards to customers. This could include exclusive discounts to certain products. These rewards may only be received by those that sign up to your mailing list or create an account.
Make sure to advertise these loyalty discounts clearly to help encourage customers into returning. There are programs you can use to manage and monitor these loyalty programs.
Personalization and privacy
Online shoppers are divided when it comes to whether they value personalization or privacy most. Whilst 70% of us are happy to share our data with online companies, we all have different preferences as to how this data should be used. Some of us are happy for this to be shared with other companies and used to provide personalized ads and discounts, whilst some of us don’t want any of this.
By telling people how you plan to use their data and giving them the option to opt out, you can appeal to those that want personalization and those that want privacy. An example of this is providing a tickbox that customers can tick if they want to sign up to your mailing list or be sent personalized ads.
GDPR laws have now made it mandatory for most ecommerce businesses to ask for consent before processing data. Collected data must be anonymized and shoppers should be notified immediately of any data breach. Make sure that you adhere to these regulations.
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