Make It Easy for People to Buy from You

success-girlThe biggest problem entrepreneurs (and seasoned professionals) have when it comes to succeeding in e-commerce is making the buying experience enjoyable and easy. Here are some tips to making your site so intuitive that visitors will almost have to buy from you:

Guide your visitors to where you want them to go
By telling them what to do and where to go in a fun and friendly manner, you can move them toward the action you want them to take. Arrows and subtle pointing works. Online, when you make the first click or scroll super easy, you should also make the next call to action just as easy, slowly and deliberately leading them to your sales page and then to the up-sale page, and beyond. “Would you like a free demo?” is a friendly way of saying that you are willing to spend some time explaining what you do without any obligation on their part.

Don’t give them too many options
When given three or four choices, instead of 20-30, people aren’t as stressed out and quickly make the buying decision. Of course, giving them those options (Do you like the green, blue or red one?) instead of just asking if they want to buy your sofa, will sell more items and create more of a bond between seller and buyer. Let them know which option you recommend and which option is most popular – as in the example below.

Pricing_Options

 

Make the sign-up process as simple as possible
If you ask for too much personal information, you’re probably not going to get anything at all. Just get what you need and get anything else later after you have built a stronger relationship. Birth dates, ages, gender, race, religion and social security numbers are usually fields that you are better left un-requested – unless absolutely necessary to your service or product. Most people understand that you need a captcha. Just make it easy with a move-the-bar request or ask them if they see a pizza. Don’t do names and numbers cause they’re a pain in the butt.

Don’t make people sign up in order to buy from you
If people want your product, but don’t want to tell you who they are, let them buy it anonymously. Amazon lets me buy from them whether or not I am logged in. So should you. I realize this might not always be possible, but at least offer something without them having to give you anything – even if its a report about the top five really cool things in your industry. After you have made the sale (or offered the free product) offer them something of real value for the low, low price of their email address. 😉

Offer free shipping
Studies show that 80% of online consumers are motivated by offers of free shipping. That’s because most of us feel that we can get what we need at the local super-chain location – where shipping charges don’t come into play at all. And don’t charge extra to make up for the shipping charge. Just understand that if you want to acquire new customers, you need to make it worth their while – meaning a better price than they can get down the road – and without any shipping (or handling) fees.

These are some simple, but seldom used techniques to make it easy for people to buy from you. Try them and watch your conversion rate increase!

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