Good News – Bad News of Comparison Shopping

Which do you want first – the good news or the bad news? On average, consumers visit three websites before making a purchase. If you’re the first website they visit, that’s bad news. On average, the more sites consumers visit, the more money they are likely to spend – showing strong comparisons between the investment of time and money. If you’re the last website they visit – and where they make the purchase – that’s good news.

The good news for online business owners is that 83% of U.S. consumers go online to research electronics, computers, movies, books and music before or instead of buying those items in brick-and-mortar stores. The bad news is that if you don’t have a low price guarantee, people are likely to spend more time and effort comparing prices, brands, and features than just buying your product or service.

A study by the e-tailing group concluded that consumers are invested in finding the lowest price. Here are a few examples:

• 36% of online shoppers spend 30+ minutes comparison shopping before making a decision on purchasing a commodity product; 65% spend 16+ minutes doing so
• 51% visit 4+ sites before finalizing a purchase
• TCO (total cost including shipping and handling) and product price are the two most important influencers for online purchase decisions
• 58% of online shoppers would expect all retailers of commodity products to incorporate a kind of onsite comparative pricing tool into their shopping experience.

If you service mainly women and your company is well recognized, the good news is that when most females shop, they search for brands. If you service mainly men, who search by product instead of by brand, for the most part, the bad news is that if you don’t have a ton of product details, descriptions, images, and videos, you could lose the sale.

One idea to accommodate the two facts that online shoppers like to comparison shop – but also that we are also lazy – is to do the comparison shopping for them. Have a chart showing the prices, features and benefits of your competitors with an icon showing that you also have a low price guarantee. This is critical since comparison shopping sites like Price Runner, Google Shopping, Shop Bot and Bizrate are becoming more and more popular. Wouldn’t you rather provide shoppers with comparison tables instead of a third-party or worse, your competitor?

Companies like 4x Buyer Protection can provide online business owners with price match guarantees  – up to $500 for each customer, among other benefits. People visiting your site will never worry about price shopping again. If they find a better price in the next 30 days, let 4x know and they’ll refund the difference. Displaying their Price Match Guarantee seal near the checkout page or below the comparison sheet has been proven to increase conversion rates.

Research says clearly that people visit on average 3 websites (means some do a lot more) before making a decision. Having a comparison table can keep people from leaving your website. They can already do the comparison on your site, so why leave? It won’t keep all of them on your site, but you’ll definitely win over a good portion of visitors.

The bad news is that without a comparison table, many visitors will try to find a better deal. The good news is that with a comparison table and a price match guarantee, even if they can’t see the difference between the quality of your products, people will be more likely to buy from you based on your price (and accompanying guarantee).

Visit 4xBuyerProtection to learn more good news about how to increase your conversion rate while overcoming the often bad news of comparison shopping.