Having a good product is not always enough to make people buy from your online store. Many retailers face the problem that they have traffic but no sales. Let’s discuss how can you make potential customers get products from you.
If you are struggling with a problem like this, you can get inspiration from the listing hereinafter. There is a lot of online store owners who don’t understand why they don’t have sales and why people abandon their carts. Well, we have another article where we are talking about what to do when you have traffic, but no sales. However, there’s a slight difference between that one and this current topic How to persuade people to buy?. Some elements are the same, but all we mention is worth considering.
Draw people in. Persuade them.
There can be many problems that stop people to buy from your online store, things like a cheap design or any lack of information that would be needed. You have to maintain a good marketing strategy, this is how you draw people in mostly. However, this is not where the story ends if you actually want to sell products. You need to have an appealing structure and content on your website, but it depends on a lot of things. Let’s move step by step.
Great marketing
We won’t talk about what marketing tools you can use, in this article. That topic has its own post on the blog. Here we want to talk in a detailed way about what a good online promotion should look like and how it can make people buy.
The images you use should be aesthetic, not cheesy. Take care what colors and patterns you use together. Do not choose copyrighted images. Do not put too much text on the pictures. There are some ad tools that have a text length limit as for the images you want to use. Consider the following sizes in pixels, and use PNG extension: Facebook – 940×788, Instagram – 1080×1080, Facebook ad – 1200×628, Twitter – 1024×512.
About the text that you put on the images or that you use besides them, use numbers, question marks, touch people’s feelings with the message, make them identify themselves with the problem or with the need you show. Write about sales, seasonal offers, unique products too, for example.
If you are not confident in how to maintain content managing and marketing, you can hire an expert to do it for you.
But how can you persuade people with marketing content and not just target them and raise desire? It’s about the appealing text you have to write. The best is if they feel like they have to hurry because a sale or an offer will end soon. You can use it on your website too on pop-ups or on banners. There is a thing that has something to do with marketing and making people be interested in a product. This is a marketing model called AIDA you can read more about in one of our relating articles on this blog. AIDA is about how to get people to become aware of a product, how to raise interest, desire and how to make people have the intention to purchase.
Super sales
If you have great sales, it’s more likely that people will visit your online store and will consider buying from you after seeing what you have. But do not be too much, because another way people can easily get frightened. We mean, if you always have 90% sales, everyone will think that your e-shop is a scam. Try seasonal offers or ones that are only about one product category, for instance, sandals, and just for about e.g. a week. If people will feel that it’s a one-time-chance and there is no way to procrastinate, and your product looks nice, they will buy. Another good tip is to offer an additional product that makes the chosen one’s usage to be more effective.
Good prices
One of the reasons why you don’t have sales can be the prices. Did you define a realistic price for your products? Check your competitors, those who have similar products like you.
Be careful not to have noticeably big margin compared to the supplier’s price—obviously, customers don’t know what the wholesale price was, but if you sell a simple mobile phone case for $100 that can be unrealistically high.
Many problems can occur because people do drop shipping with eBay, Amazon and other marketplaces, get products from these sites, but the prices they define are too high. Of course, they want to get more income. But nowadays it’s really easy to recognize products that come from these marketplaces, and after people check out the original site for the original prices, they will close the window of your website immediately, and they will buy from the marketplace for way more less money. The best thing you can do is to use the new way of drop shipping: work with real, local suppliers, manufacturers and not with marketplaces.
If you have good prices and those are lifelike, you will have a goodbusiness.
Excellent communication
It’s one of the most important factors. You need to be always ready to help. Having an excellent and swift customer service is the key to make people like you and find you reliable. Ensure that customers always have the chance to talk with you if they have any questions or doubts. You can provide an e-mail address (and you have to check your mailbox frequently), a live chat on your website, allow Facebook messages, Instagram and so on. If you have a live chat, you can make people feel comfortable and safe. Be always kind and polite. If potential customers don’t get answers to their questions they will turn away, but if there’s a way to get answers, it will be granted that you will have more sales. It’s the same in physical stores, if there’s a place where the shop assistant is kind, you will likely get back there, but if the service is cheap and awful, nobody will come back again.
Have always up-to-date product inventory
Probably we are right when we guess that you don’t want people to get messages from your system that the chosen product is out of stock, and you also don’t want to sell items for a price that is not the correct one anymore. You can avoid these situations by using a good product managing application that keeps your virtual inventory always up-to-date. Syncee can be a good choice. You can use it for a good price, it has many useful features, and you can also use its in-app directory, Syncee Marketplace to choose your trustworthy supplier from.
Quality, unique products
Alright. People are already in your store. They saw what amazing discounts you have, what appealing design your website has, and they know every information from the delivery time to shipping rates. However, you have to make sure that people know what quality the products you sell have. For example, if you have cheap imagery, probably it’s fewer people who will buy from you. Well, it depends on your supplier too, who provides you the product information but you can set these manually, or you can find a supplier who does everything well.
It’s also good if you indicate somewhere that where your products are from. And ensure people that the items are from responsible places.
If you find a niche or a winning product, and you can be the only one in your local market, there’s nothing much you have to be afraid of. If you want to read more about niche and winning products and how to find them, read our relating article.
Be present on social media and have a good content
You have to create a profile on each social media platforms that suit your business and on the biggest ones if you want to create bigger traffic and having long-time fans. But be on multiple social media platforms. Consider these sites: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn.
If you are registered on these platforms, people will know that you exist and they can check you anytime.
So, okay, you have signed up, but that’s not nearly enough. You need to be active. If you are not, then that’s not really worth being up there. If potential customers see that your last post was published half a year ago, they will think your online store has been closed or that you are not taking care of your business. I know, you have a lot of things to do about your online store, but other people don’t know that from the outside. So, if you are not active, people would decide not to buy from you. You can always try out new options like an app which send automated messages to your new users.
Abandoned cart service
There are a lot of abandoned cart tools for Shopify stores. You can check those out at the Shopify App Store. What is this thing, by the way? In short, you can get more money thanks to this. In long, these apps and toolboxes help you get back those customers who put something in their carts but then leave your shop. The app sends a notification to those people by e-mail or on Messenger. You wouldn’t think how many potential customers left online stores like this, and you also wouldn’t think how much these applications can help.
Tell people what they need
You have to know people better than they know themselves. You also have to make them feel like they really need something, no matter that they didn’t know about this need or the product before. This is how commerce works. Be brash, but hide it. Raise desire.
If they feel like they need something, they can’t resist. They will buy your products.
Know customers’ preferences
Create your business and supply in a way that it can meet people’s needs. You have to know their preferences, what they like, what they miss from the market, what kind of offer and prices they are looking for, how much help they need from the customer service and so on.
Answer questions beforehand
This is also something like the fact we mentioned in the Excellent communication subsection. If they get the information they are curious about, it can make them feel more comfortable about the service. It’s better if they don’t have to ask and they can read the details in, for example, a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) menu.
Be kind
If you are cool, people will like you. It’s about the content you show on your social media sites, on your website and the way you talk with people when they want some help from you. If you can make them like you, you will be a winner.
Catchy headlines
Use appealing texts and you win. Write them on banners, adverts, posts, descriptions, landing pages using a big but pretty font size. Offer and promise them the best you can.
Show reviews, references on your website
A reference can appear in your online store as a quotation coming from a former buyer about a product or your whole e-store. It can be a section of photos on the product pages that also comes from customers about items they ordered from you before.
Having social media pages is important. Those are the places where people can write public feedback about products, services so that others can create an opinion before actually buying from you. Some also look at the number of followers.
You can also give your customers a chance to tell their opinion on your website, so your visitors can experience an immediate rating at your store. An app can give you a hand in this case too, because it collects, manages and displays product reviews for you.
If visitors feel insecure and they can’t decide whether they want to buy a certain product or not, they will start to search for opinions about it on Google, on social media—mainly Facebook, Instagram or even YouTube—, or if you have a place for opinions on your site then there too.
For the reasons mentioned above, it is also worth to launch an affiliate program so that bloggers and vloggers can comment on your product and help you to have more visitors.
Have a neat website
Another source of your problem can be that you use a design that was trendy 10 years ago, that does not look pretty, nor aesthetic. It’s also not the best if the layout is bothering, it’s not clear what’s what and it’s difficult to navigate.
What do you have to pay attention to when designing your site? Use matching colors, use unified branding elements, use attractive headlines, slogans, and these have to be easy to take in. Use high-quality, high-resolution, demanding images. As for the menus: everything has to be touchscreen-compatible, and the font size has to be easy to read. Being clear-out can benefit you. Consider creating a responsive design too.
If your website doesn’t look good, people won’t feel comfortable and maybe won’t want to buy. With a nice design, they may think you are more reliable. Every purchase is about emotions.
Product page
If the product’s page has only the name and the price of an item and nothing else, it won’t encourage customers. Show as many details as possible: exact name, size, colors, utility, features, delivery time, warranty. Upload more high-quality images of the product you can open in a bigger size, and upload photos you got from previous buyers. Place a short description about the manufacturer too. The whole product page has to be easy to see through, you have to use headlines in the product’s description so that it can be reader-friendly. Place the most important information at the top of the page just so people can read them without scrolling. You can also create submenus. It’s also beneficial if you give an option to buyers to write an opinion. Encourage people for shopping, but do not be boring.
If you get the product descriptions from your supplier, you can edit it manually so that it can be more appealing if you are not satisfied with it.
Write a blog
Maintaining a blog is essential if you want to make people be interested in the service or products you provide. If you have cool content that is good to read on your blog, they will like you. If you have interesting content that is helpful to know when it is about using your products. You can also recommend additional products. Some people will probably get to your website because of a blog post they find on Google or on social media. You can promote products there, new ones and old ones, and you can write about any other relating topics or tell a story that can be probably interesting to readers.
Please note and don’t believe those who state the opposite: blogs are not old-fashioned.
Provide enough information
Give every important information in different menus on your online store—everything you are curious about when you are the one who’s about to buy. Delivery information, info about replacement, pricing, sizes, warranty, and it is good to have a frequently asked questions page. At the same time, product pages have to include every useful detail about the certain item, do not make people search for your product on Google or write e-mails. Convince them that it’s worth buying from you. If you have high prices, tell them what are the reasons— e.g. it’s a premium product. Write a description of the online store itself, about the founding story etc. Also, create a menu for payment information. Don’t forget about writing down the contact options.
Delivery information
First, it’s important to show the delivery time (and whether the item is in stock or not) on the product page. Second, it’s important to have a menu where you put every detail about delivery and its costs. What does that menu have to contain? National and international delivery time, costs, who will deliver (post or courier), if courier does, what is that company, do they have a place where you can pick your product anytime, in what intervallum do they deliver in a day, what happens if you’re not at home, and so on.
A lot of people abandon their cart because they don’t have enough information about shipping.
Provide warranty
If you provide a warranty, you have to talk about it, so do not hide any detail. It can have a great effect on potential customers and future purchases. Ask your supplier what kind of warranty they have, and if you want, you can make some additional steps on your own and write about it in your store, website.
Would you buy a product from a place that doesn’t guarantee that the company will help you if you have any problems?
Have short delivery time
There’s only one solution for short delivery time if you are an online seller and you don’t stock an inventory—so you use drop shipping or remote warehousing service. The best is if you don’t get products from marketplaces like eBay, AliExpress or Amazon, for example, but you work with local suppliers that can deliver you or your customers the ordered products in just a few days. Mention the information of this short shipping time on your site at more places. Create a sole menu, write this information on every product page, and on the top of your website too. You will be thankful for this idea.
Size chart
No matter what products we are talking about, size is important. If it’s a carpet, a dress, a bag or anything else, a size chart is necessary to be on the product page. For example, if you sell clothing, write down the sizes in the description and also create a separate menu with all necessary size information. If people don’t know a product’s size, they may abandon their cart.
Aesthetic imagery
Images have to be unique, reflect the style of the whole online store. This content speaks for itself. The pictures have to be high-resolution, high-quality, neat, and the elements of this have to be placed-well. It’s important that people can open the images in a bigger size. Also, beneficial factors are to upload more photos from more view, images of all variants. But the ability to zoom is useful too. Maybe uploading videos can be another good idea.
The trust of future buyers can grow if they can see a segment on the product page where they can see photos from former customers about the ordered items.
If visitors can’t see good images, it’s likely that they will leave your site.
What about pop-ups?
It’s a good idea to use a pop-up on your website because you can advise visitors good bargains, offerings that can make people feel a desire to get products from your online store. It’s also useful if the window pops up when the customer is about to leave the site. However, only one is enough. People hate always closing these windows, it can be annoying.
Provide a better service than your competitors
Find or have something unique in your business. By the way, it has to be one of the first steps when it’s about creating an online store. You have to know why you are different than others in the beginning. If you don’t have any unique services, it’s not worth opening that e-shop.
You can be better in product quality, prices, customer service, website and design, shipping time, additional products, little gifts, special offers, etc.
If you have something unique and you talk about it on your website, it will make people stay and pay.
Did you read something useful? Do you feel more comfortable now relating your online store? Stay with us!
Read more about what can you do if you have traffic, but no sales in our relating article.
