Getting people to your website is only part of the problem, but what is it that makes them decide to purchase from you? In this article, we’ll be looking at what factors influence buying decisions and how website owners can improve this process.
Effective Customer Acquisition 
While it’s not often acknowledged, many customers do little to no comparison and simply purchase from the company that acquires them first. This makes effective customer acquisition vital, which is why SEO is critical for a company that wants to bring in more customers and grows their list of active customers.
SEO and PPC are arguably the most important acquisition channels for websites because they are both cost-effective and can bring in targeted traffic.
Compelling Sales Pages
If you’re running PPC campaigns, it’s often wise to direct that traffic to a sales page rather than to a product or blog page. This is because sales pages can nurture this traffic and encourage these visitors to buy when they otherwise wouldn’t have done so.
Sales pages don’t have to be uncomfortable to read or overly pushy ; they can merely inform your readers about what you offer and why it’s the best. These pages are vital for your business because customers will be making comparisons between you and the competition and these sales pages can swing these customers in your favor.
Exclusive Products
Studies have shown that one reason why consumers would shop with a brand is that that company have products which are exclusive to them. This might be because they sell their products or because they have deals with labels for exclusivity.
Both of these options are acceptable and having exclusivity is a great way to separate your brand from the competition and encourage customers to shop with you. If you do have these exclusive products, you should be promoting them heavily because it’s easier to get customers this way rather than with products that everybody else also stocks.
Helpful Customer Service
Customers often choose to purchase from companies based on how helpful their customer service is. Mistakes happen, especially when you’re shipping physical products, and it’s vital that the consumer knows that you will be there to help them in this situation.
Zappos created a billion-dollar brand based on having the most helpful customer service in existence and following after them is a good idea. Not only is it much cheaper to keep your existing customers rather than acquire new ones, but it’s also vital that you please unhappy customers to prevent any reputation damage.
This reputation is particularly important in the era of social media whereby customers can voice their opinions and have thousands of people see it. One angry customer can ruin your entire business, and that’s why customer service is essential to any business.
Easy Checkout Pages
If you’ve bought products online from a range of shops, then you’ll be aware of how complicated some checkout pages can be. Often, they take many minutes to fill-in, and this can discourage customers from purchasing from you.
Once a customer has added an item to their basket you must make it as simple as possible for them to hand over their money and receive the goods. Any extra time in this process is more time for them to convince themselves not to buy, not the other way around.
Secure Data Transfer
When customers are deciding which brands they want to buy from they are going to consider whether your website is secure or not. This decision is going to involve real and imaginary factors, for example; if you use HTTPS rather than HTTP your site is safer, but an ugly website is often considered unsafe, regardless of how you handle their data.
Therefore, it’s vital that your website uses secure data transfer methods but also looks professional. Looks and first impressions matter just as much as the truth.
Free Shipping
Research has shown that one of the most common reasons why consumers abandon carts and fail to check out is because of the high cost of shipping. Companies like Amazon and BestBuy have made free shipping feel ubiquitous to consumers, and they now expect this for the vast majority of their online shopping.
Offering free shipping can be expensive, but it’s not as costly as failing to acquire customers and losing them to your competition who choose to incur a small margin loss for free shipping.
One tactic that many companies use to give free shipping is to take their average order price and add 10%. Then, they will give free shipping to customers who exceed this number. This encourages customers to buy more products, and it rewards them with free shipping for doing so.
This tactic can seem silly because it increases the cost to consumers, but customers don’t act logically. Studies have shown that they will choose free shipping over a discount that is more valuable because they have become so accustomed to shipping that doesn’t cost them.
Cheap Prices
Of course, there will always be a segment of your customer base that prioritizes cost above anything else. These consumers will compare your prices with the competition, and they will only shop where they can find products at the lowest price.
For these consumers, the primary reason why they would buy from you is that of the price. However, these customers are not going to be particularly valuable to you because if your costs increase they will quickly disappear.
Added Value
Finally, some people will choose to shop with you because you have added extra value to their experience. This could be in the form of blog content which helps them to understand the product or service better, extra photos which give a unique view of the product or better product descriptions.
All of these factors make the user experience of shopping on your website far superior to the competition, and this can encourage people to buy from you regardless of price.
For companies competing in extremely competitive industries, this added value tactic can have a tremendous ROI and can create lifelong customers who support your brand.