Consumer Psychology Losing The Sale

Forrester Research predicts that online sales will reach $370 billion per year by 2017.  The U.S.. Census Bureau predicts that 58% of all the people in the US will shop online. There is a psychology to online shopping.
Let’s explore who is doing the shopping online.

65.7% of shoppers are between 25 and 54 years old, of those shoppers 59.1% are female.  Incomes for households over $50k make up 57.3% and shoppers seem to be educated with 77.9% having at least some collage and higher.
Where are your customers getting their information?

94% of shoppers do research before they buy and 61% use search engines like Google to get that pre purchase information.  So how deep do they search?  Where are they getting the information from most?

• 61%          Search Engines       
• 35%          Coupon Sites           
• 28%          Email offers             
• 24%          Review sites      
• 22%          Comparison sites  
• 10%          Social sites    

What search engines are your customers using?

(AOV) stands for Average Order Value
Your customers don’t tend to have the patience to view beyond the second page of any search engine results.  Most will not go past the first page although it seems that age the user’s age increases so does the second page search results viewing.

As you can see the search engines really have a huge impact on ecommerce sites. Competing for one of the ten spots on page one becomes a top priority for every site that does ecommerce.

Taking advantage of the low competition keywords is a goal that every business owner should be focused on.  Keyword research tools are free from Google Ads Words even if you don’t have an ad campaign. 

Imagine how many years the move from horse and buggy to the automobile took to move the mind set.  Much like your standard set of in house support staff, it’s becoming clear that without a skilled SEO/SEM employee or company that is working daily for your online success, you will see no long term results.

There are pros and cons to hiring a full time staff member vs. creating a relationship with a company that will provide your SEO/SEM work.

The average yearly income for a skilled SEO/SEM employee varies from $60k - $100k per year.  Why? Because this person can be the biggest asset to your bottom line revenue then just about any other staff member.

Many businesses will opt to go with a relationship outside their in-house staff.  The overall costs are less; there is no need to deal with SSI, Vacations, sick time etc.

Either way you, as a business owner decide to go, it is clear that you must pick one or the other.  Your competition will not be wasting years deciding.

For those companies that will dip their toes into SEO or SEM and give their efforts a month to show results before they decide “it didn't work”, stop here.  You must look at these efforts as a long term haul and not as a short road trip.  SEO never ends.

Back to your shoppers and why they abandon their shopping carts

Did you know that 73.6% of shoppers online abandoned their carts in just the first quarter of 2013?

What caused these customers to drop out of the buying cycle?

•  44% left because of shipping costs
•  41% decided they were just not ready to purchase
•  25% left because of the price of the product
•  24% said they wanted to consider the product or service for a later time
•  22% said that the site did not mention shipping costs clear enough
•  14% there was no checkout option for those that didn't’t want to create accounts (guest checkout)
•  12% left because there was too much information they needed to put give
•  11% said the checkout process was just too complex
•  11% said the website was too slow
•  8% Left because of unexpected taxes
•  7% didn't’t find a payment option they could work with
•  6% because the shipping time was too slow
•  6% felt they were spammed with offers
•  5% didn't finish because the website crashed during the transaction

So we can take away that there are a few major factors that impact your customers during the checkout process.

Each step in the checkout process that you make your customers take is one more opportunity for them to leave your site.

• If your security certificates are expired or non existence
• Your checkout process requires a customer to become a member.  More and more people are just not comfortable with having their information stored on sites.  They don’t want their purchase history or personal details known by retailers
• Unclear navigation while involved with the checkout process
• Submission errors with information that customers had input
• Bad layout that is not laid out in a natural eye flow
• Too many buttons that is close together and too similar
• No display to let a customer know how many more steps are needed.
• Unnecessary information that you requested during the sales process
• Multiple pop ups that require action before they are allowed to continue ( it’s okay to offer bundles or other products as long as you don’t keep shoving them on your customers and forcing them to click a decline button each time.)

People buy with their eyes first
42% of shoppers online said that the website layout makes a difference when they decide to shop there or not.

If you are serious about creating a revenue source for your business online, you must learn to work within the rules and psychology of this environment.  It is hard work that carries a payoff that is worth the trouble.

Complete Web Solutions can help you retain your customers with user friendly designs and checkout processes that flow smoothly for your buyers.  Call today and see what type of difference our team and make.

Located in The United States 719 302-5029.