One of the many changes COVID-19 brought to our lives was the increase in online shopping. Now more than ever, it is important for companies to have a website to attract more visitors and potential customers.
Even though growth in visits is great, it doesn’t mean more sales or more money. eBay considers visitors as users of a website. However, if a visitor goes to their page once in the morning and once in the evening, this user is counted as a single visitor with two visits. The same user will be considered a different visitor if they return to the site the next day.
Visits or sessions refer to a metric used to measure how often visitors frequent a website. Visits are vital since they are used simultaneously with the conversion rates to gauge the performance of an online store, but for you to make money and build your brand, you need to convert some of those visitors into customers.
Amazon defines its customers as users of digital channels who consume content, engage with brands, and complete a transaction. They may vary depending on their reason for visiting a website.
Importance of Visitors & Customers in eCommerce
Visitors and customers add value to online businesses by creating more web traffic which increases a company’s online presence, keeping track of whether people are connecting with your brand, expanding the store’s product line or services, and generating leads that are likely to be converted into sales.
Types of eCommerce Customers
- Surfers: They may or may not be looking to shop but browse various websites just to determine if anything interests them or just to kill time. They are valuable since they are potential buyers who can be converted into loyal customers through regular promotions on social networking websites.
- Researchers: They are looking for a specific product but will compare prices, shipping details, features, return policies, and other aspects before making a purchase. What differentiates them from other customers is that they are patient and are not driven by impulses.
- Focused customers: These customers are product-driven, and they access a store knowing exactly what they want to buy. They almost always end up making a purchase as long as they find what they are looking for.
- Sales/discounts driven: Discount-driven customers love looking for a good deal, especially if it’s not sale season. Their purchasing decision is influenced by bargains and discount codes on their favorite products.
- Impulsive customers: As the name suggests, they are impulse buyers who will purchase if they find something they like on your web store. These customers are browsers or even product-driven.
- Loyal customers: Loyal customers are treasured as they account for almost 80% of all sales. They are often reliable and tend to trust everything a web store has to offer.
Converting Visitors into Customers
Research suggests that 99% of all first-time visitors may not make a purchase. The typical buying cycle involves a visitor first visiting your site to check out the products, leaving to compare prices elsewhere, consulting friends, reading reviews, and eventually a trip back to your site for the purchase.
As an eCommerce merchant today in a highly competitive market, knowing how to effectively turn traffic into sales is crucial. Here are some tips to help you convert your visitors into customers.
1. Implement signs of social proof
Social proof is worth its weight in gold. Preaching about the quality of your products or services can be futile without reviews to back it up. Research suggests that reviews are 12 times more trusted than your own descriptions. Testimonials, influencer endorsements, displaying your sales numbers, and reviews are all types of social proof.
2. Split test
It is one of the easiest ways of identifying changes you can make to your website to turn more of your visitors into customers. Put simply, split testing involves putting two slightly different versions of a webpage against each other. For example, version A might have blue CTA’s (Call to action) while version B might have red CTAs.
To determine which version is better, you subject both versions to experimentation simultaneously. In the end, you measure which version was more successful and select that version for the real world.
3. Value-based pricing
It involves pricing your product according to what your customer is willing to pay based on the value they expect to gain. The main advantage of this strategy is that you aren’t competing with or comparing your pricing structure to other brands. It is based entirely upon the optimal pricing structure of your market, which is something your visitors may find too attractive to resist.
4. Create a landing page
A brilliant landing page, combined with a ‘converting funnel’ is usually the backbone of a profitable online business. They operate through a process in which something is given out for free in exchange for an email address.
The first step is to find out what you will offer your website visitors. This depends on what audience your business caters to. If you are a software company, you may benefit by providing a product demo, whereby website visitors can receive a trial of your software to test whether it meets their needs.
The key factors that will enable you to create a great landing page include: writing a catchy headline, inserting bullet points, and using great images. Optimizely is a great tool that can help you design a great landing page.
5. Implement a live chat
One reason that may cause customers to leave without making a purchase is unanswered questions. FAQs can only do so much and emails are a little more effort than some might be willing to make to get their questions answered immediately. Live chat, if well implemented, can be essential in increasing your conversions. The key is to be available when you say you are. Answering questions in real-time means you can convert before they back away.
In Summary
The rapidly growing industry of eCommerce is very competitive. The challenge for online sellers lies in learning how to identify customers, especially among visitors, attracting them for the first sale, and retaining them by building long-term relationships.