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Why Is No One Buying From Your Store?It is a hard game. It is a sinking feeling received when you read in the Daily Crumb, that a 16/17 year old is making zillions out of his website operated from his bedroom. But, it happens, people are buying more and more from the internet these days and you need to get in on the act. It is estimated £15 billion worth of sales were conducted online last
year, with £2.2 billion in auctions alone! You have a good product(s) and a decent domain name, set up to take the money, but they are not buying. What is going on? It is several things, some you can spot a mile away, but some are less visible. But it does mean you are doing something wrong or have missed an important aspect of the business. You had better find out and quick! You started the business and do not want to give up. You have to improve your Ecommerce strategy, if you don’t, then kiss goodbye to the good life. Rung One on the Down Ladder.You do not accept Credit Cards online. There are Online Store operators who still think in the old way. (If they want my goods, they will be happy to send a cheque or postal order.) It’s simple - If you don't accept Credit Cards, no one is going to buy anything from your Online Store. This seems an obvious statement, but there are a very few successful stores, either online or not, who still do not take Credit Cards. So, how are you lovely customers going to pay for the products? Cheque? Cash? Perhaps, but you cannot afford to take the chance of losing that sale. They will go to another store who will be willing to take the card. You lose out. It is a simple process these days to have your store accept Credit Cards. When we started out many years ago, it took weeks to have the bank even understand what we wanted to do and even then they were suspicious of the concept. (Still using penknives to sharpen their quill pens!). It is now easy to do this, set up the Authorisation and clearing banks. A small fee is normally payable for this. Perhaps you want a turnkey set-up where all the technical work has been done. There are several good companies willing to help you with this. See the side bar for related resources that can help with all of this. Some companies, such as GlobalWebstore, even do it for free. So, there is no reason to not accept Credit Card payments. Your local take-away couldn’t live without it, nether can you. Rung Two Down the Ladder: Buyers Can't Find Your SiteIt matters not what you are selling, but you are going to get lost in the forest of other webstores if you are not following these points:
You do have website statistics program running don’t you? If not, how are you going to see who what and when customers come to you store? Most ISPs offer good stats package with the webspace. Of course, if your traffic analysis shows that millions of people are visiting your site, looking at your products, and not buying anything, then there is another problem or two. Rung Three Down the Ladder : It's Too Hard to Buy From Your SiteHave you ever used your own site or even better, get your aged parent or grandparent to try and buy something? I’ll bet that can’t find what they want first or even, second time of trying. You could of course, but then you have been involved in the design and installation. I know that I have problems even finding the correct department in Harrod’s, let alone finding the product I want. So don’t be surprised if your customers can’t find the double action gadget you want to sell so desperately. Get Granny to look for it and see where she goes wrong. (Try and do these tests before opening the store for customers). Pay close attention to your site's usage patterns to help people find and buy what they're looking for. Ask yourself the following questions:
Rung Four Down the Ladder: Your Prices Are Too HighIt is well known that the majority of customers surfing the internet for products, are price comparing. Don’t kid yourself that your service is so good that they won’t mind paying over the odds for the product. Most of them will not. There's definitely somebody selling the same things you are on the Web. Customers can get to your competitors' sites just as easy as they can yours
. Now, that’s bad news, because now that they have found a site undercutting
you, they will stay with them. This is exacerbated with the advent of comparison
shopping search engines. If you are dearer than your competitors, you had better
give the customer something to compensate. The commercial market on the internet is cut-throat and the large companies are going at each other hammer & tongs. Keep away from trying to emulate them, you cannot afford it. You best way to compete against them is to keep the costs down and reflect that in your retail prices. They have large overheads and you should not have. Get in there with your paring knife and cut-cut-cut! Rung Five Down the Ladder: Hiding extra costs.A low price isn't always enough. While it's very eye-catching to show a low price, your customers are not taken in by it. Remember “You can fool some of the people all the time…etc”. Once they try to buy something, they're not going to be pleased if you add unlisted extras to increase the price. We saw a computer we wanted at a very good (low) price. The spec was right
and delivery time was short. But when it came to paying on our company card,
the added extras (Shipping (Far too high) Credit Card fees (Do not do this)
caused us to cancel the order and purchase elsewhere. They lost the sale because
they were trying to kid us by hiding charges. Trying to hide your costs in back-end fees, such as shipping and handling, may seem like an easy way to get the low prices that can drive traffic to your site, and it may get you some short-term attention. But there's a long-term cost in kidding customers, Remember: you're not just building sales and market share, you're also building a reputation, it takes years to build a good reputation and seconds to lose it. Rung Six Down the Ladder: Your Customers Lose your Trust.Buying on the internet is a growing business, it expand exponentially so it is time to remember that it's still a new medium. So new that many people are still uneasy about buying online , and many Internet brands are still unfamiliar to many shoppers. If you want people use and pay with their Credit Cards, you have convince them that you are trustworthy and can be responsible dealing with their money. It is still their money until the product is received. What does that mean?
Rung Seven Down the Ladder: The sale’s not made until fat lady sings.In other words, you have not sold the product until your customer has received it. Historically, fulfillment is the biggest customer service issue facing any mail-order company, and you are a mail-order company. You must make it clear--up front-- exactly when an item will be delivered. If you don't have it in stock, let shoppers know before they go through the buying process. And definitely let them know before they actually order the item. If people have questions about when their purchases arrive, answer them promptly. That’s why you must have a contact method on the website. Most smaller internet Online Stores use the Royal mail or a courier service to deliver goods. Make sure you have a method of tracking orders and one the customer can use to see what is happening. Fortunately, the Web makes it easier to handle these issues. Online systems can let customers check on their deliveries without having to speak to a customer service rep. This saves everyone's time and money. But online systems are not enough. No matter how good your system, it won't cover every situation, so you still need a back-up process with real people. Your end objective is to ensure that the goods arrive on time in good order and is what the customer ordered. Rung Eight Down the Ladder: Selling 2001 World Cup Hats TodayIt is no use trying to sell items that are obviously not wanted. Apart from the people buying all sorts of junk in online auctions. But that’s another story! Even some products that have sold well in a catalogue, will struggle on the internet. It is a matter of perception. People feel that certain products should only be sold in a certain place and way. Although saying that, there are not many products which are not saleable on the net. I can think of only a few (Haircuts? Shoe Repair? ) and those that are date subjected. Rung Nine Down the Ladder: Don’t Give it Away Some people have the impression that everything is free on the internet. That
doesn't mean you can't sell online, but it does mean that Web surfers often
expect something for nothing. So, it may sound a contradiction, but in order
to effectively sell on the Web, you often have to give something away. Online
giveaways are often the cost of doing business on the net. Rung Ten Down the Ladder: The Wood for the Trees.It is said that a true salesman sells the idea, not the product. If your online store is dull and behind the times, visitors to your site don’t actually buy something. If your store is uninteresting, don’t be surprised if your customers are not interested in your products. There are many number of ways to create shopping interest, including:
On the High Street, retailers try hard to encourage the customers to buy on
impulse. Think of the sweets rack at the Tesco checkout. Because of more available
money to spend, the buying public actually wants to spend it.
- 15th September 2004 This is an exclusive MerchantSite.co.uk article. Permission is not given to reproduce this article in part of full in any form. If you see this article elsewhere please let us know.
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