No Free Shipping May Kill It, But a Deal Gets Them Shopping
The Key to Get Them Converting
Always Looking For a Deal
An E-tailing Group study found that almost 50% of buyers would only purchase items that are on sale, or have a discounted price. 62% said that they would first look for closeouts, or specials section listed separately to find the best deals. The days of Groupon and web coupons have trained people not to pay full price for anything online, so make sure to make it easy for potential purchasers to find deals easily and quickly.
Stay Out of Their Way
Another important aspect seems silly to have to mention, but when they’re ready to buy, let them buy. Many industry studies have shown that when a user wants to buy an item online, they don’t want anything disrupting the purchase process. One of the biggest disruptions is forcing them to login or register. One statistic from a famous study (The $300,000,000 Button) showed that 75% of purchasers that forgot their password AND used the password retrieval function did not return to complete the purchase. Do not take that chance to lose a deal for the sake of tracking analytics.
If You Spam, I Won't Buy
Provide them a "guest checkout" option. There is tons of data that shows that buyers view registration just like signing up for marketing spam. Allow them to opt in by saying something like, "Want to save time? You can register if you’d like and next time we’ll automatically fill in your billing and shipping address for you." That clearly provides value, at least in time savings. Once they've purchased via the non-threatening method (guest checkout), and see that you’re only trying to help and not spam them, they’ll be more likely to register. You can opt to buy their registration ~ Sign up for a free account now and we'll send you a coupon for an additional 10% of your next purchase!
The Cost of Waiting
Finally, when they’re ready to buy, get them checked out. Ever been to an Old Navy sale? I have. I can still vividly remember how much I hated standing in line and getting frustrated at all the little inefficiencies I saw in front of me while I waited. No one likes to wait! Don’t believe me? Amazon calculated that one additional second of load time on their product pages would cost them $1.6 billion in lost annual sales!