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Do You Answer Questions Before Your Customers Ask Them?

By Eric Leuenberger 2 Comments

Do you ever notice that you have very little sales from your web store, but always seem to be answering questions from your customers asking you “how they can buy”, or asking questions about your store policies, or maybe it’s a question about a single product?

Customers Online will naturally have questions.Your answer is probably “No, I don’t?”

Do you know why you aren’t answering those questions?

Because your potential customers are leaving. Now, I here you. You are probably thinking “ah, yeah, that’s not hard to see, tell me something I don’t already know”. Well, I just did. Let me say it again, but in a different way.

“Your customers are leaving because you are not answering their questions!”

Now, does it make more sense?

Every potential customer has questions they need answered before they feel comfortable buying. These questions are not always “heard”, but are most often “silent” in nature. They reside in the customers head, and are one of the many barriers you face when convincing them “why to buy from you” instead of another seller. They may be silent, but they are real, and they are there.

They live within every visitor that wants to become a customer. If you don’t answer them, they will leave and you will lose the sale.

So how do you answer someone that hasn’t actually “asked” a question yet?

Simple, you answer them BEFORE they ask it!

You answer by placing the proper information in front of them at precisely the right time for where they are in their buying cycle. By doing this, any questions they have will be answered (before they ask them), and rather than leaving the site, you’ll increase your chances of them not only staying, but buying from you.

It’s called “building customer confidence”. It includes things like:

  • Customer points of assurance
  • Proper calls to action
  • Providing store policies
  • Secure logos in the right spots
  • and more…

“Customer confidence” goes a long way toward increasing sales.

So, how do you answer them if you don’t know what they are asking?

One way is to put yourself into their position — become a customer yourself (I’ll give you some actual examples in another article, but this article is to get your mind thinking like a “customer” — one of the first steps to increasing sales).

Think about what you look for, and at what times you look for it when you are attempting to make a purchase from the internet. What makes you feel comfortable enough to buy from an online store? Really think about it, and pay close attention the next time you shop online to what you ask, when you ask it, what you look for, and when you look for it.

This forces you to think of things from a “visitor’s / customer’s” perspective (which is how you should be looking at it if you want to increase conversion anyhow). If you are asking it, your visitors are probably asking it too! So, the next time you shop online, pay close attention to your thoughts and movements. Then go back and check your own web site for the same things you looked for (in the same locations) which helped make you feel comfortable in deciding to buy.

If you are missing those items, you’re missing sales.

In my next post I’ll actually go into a number of “best practice” items you should make sure you include on your site, and the general location of where would be best to include them (although this may differ based on your site, target market, and visitor demographic).

Until then, think like a customer and find out where your site needs to start answering their questions.

Filed Under: Conversion, Marketing Strategies

Zen Cart + Best Ecommerce Practices = More Sales. Here’s the Proof.

By Eric Leuenberger 6 Comments

Ok, as many of you know through my posts at the Zen Cart Forums as well as from reading my site here, I talk a lot about how to implement various strategies that combined can increase sales for you.

It Hit Me Square in the Head

It hit me square in the head that I should show you that what I am talking about DOES work (and can work for your store too). Let me make it clear that there are various components that go into increasing sales from any e-commerce site.

It’s not all about “the product” or “the traffic”, or all about the design; sure, those are critical elements, but it’s much more than that.

It’s about the “entire package” from the moment a potential customer sees your search engine listing (whether paid search of organic seo) to the moment they complete the process of buying from you. It’s all part of the “Total Customer Experience”.

If you haven’t read my post yet on “The Online Customer Experience“, then you may want to go over that sometime.

In future posts, I will go over the various components that combined will help you achieve more from Zen Cart (the SALES way). But that’s for another time.

Here’s the Proof

Zen Cart Google Analytics Conversion ScreenshotRight now, I want to show you some real screen shots of results from one of the many “Zen Cart” sites I have worked with (yes, I am available for contract work if you need it. Contact me and we’ll talk.) I have whited out various items (name, domain, etc…) to protect the privacy of the owner, however, many of you can see from these images that they are taken directly from the Zen Cart Admin section and Google Analytics. In case the reports don’t look familiar to you, they come directly from the new BETA Reports section Google just added this week to Analytics.

The numbers I want you to note in the above screenshot are:

  1. The Conversion Rate of 9.04% (well above average)
  2. The Average Order Value of $51.27 (did you know there are a few Zen Cart 3rd party modules that will help you increase this number?)
  3. The Sales generated year to date to date of $68,348.65

Keep in mind the conversion rate is based on ALL traffic coming to the site. Also keep in mind that “conversion” means a SALE has occurred (translating to … “you just made money!”)

The numbers listed are for the first 4 months of the year.

The numbers I am showing you below are taken directly from the Zen Cart Admin “reporting” section (“Sales Report” contribution, although I have an older version running here), and detail the total sales generated since the day the site was launched (using Zen Cart). Let me say that this particular client had NO web presence before this (so, they were starting a “ground zero” with not a single customer). This was their first e-commerce site.

Why is That Important?

I mention it because I want you to see each month how the sales steadily increased, and then jumped (this was due to a number of traffic / seo strategies I provided as well as implementation of principles I learned over the first few months using Google Analytics). See the difference a properly installed and properly analyzed tracking system can make!

The numbers I want you to note in the above screenshot are:

  1. The Sales generated since site launch of $104,621.26
  2. Also note how the # of orders is steadily increasing from month to month (a sign of continued growth).

Seeing is Believing

So now I have shown you that you can make more sales using Zen Cart, your task is to go out and do it! Using this website, mini-books I am working on, and various modules I am working on, I intend on continually showing you new ways that you can make it work. I am always testing. When I find something that works, I typically post it so don’t forget to subscribe to my feed (it’s free) and / or bookmark this site so you don’t miss out on anything.

Now it’s your turn. Tell me your thoughts on what you would like to see (not already built) to help you increase sales from your store. And if you want a contractor to help you get there, drop me an email or give me a call.

Filed Under: Conversion, Marketing Strategies

Do you offer PayPal as an alternative payment method? If not — you should.

By Eric Leuenberger Leave a Comment

Although it seems “easy enough”, I notice that many sites I come across using Zen do not offer “alternative” online payment methods.

PayPal has come a long way, and with tens of millions of users, there is no reason even the largest company shouldn’t offer it as an alternative payment method.

Did you know that simply adding PayPal as an alternative payment option can increase your conversion? It may not be by “leaps and bounds”, but hey, any increase in conversion adds to the total sales!

Just how much it will add to your conversion of sales is based on, the “customer type” you are targeting. For example, if you would likely find your “ideal customer” shopping on eBay, then you may do better with PayPal than someone else who’s targeting customers that typically by in brick and mortar stores. It also depends on other demographics as well (age, gender, etc..).

In all, and on a “typical e-commerce site”, by offering PayPal as an alternative payment method in Zen Cart; I have found that about 1 – 2 % of your total visitors (unique) will elect to choose PayPal to place their order.

More Sales Are Right At Your Fingertips …

Now, that may not sound like a lot, but let me put it into some examples to show you what it could mean for you.

Example #1
If you get 1000 unique visitors to your site a month, and 2% choose PayPal, then you’ll get 20 more sales from your store. And if your average order size is $30, then you will make an extra $600 in sales!

Example #2
If you get 5000 unique visitors to your site a month, and 2% choose PayPal, then you’ll get 100 more sales from your store. And if your average order size is $30, then you will make an extra $3000 in sales!

Example #3
If you get 10,000 unique visitors to your site a month, and 2% choose PayPal, then you’ll get 200 more sales from your store. And if your average order size is $30, then you will make an extra $6000 in sales!

So hopefully I have shown you the potential here. If you think like this in every move you make, you’ll be well on your way to generating more sales from your e-commerce store.

Don’t have a PayPal account yet? It’s free to sign up, and easy to use! To start accepting all major credit cards from your website, click here to create a PayPal account or use the banner below.

Sign up for PayPal and start accepting credit card payments instantly.

Have you used PayPal in your store? I’d like to hear from you about the results you have seen by offering it.

Filed Under: Conversion, Marketing Strategies

The Online Customer Experience

By Eric Leuenberger Leave a Comment

Many web businesses focus solely on technology and design when building their websites and forget about two of the most important elements. They add some content, they launch the website satisfied and feel poised to sell their product or service. Unfortunately, their customers aren’t satisfied.

To really make an impact and influence customers, businesses must move beyond a seller’s perspective to achieve high-performance (seeing things from a BUYER’S perspective). Generating business value happens by creating a customer experience driven from the buyer’s perspective.

Website Usability

Usability guides the placement and direction of content within the design and technology. Its focuses on creating convenience for the visitor’s interaction. Powerful usability enables a frictionless customer experience where intuition versus thinking drives the visitor’s movements.

Usability creates a well-designed website with intuitive and instructive navigation, clear call-to-actions, articulate value propositions, credibility-building communications, convenient order process – all elements that create fluidity in the visitor’s movements towards their goal achievement.

Customer Influence

Influence is where seller guides buyer down a deliberate sales process. A usable website generates average sales; an influential and usable website can skyrocket sales. An influential website is like a consultative sales person providing information, helping to evaluate alternatives, adding reassurances, feeding the emotional appeal, and skillfully pulling the visitor towards the purchase not always “now” but assuredly at a point in the future.

Influence is the website comparable to the customer experience created by a neighborhood grocery store owner. Personalization, suggestive selling, relevancy, trust, assurance, sincerity, helpfulness – are the objectives of influence.

Influence is not manipulation. It is not the stereotypical used car salesperson tactics of cheap talk and deceptive ploys. Powerful influence is about intimately understanding the visitor’s needs to provide them the right information at the right time. It moves them clearly and easily through their buying process.

Usability and influence are buyer-driven because what is usable and what influences a purchasing decision is entirely controlled by the buyer. And just like you can’t manage what you don’t measure; you also can’t influence what you don’t understand – the visitor’s intent.

Website Design

Design is the façade around the technology. It adds curb appeal to the website and directs the visitor’s eye towards a desired experience path. Great design directs a visitor’s actions through the effective use of colors, graphics and lines.

The design is initially recognized by the visitor in forming their first impressions about our web business. Design is like a person’s clothes or dress style; it doesn’t provide substance but it forms our willingness to interact, to commit time, and to frame the possibility of fulfillment.

And like people’s clothing style, we naturally associate stereotypes to a design to speed our decision process.

Whether fairly perceived or not, design plays a crucial role in setting expectations. With the average visitor spending 10 seconds or less determining our website’s relevancy with their goals, our designs either connect or expel them.

Ultimately design plays a supporting role to usability. Great design drives great usability.

Technology

Technology is a website’s foundation that must work seamlessly supporting the customer experience. Visitors shouldn’t notice the technology and typically only do when it is broken.

Technology is like a car’s engine; most drivers don’t know or care how it works, it’s just a vehicle to get them from point A. to point B. But it quickly grows frustrating when it slows down, breaks down or falls apart.

Filed Under: Conversion, E-Commerce Optimization, Marketing Strategies

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