With so many options for where to take your business online, it is crucial to optimize the path to purchase for your customers: understanding consumer preferences can make or break your online business. Online shoppers want the easiest experience possible, and if you aren’t providing that for them, chances are they will switch to one of your competitors for future purchases. By keeping these following things in mind, you can boost your e-commerce business and keep your customers happy.
Consumer Preferences
Knowing where your customers want to make the purchase can greatly impact how you drive revenue. Mobile has had such a strong presence in all things online, but do your customers really want to make a purchase on their smartphones or tablets? A recent white paper by the digital agency Siteworx, reveals that during this last holiday season 47% of shoppers made purchases on a computer, compared to 26% on a smartphone, and 12% on a tablet. 41% of survey respondents were still making holiday purchases in brick and mortar stores. While desktop may still be the most popular, smartphones and tablets together account for a growing portion of e-commerce purchases.
Siteworx also explored whether consumers prefer to use a retailer’s mobile website or download their mobile app. The survey results came in with 63% of respondents preferring a mobile website over a mobile app. The likely reason for this is that websites provide more detail than a mobile application can provide. So instead of focusing all of your efforts to your mobile app, drive your customers to your website where they are more likely to purchase.
Looking at both device preferences and mobile channel preferences, one thing is clear: a responsive, well designed website is the most important thing for driving e-commerce revenue.
Consumers Want to Call You
E-commerce has been huge for companies trying to cut down on costs and reduce the number of employees needed to run a successful business. However, eliminating the human element from the purchase path can be extremely detrimental to your bottom line. In fact, Cloud.IQ found that 70% of shoppers have abandoned online purchases if they were not able to speak to a representative over the phone. If you aren’t making it easy for your customers to call you, you are likely losing a lot of potential sales.
This is especially true for considered purchases. The more money a shopper is considering spending, the more they will need to feel comfortable that it is a good use of their hard-earned dollars. Talking to someone on the phone about the purchase is the preferred way to do this. 67% of online shoppers will call a business directly for any purchase over $100. By including a phone number on your e-commerce site, you reduce the possibility of losing these larger sales.
With so many options for online shopping, it is crucial that you make the purchase as simple and painless as possible for consumers. Getting shoppers on the phone is a sure-fire way to increase the purchase potential. To learn more about the importance of phone-based customer support and how to easy it is to implement, take a look at this white paper, Beyond the Cloud: The Next Generation of Virtual Call Centers.
