How often have you entered a physical store location, looked around, and then left empty-handed? Imagine how much easier it is to leave an online store empty-handed. It’s a major struggle for online businesses. In fact, the industry standard for closing sales online is only 2 percent.
Here are a few tips to ease your customers through the purchase process and improve your conversion rate online.
Ensure a Quality Experience for Your Online Visitors
Even if you sell primarily from a showroom, your website is your chance to put your best foot forward. This is where prospective customers will learn about the experience they’ll have when doing business with you.
First and foremost, your website should be responsive, meaning usable on mobile devices of all screen sizes. According to Retail Dive, at least 25 percent of customers do their window shopping and research from their smartphones.
Next, invest in a website that loads quickly; otherwise, buyers can lose confidence in the purchase. Long loading screens can lead to abandoned carts through impatience or confusion. One method to boost confidence is to place reassuring copy on your loading page, but you can also make your site faster by:
- Using a scalable hosting platform with adequate bandwidth for your traffic.
- Optimizing every image on your site for size. Large image files take the longest to load.
- Using a content delivery network (CDN) to cache your site locally (for your visitor) for faster loading internationally.
Finally, broadcast the legitimacy and safety of your site. Modern-day consumers are well-versed in spotting the signs of credibility, so wear your credentials on your sleeve.
- Display domestic phone numbers and obvious contact instructions.
- Thoroughly proofread your website copy.
- Install a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), McAfee, or other security software.
- Show the logos of your payment options and even make them clickable
Aside from improvements you can make to the functionality of your website to incrementally improve your conversion rate, there are marketing practices you can adopt as well.
Tips for Closing Online Sales
Here are a few more proven conversion-boosting tips to consider implementing right away:
- Abandoned Cart Emails: When a potential buyer leaves their cart without completing their purchase, don’t let it go unnoticed. This is an opportunity to engage and find out why they got cold feet. In fact, Salesforce reports that when sellers employ personalized cart abandonment emails, their efforts paid off with a sale 60 percent of the time!
- Clear Calls-to-Action and Clicklease-Branded Purchase Buttons: Customers are more likely to purchase right away when an alternative payment option is offered clearly and conveniently at the point of sale or on product pages. Include a button on your site that’s easy to find and takes them right to the first step of the purchase process.
- Direct Mail Marketing: Ultimately, your direct mail marketing efforts should drive engagement online via QR codes, coupon codes, and social media handles. But the point is to break out of the digital into the physical for long enough to make an impression in the hands of your target audience. Just remember the 40/40/20 rule by Fivestars: “40% of your success will come from how effective your mailing list is, another 40% will depend on how compelling your offer is, and the remaining 20% will come from everything else (design, copy, delivery date, etc.).”
We’ve saved the most impactful tip for last: offer an alternative purchase option and boost your conversion rate by 30 percent.
Offer Financing & Payment Options for Every Situation
According to Column Five Media, at least 56 percent of shoppers say they would be more likely to complete an online purchase if they were given a variety of payment options. Paying the full price of any premium product is a hurdle for most, and sticker shock is one of the biggest reasons your visitors abandon their carts. The equipment they need to start, grow, or scale their businesses don’t come cheap, and their access to funds might be limited. Clicklease helps your buyers acquire equipment right away despite these roadblocks.
Traditional B2B lenders have a drawn-out process—not to mention tougher financing requirements—while Clicklease grants immediate approvals for all customers, including credit-challenged SMBs and startups or weekend warriors with nowhere else to go for leasing. Our proprietary underwriting algorithm calculates eligibility on more factors than just credit score, and the payment model breaks the cost of equipment into incremental payments for greater affordability.
Offer Clicklease as an alternative option for cash-strapped buyers, advertise the option with a button on your website, then experience the revenue boost that comes with fewer abandoned carts and a higher conversion rate.
