Reasons Why You Might Be Scaring Off Your Customers Online

In a time where shoppers have the power to purchase anything from any part in the world with just a click, it is more important than ever to make their purchasing experience a breeze, as it could be the difference between getting a sale or scaring off your potential customers. This article will showcase some of the most typical ways you could be scaring off your customers on your site and how you could fix this.

Irrelevant Landing Pages

So you managed to catch the attention of a potential customer on a Facebook ad, and she wants to know more about that dress you advertised. She clicks on your link to find out more only to find out that it takes her to the homepage. There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to find the product you saw on the ad, only to find hundreds if not thousands of other products.

Don’t make it harder for potential customers to navigate through your site, if you’re advertising a specific product make sure you’re sending them to the most relevant landing page, in this case straight to the dress advertised. It will not only improve your bounce rate but will also increase your chances to close that sale. Don’t waste visitor’s time trying to find their way through your site, you’ll run the risk to lose your sale to another site.

Slow Page Loading

Thanks to continuous improvements on the Internet, users have grown used to increasingly faster websites. There’s no more room for tolerance if the site takes longer than 2 seconds to load. According to Kissmetrics, nearly 47% of visitors expect a website to take less than 2 seconds to load, and 40% of them agree they would leave the website if the page takes longer than 3 seconds to load.

There can be several factors that contribute to slow page loading. These are the main things to keep in mind:

• — Optimize images and specify image dimensions
• — Choose a suitable hosting that offers the capacity you need to run your site
• — Enable browsing caching, so when a visitor comes back the site reloads faster
• — Reduce the number of redirections on the site

Mobile Experience

Just as with slow page loading on websites, mobile users have even less tolerance to slow page loading on mobiles. Mobile users are always on the go and expect to find the information they seek quickly. Google provides a great platform to test your site’s mobile website speed and performance and provides a report to fix the issues found.

Long Checkout Process

Again, don’t waste your visitors’ time and only ask for essential information on your checkout form. Don’t force them to create an account, give them the option to place an order as a guest, remember to always give your customer the choice on how to interact with your brand, it’s a win-win situation. You’ll still get their email on the order, which you can later use for your email marketing initiatives.

An additional suggestion is to ask for their email address at the start of the checkout, so even if they leave their carts, you’ll still be able to nurture the lead through email marketing. Make it as simple as possible, the fewer pain points they find while navigating through your site, the more chances you’ll have to close a sale.

Shipping Strategy

The main driver to purchase online is convenience. Big brands, continue to set the bar high in regards to online shoppers’ expectations, and consumers have now grown accustomed to having more places to shop, when to shop and how to ship their orders.

Online shoppers want more flexibility on how and when they receive their orders. According to the Future of Retail 2017, consumers no longer consider free shipping a perk but expect it to be offered every time. It’s not surprising that fast and free shipping are the two top online purchase drivers.

Consumers also want to be informed about the brand’s shipping process. They don’t want any surprises and even consider returns a decisive factor before any purchase.

Here’s what you can do to turn this around:

• — Inform your customer about the shipping process. Create a specific page for this information and explain to them their shipping options: free shipping, express shipping, pay and collect, etc.
• — Include a section for returns and exchanges. Explain what are the conditions to be able to get a refund or an exchange and specify who is responsible for the return fees.
• — Don’t choose a shipping company and assume it will always be your best option. Research continuously and be on the hunt for the business courier that will deliver more value to your business. Find ways to optimize your shipping process and lower the cost or even absorb the cost of shipping and offer free shipping. Just think of any activities related to shipping that can potentially be automated or avoided altogether.

Not a User-Friendly Site

Poor website user experience gives us an insight on how little the brand knows about their customers behavior. According to a study by Hubspot, over 75% of people prefer websites that let them find what they want easily, the best user experience is the one that’s simple.

So what can we do to create a user-friendly website?

Put customers at the center of everything, make it a breeze for them to navigate your site and they’ll invest their time, make them work for it and they will not hesitate to leave your site. One of the best books on this topics is Don’t Make Me Think, by Steve Krug. He provides his best advice on how to structure your website based on functionality, by using simple navigation, the right visuals and essential content for your site.

Take the time to plan or restructure your site, prioritize based on top pages and by stages. Check what your data is telling you in Google Analytics, this platform tracks how users interact with your website. Your site should be continuously improving, assume nothing and perform A/B tests, let data tell you the outcome.

There are many factors that could be contributing to a poor user experience on your site, now more than ever it is imperative to sit back and plan on ways to improve your site, many of these factors will not only affect the user’s experience, but also how Google decides which pages to show, which might not allow your site to show as often and could potentially mean you are missing out on business.