What is one of the biggest unexpected or inconspicuous things preventing sales within your business?
Many will look to the goods and services being offered, thinking that they need to alter their products to better satisfy a need. Some will consider rebranding to refresh or revitalize the face of the business. But the answer might be a little more abstract than that: Friction!
In a brick-and-mortar world, and especially in the ever-growing e-commerce world, friction can be a real killer for your business! Everything has become faster paced, and to cut down the steps between your customers finding you as the suitable seller for their need and them completing their purchase is major.
Check out these two routes.
Let’s examine these, working in reverse.
Route 2:
View Options for Purchase
Your customers come to your site looking for a particular product. That was the need of the customer. They just want to press confirm on their order and leave it at that, need satisfied!
No Order Gateway, Contact Provider or Visit Store
At this point, additional and unnecessary steps are needing to be taken that ultimately defeat the purpose of why the consumer is shopping online in the first place. Requesting contact removes the immediacy of the transaction and visiting a location nullified convenience. While there are cases where you will have a shopper wanting to speak with a provider or visit a location and it is important to plan for such an instance, have a checkout process that also accommodates the ready-to-buy consumer.
Additional Variables
The inability to simply proceed to and complete checkout can pose myriad added variables to the purchasing process, all of which could increase time before the consumer has the desired product in their possession ready to use. The purchase may be eventually completed, but the more fuss shoppers have to deal with as they attempt to purchase through you, the more time they have to decide, “this isn’t worth it, I’ll take my business elsewhere”.
Route 1:
By at least being posed the option for a speedy checkout, customers do not become dissuaded from their purchase. The consumer is happy because they were able to seamlessly purchase the good or service in question and the seller or provider earns a sale by cutting down the friction in the process.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the world of e-commerce is narrowing the window of time businesses may have to win over customers or individual sales. That being the case, having the proper functions in place to at least allow a more streamlined purchase process is a key integration. To equip your business with the means to provide a more simplified, straight-forward checkout process, contact the pros at Rave Retailer today!