If you have an online store I know you have 99 problems.
Probably one of them (and the most important one) is that people don’t buy your products.
Am I right?
Learn that there are about 12 possible reasons for this problem that we’ve discovered either at unosoft or based on studies.
And in this article, we present them all to you and tell you which solutions you can implement to solve your problems.
Each solution you implement will show up directly in your bottom line.
That means in your pocket.
You like it so far?
Then turn off the music in your headphones, get your coffee close and read to the end.
Before we get to the 12 reasons, we want to warn you: if you add up the percentages of each, you’ll see that the sum will pass 100%.
That doesn’t mean we don’t know math (although my SAT math grade would say otherwise).
In this case, the reason is that people have multiple reasons why they stop buying, not just one.
Now that we’ve established that, I’ll leave you with a PDF of all the reasons and solutions here, and then we’ll take each one individually.
People found a better deal on another site or the price seemed too high (68%)
People have a lot of choices when it comes to online shopping.
To find the best prices, they search for the same product on at least 3 sites, and if one of them has a better price, they will probably buy from there.
Here’s what you can do.
Solutions
Keep the price competitive
Look at your competitors’ prices and keep the price competitive.
It should be as close to theirs as possible or if you can (and it would be ideal) have a lower price.
What you have to remember here is that price is relative.
There is no small or large.
There is only your price compared to others. And that’s where the purchase decision will be made.
Copywriting
Many sites don’t invest resources in doing good copywriting. And in the case of more expensive products it can make all the difference.
The more you explain the benefits of the product to the buyer, the more likely they are to buy it.
The importance of copywriting increases with price, and people are not interested in product descriptions, but rather in benefits.
Let’s take a concrete example.
You have a pair of sneakers you want to sell.
Tell people about the benefits of buying these sneakers (they’re water resistant, they’re made of some organic material, you look super cool when you wear them on the street, etc).
People need to understand not only that they need these sneakers, but also why, and the benefits you present should increase their desire to buy them.
Make better offers
At unosoft we’re not fans of discounts, but we are fans of better deals.
Think about bonuses or other services you can offer.
It could be a voucher on your next order or a discounted price for another product.
The ideas for these offers are endless. Just:
Gravity Retargeting
Do retargeting.
Just because someone came to your site but didn’t buy doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay attention to them.
It’s very important that this person remembers you because you never know when they need another product and you, at that moment, need to be there.
How do you do that?
Through retargeting campaigns for those who have visited your site, for example.
We have a super elaborate hackbook for retargeting campaigns that shows you step by step everything you need to do to have a retargeting campaign that converts.
Read more here.
Accept that not everyone can become your customer
Sometimes you have to say: That’s it.
Accept the fact that not everyone is your customer, nor should they be.
Once you understand and accept that, you’ll sleep much more peacefully at night and out of 99 problems you’ll be left with 98 🤣
Costs and other unpleasant surprises (56%)
People are dropping orders because they get unpleasant surprises, and here the main culprit is the cost of shipping.
You didn’t show them in advance what the cost is, and it often happens that the cost is too high in relation to the price of the order.
A very large percentage of users put products in the cart just to see what the shipping cost is or what other charges they should expect.
When they get to the checkout page and see all the costs they either buy or not.
Your job is to get them to decide to buy and to do it as quickly as possible.
The point is this: the less people are surprised by the final price at the check-out page, the more likely they are to buy.
Here are some solutions you can implement.
Solutions
Show the cost of transport in advance
Shows all costs (transport, services, other charges) from the premium.
You can put this information right on the product pages.
The important thing is to display it before the product basket page so people know what to expect.
Explain these costs
Do you have extra fees? Explain them.
Tell them what the charges are, what they’re for, and what they cost.
The more you explain in detail where their money is going and what the reasons are, the more customers will know what to expect and the higher the conversion rate will be.
Eliminate all distractions after the moment someone adds a product to the cart
There are many sites that are built very well, but use too many banners and pop-ups.
So many that at the end of the day people don’t know which one to click on.
All of these distract the user and so they don’t get (or get very hard) to the check-out page.
So, after the person adds the product to the cart make sure he is not distracted by anything else and that his only job is TO BUY.
On the check-out page, at most, tell him to sign up for the newsletter. And that’s it.
You want his focus to be on buying the product and not on other calls to action.
Site gave an error (39%)
This happens to very large houses and is a more common problem than you might imagine.
The most common errors are 404 (server couldn’t find source) or timeout, which means the site is taking too long to load.
Solutions
Test key pages with GTMetrix and fix things that lead to long load times;
GTMetrix is a free online tool that lets you see how fast your website is.
If you notice it’s having problems, talk to your developer and get it fixed as soon as possible.
No use having the most beautiful site and the most calculable products if the human waits more than 2 seconds to get to them.
Periodically test your entire site for errors with specialized tools;
There are plenty of free and paid online tools you can use to test your site.
For example, for time out and 404 errors, we use Ahrefs.
If you’re not a specialist, our advice is to talk to your developer because they are best able to recommend these tools, depending on the specific errors you have.
Be careful when installing new scripts, apps and modules;
I know that scripts or other modules make your life easier, but 99% of the time they increase the loading time of the site and increase the chances of errors.
So think twice before adding them and talk to your developer for additional solutions.
People are not ready to buy (37%)
What do you think!
Sometimes people just aren’t ready to buy.
They browse websites out of boredom or curiosity, with no intention of making a purchase.
The important thing is to know this and be ready for when they are ready.
Solutions
Capture email address
The idea is to do your best to get their email address. Even if they don’t buy now, you need to keep in touch with them and be there when they want to buy.
However, if the person doesn’t get any email from you after they register, don’t expect miracles.
You need to think of an email marketing strategy where you constantly keep in touch with them.
We’ve got more materials that can help you with that:
Email Marketing: Complete Beginner’s Guide
10 ways you can increase your email open rate
How to create an email marketing strategy
You need “out of the box” strategies depending on the type of business (Ecommerce, B2C, B2B and Services) to increase ROAS, and the number of qualified leads or sales. Have a look here!
Gravity Retargeting
As in the previous point, we recommend retargeting.
And adapt your messages according to the time that has passed since the person last interacted with you, but also according to the pages they visited.
Do retagreting for the website, but also for social media campaigns for a longer period of time.
Do social proof based communication and benefit extension
Maybe people didn’t come to your site with the goal of buying something, but seeing great reviews from as many people as possible may increase their desire to buy.
So what you need to do is make sure that you encourage your customers to leave those reviews and get them as far up front as possible when you promote your product.
Accept that not everyone can become a customer
Not everyone has to be your customer. If we haven’t convinced you above, we’ll tell you again.
They’ve changed their minds and don’t want to buy at all (26%)
There are situations where someone goes on the road with the thought of buying, but after seeing several offers perhaps realises they don’t necessarily need the product they wanted, and can save the money for that Bali holiday they’ve been dreaming of for years.
I have good news: YES, there are solutions to this scenario too.
Solutions
Sell the solution first, not the product
Make people want the product first and then tell them to buy it. Not the other way around.
Some of them don’t realize what the benefits of your product are, so your role is to sell those first.
Are you selling a kiddie pool?
Tell parents they can save valuable time for themselves where they can do other things. As long as the kids are playing in the pool, parents can take care of their household chores, no need to send them to grandparents.
So sell them the benefits they may not think of at first, and make them see what they’d lose if they didn’t buy it.
Gravity Retargeting
I won’t replay. Everything I said above applies here, and retargeting can substantially increase your conversion rate, so use it.
Accept that not everyone can become your customer
I hope you haven’t forgotten 🙂
Navigating the site is too cumbersome (25%)
Many good product sites have this problem.
This is where people can’t easily find the product they need because site navigation is cumbersome or there are no categories and product filtering.
On the other hand, there are sites that have so many categories, filtering, sections that the customer becomes disoriented because they don’t know where to go.
Another problem is that although they find the product easily the first time they interact (if they come from a Facebook ad, for example), the second time they don’t know where to look to find it again.
Important to remember: anything more than 3 clicks and two refinements is too much for a user.
We have 5 solutions you can implement.
Solutions
Pattern navigation on large sites
The easiest and most useful thing you can do is to look at the biggest product sites (Emag, Altex, Amazon) and copy what they do.
The reason?
Being so large, with a huge volume of customers and daily visitors, these sites shape the behavior…
