Thursday 30 August 2012

Customer fears and habits - How to overcome them

With the power being very much in the hands of the customers due the vast number of online stores all seeking their business, many businesses are finding it difficult to allay any fears customers have, keeping them happy and willing to purchase from their store.

The best way to get rid of any customer fears and turn them into happy customers, is to understand all of the fears they may have when they visit your online store for the first time. Once you know what fears users will experience, you can then work on making sure that you are able to take the steps required to ensure that these initial fears are quickly squashed and the customer is then comfortable to purchase from your store. 

The biggest concern that many customers face is the fear that they are paying too much when buying from you and could be finding the same product at a much better deal elsewhere. While there could be a store out there offering the product at a slightly cheaper rate, it is up to you as a store owner to provide the customer with all the positives as to why they should buy the product from you. 

Many customers are also concerned by the fact that, although a product looks good based on your images and description, it might not live up to their expectations. This is where your customer reviews come into play. Encouraging customers to review your store and products once they have made a purchase not only provides you with information on how you can improve your business for future customers, but it also provides these future customers with information as to whether they should buy a specific product or not While this is true for all ecommerce stores, customer reviews are vitally important if you run an eBay store as customer feedback plays a pivotal role in a customers decision making process. What you shouldn't do is pick and choose which reviews to show as it's unrealistic that an ecommerce store will not have one single bad review on a product. If a customer sees a long list of top reviews without one single negative review or highlighted issue, it seems almost too good to be true and will serve to increase those initial fears rather than reduce them.

As a rule people tend to stick to what they know. If we find something we are comfortable with we are unlikely to change and shopping is no different. If a customer has been using a specific site to purchase products, they are unlikely to change to your store unless you force them to do so. I don't mean force them in terms of actually dragging them to your store, but you can encourage them to make the change to your store by giving them options that they can't turn down. This means offering regular sales and having products that are better priced than your competitors. If you simply have the same products that their regular store has at pretty much the same price, you aren't giving them any reason as to why they should leave their regular store to purchase from yours.

While your ecommerce store may offer the best deal, many people today are concerned about what our friends and people around us will think about the clothes we buy and wear. This is why people must have the latest brands or 'in' fashion. People will be reluctant to purchase certain items even though they may like them as they are worried about what their peers may think. The same applies when it is a business to business sale as a businesses does not want to damage their professional reputation. This underpins the importance of creating a good reputation for your business right from the start. 


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