There is an old Japanese saying: “The seller should not open a shop without a smile.” In our modern digital era, when the store moved to the Internet, and the first impression of the product is formed due to the reliable competent information on the web page, the seller’s smile lost former relevance. Nowadays, other factors enter into effect: Branding, SEO, Merchandising. Their important challenge is to catch customer attention and hold it to bring them to purchase. Branding is targeting brand awareness, creating associations with corporate symbols, and forming a unique value proposition: merchandising is responsible for the sequence of buyer’s steps that lead him to the right product.
SEO has its own benefits in this regard: for example, if a visitor studies the product page for a long time, sticking to entertaining interactive elements, then, the page has a longer average viewing time and fewer bounce rates, which leads to its top ranking in the SERP. As a result, your product pages appear higher than competitors’ ones, your website receives more potential buyers, and, accordingly, sales grow.
For this reason, special tricks to grab customer attention are put on the product page – marketers call them ‘customer engagement funnels’. All these traps are based on certain rules that are recommended to ensure that the site complies with the business expectations.
A little statistics to make you sure we are serious
The Economist claims that 71% of consumers never deal with a site with which they had a bad experience of interaction. According to the survey by Retail Dive, over 65% of consumers prudently study the goods online on different sites before making a decision to purchase.
Golden Rule: Ultimate clarity about the product and terms of purchase
A rather imperative aspect when choosing a product is comprehensive information about it. You can often face such an objection (especially the sellers of services like it) – they say, the buyer might have questions after visiting the site, and then, he is supposed to call to ask the questions. However, in e-commerce, this doesn’t drive. The would-be buyer comes to the page, wisely studies the goods of his interest, the terms of their delivery, the price, and, if the product on the site is not sufficiently detailed so that the visitor has many questions, he will leave the store in favor of another, where the same product is demonstrated exhaustively. Evidently, some other factors occur here: the price, delivery terms – but if other things are equal, the showroom of the goods fail, and the buyer goes to competitors. The exception is your product is unique – as much as the Holy Grail – then, the buyer might try to find it.
Consider a figurative example of a page of a store: a photo shows a suit, but the photo does not display the commodity entirely. For example, there is a question, what the length of the product is, and how it looks from other sides. For business, even such an inaccuracy is a big omission: if a visitor doesn’t understand the product, the visitor will leaves.
Trap # 1: 360-degrees-turned 3D visualization
For a detailed product demonstration, we can use the approach of 3D visualization, where the visitor rotates the model from different angles. This method is better suited for a product that does not change its shape: for example, technical equipment and furniture.
Trap # 2: Detailed product video-review
In the case of clothes, it’s easier to make a video review, which would tell about the quality of the fabric in detail, the care of clothes and clearly demonstrated the clothes on the model.
Technical equipment often requires a detailed guide for customization, furniture – for installation. This is the information that your customers anyway google online after the purchase. So, why don’t you give them such information immediately on the site? Moreover, this is an excellent opportunity to run your own channel on YouTube – a perfect occasion for video marketing.
The various test drives of the product may work well. For example, to demonstrate the quality of the product, once, a manufacturer of orthopedic mattresses recorded a video, how a car and a tractor pass over his mattresses and pillows. Thus, he demonstrated that the goods are resistant to high pressure, and, if you sleep with an elephant, then, the mattress will generally survive.
For a furniture store, there can be a test drive like this. For example, customers, when ordering a sofa, can not determine the appropriate fabric. Here, the reasons could be the following: so that the cat does not scratch so that it does not absorb moisture, so that the dirt disappears itself, and so on. Take pieces of cloth and do all this work, involve a cat as a participant (he will like it), and get a great test drive for the video to place it on the product page of your store.
Trap # 3: Virtual fitting rooms via AR and VR
One more exciting tactic to grab customer attention online on the product page is Augmented and Virtual reality. It could be a virtual fitting room with the ability to try on clothes for your full-height photo, or, for example, some kind of virtual dummy, whose body parameters can be customized for your own and putting virtual clothes already on it. Such a method can be implemented with the help of Augmented and Virtual Reality (with the possibility of fitting with VR glasses), regarding how profitable investments will be in such a development.
Trap # 4: Customizable product via an online designer
The product online designer can be a kind of interactive game for the buyer – you can combine clothes from the store according to your taste and visualize them in no time. For example, you can even run a kind of DIY game for forming your look. These looks can be saved as favorites in the personal profile. The approach can significantly increase cross-sales.
We at Onilab have implemented a similar online product customizer for Bright Star Kids. It was a bit simpler – you just had to choose custom labels on the shirt and a model. Nevertheless, such an idea can be improved further.
Trap # 5: Product availability check in the stock
This product page design trick is often issued by default: if the product is available, the appropriate size and color will be displayed on the product page; if not, it won’t be displayed. Employees of the store make changes to the files, and these changes are automatically transferred to the site. However, sometimes, there is a necessity for more detailed verification. For example, a visitor wants to see a product live at a retail store, and would like to choose the nearest store. Then, the store site implements the link “Find out the product availability in the store chain”, where he can directly see which sizes and colors of which goods in which store are.
Trap # 6: Aspirational product description sounds human
In pursuit of SEO, many forget the beautiful product descriptions created for humans. In addition to keywords, the text should contain beautiful epithets that evoke pleasant associations. It’s not a bad idea to invent an intriguing story that the product can give to its future possessor.
Rule: Visitors like clicking and sharing ジ
As far as web analytics tools show, page visitors have a tendency to click on the empty spaces on the site where not any buttons and links are. This is due to the fact that, while scrolling a long page where it no possibility to click the proper element, the visitor does this thoughtlessly.
Trap # 7: Interactive and dynamics elements
Such a visitor’s behavior hits the idea of giving him a chance to do this – clicking a button, turning a slider, and something interactive else. Naturally, there should not be too many elements: one element in one screen is quite enough. In addition, you should stick to one thing: either just an interactive element or just a dynamic one. What is the difference? An interactive element allows the user to interact with the site (drag and drop, click, choose tags), and a dynamic element can be a sort of small animation that is replayed by itself and does not need any interaction. This trap should be used reasonably since it is known that when pop-up and any advertising effects are misused, there can occur a phenomenon such as advertising blindness – when there are so many ads that consumer does not know what to look at and he is just confused. This can also happen with plenty of interactive elements.
Trap # 8: The opportunity to share
Give your customer the opportunity to share his favorite product on social networks. Thereby, you stimulate the buyer to participate in the promotion of your website and product. After he places a link to the product page on the network, clicks can be made to it. Supposing, what if the visitor turned out the opinion leader in social networks, and such a small thing as buttons for sharing could bring you increasingly more traffic. In any case, ignoring this possibility, you lose a worthy potential. However, we advise you not to limit this possibility to some selective social networks. Far better, when there are 4 main buttons, and a visitor can choose others from a drop-down list. This can especially effectively work on online stores for women and men. For example, a man wants to give a woman a gift. She finds an interesting product and, with the help of the sharing, dumps him a link via the appropriate communication channel: WhatsApp, Viber, Messenger, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, e-mail, etc.
Trap # 9: Adding in a wish list
Such a trifle is usually depicted as a small heart or an ‘Add to the wish list’ button. Setting off on a journey through the site of your online store, the customer may make a list of planned purchases. The feature can form the basis of the following e-mail marketing sequence that you initiate to reanimate buyers. Obviously, this is a good pitch to notify about products, which were planned but haven’t been bought yet.
Sometimes, while creating an online store website, the feature is elaborated, deeply going into detail. For example, on the page of added wishes, the customer can set up a calendar with purchase references, download the wish list as a table and send it by using the aforementioned sharing buttons.
Rule: Catchy lines to attract customers (but don’t dare bulls!)
Trap # 10: Graphical hints
Often, business preaches a mission – to make the world better, more colorful, more environmentally friendly… For example, the allbirds.com store uses natural wool in its products, so cute animated sheep can be found throughout the site. This idea is nicely supported in the design of all pages.
A designer will always tell you how graphically depict the concept of business in the best way. It is often determined in connection with the business direction, but it is always pleasant to visit sites where the company’s activity is not driven into a standard template of the site but thought through up to the smallest detail based on the key mission. Therefore, not the business is “stretched” on the existing framework of the site, but the site’s framework is elaborated according to the basis of the business concept.
Trap # 11: Hit on the instincts
All marketers know this technique and do not disdain it when it is necessary to achieve a short attention attraction. Of course, it is important not to overdo. Ecommerce stores often use photos of attractive women, whether they are clothes stores or even machines. However, this is not the limit. Some stores use this approach more frankly than others do. For example, look at these directories down here… Sometimes it seems that this approach is even redundant. Far better for a knight to withstand a noble norm.
Rule: Psychological tricks
Basically, they are a sort of conditions that give visitors the opportunity to buy cheaper if …, faster, otherwise…, and so on.
Trap # 12: Get a discount
On the product page, you can offer a discount on this product. Sometimes, in such a way, online stores encourage customers for their social activities and help in product promotion. For example, a coupon can be opened after the visitor has shared the product page on social networks. Such discounts can be offered for any visitor activity that you come up with.
Trap # 13: Super proposition
“Use it or lose it!” is the typical motivation in the case, more completely describing the approach. However, some online stores put a sale counter on the product, which just endlessly counts the last day before the end of the promotion, and expect that the trick will attract visitors. It’s a delusion. The buyer is not a fool. Thereby, you lose customers’ trust in what you do; and you are about to lose their trust in what you sell.
Trap # 14: Statistics (Views, likes, number of purchases, current views, and so on)
This is a small element, but it adds trustworthiness to your product from the customer’s end. Practice shows that sometimes users prefer products that are more often bought by others, especially if the visitor doubts between several products.
Likes, page views, and a number of purchases are appropriate to use when the store boasts a high attendance. Then, the figures measured by hundreds of purchases can be very motivational.
Pop-up notifications like “This product is being viewed by 5 visitors right now” perfectly warm up the potential buyer to acquire the product as fast as possible. Booking.com uses the similar approach when selling rooms in hotels. Moreover, usually, the amount of goods in the stock is limited, and if there are only 1-2 items, such a prompt may be a swift decision-making push to buy, overtaking others who are watching this product right now.
Rule: Instant consultation
The conventional wisdom of trade is that the visitor is lazy, and you need to follow him to persuade. In an offline shop, the visitor explores the goods and immediately turns to the nearest consultant. The challenge could only be if the service in the store was organized so badly that the buyer started playing the game “catch the consultant to ask if you can”. In the online store, to ask a question, the customer needs to take many steps, whatever contact method he chooses.
Trap # 15: CallBackHunter
To call the phone given in the header, recently, the customer needed to take the phone, dialed the number, listened to the answering machine with the proposed sets of digits, waited for the connection with the operator, and, finally, asked. Too much. Now, wise store owners implement the trap completely more rationally. All phone numbers on the site must be clickable and automatically referring the visitor to dial: it can be integrated with Skype from the desktop version of the site, from the mobile version – switching to dialing right from the phone. However, there is another effective approach – CallBackHunter. This is the title of a small button that, regardless of the scrolling, is always overlaid the store window, being in the visible area of the screen. The button looks harmoniously both on the desktop and mobile versions of the site do not take up much space and is easy to use.
Trap # 16: Live Chat
On the product and directory page, the user needs to receive an instant response to the question of interest. The long waiting annoys the buyer. If such an opportunity is not performed, the business will lose its customers.
Live Chat is a perfect way; it completely alters the offline situation when the consultant is nearby and is ready to respond to the client’s request at any time. Online, you just need to press the button once, start writing, and the consultant will reply within a minute. Therefore, the possibility of instant communication with a consultant, which is implemented as a small button with a pop-up window, will bring benefits. In addition, it is possible to program the site so that the CallBackHunter appears only on the mobile version and Live Chat on the desktop one, switching between them.
Rule: Clear at-hand navigation
The basic idea is that frequently used clickable design elements should be at hand.
Trap # 17: Add-to-Cart button
The button for adding goods to the shopping cart must always be available – preferably in the visible area of the screen. Many shops make this button fixed in the site’s header, some place it as a tag on the side. However, the main point is that, after the user has studied the goods on the page, having read the presentation up to the bottom, he wouldn’t have to scroll as long upwards to order. By the way, he can make a purchase decision in the middle of the page, but the button may not be near. There are actually ways (“marketing triggers”) activate and drive purchase behavior.
Summing up
Mastering all these tricks and knowing when and where better to use them, you can essentially bootstrap your online store. The main thing is to correctly argue the use of each element. Then, having improved all the workflows at the technical level, you can daringly achieve high conversions. Contact our stellar Magento developers to implement such features on your site.