July 16, 2014 (Wed): In recent years technology retail has undergone some significant changes. While physical retail stores have experienced a severe decline in their sales, the technology and electronics sector has become one of the biggest areas of ecommerce. According to Tech In Asia 69% of all Consumer Electronics are bought online.
There are several reasons why customers decide to buy online instead of going into a store. It is convenient and less time-consuming because they do not have to walk around looking for stuff but they can just see everything at a click. They can also compare all prices and products thereby being sure to get the best price for the product they want to buy, a price that is usually significantly lower than in physical stores. Also the range of products that is easily accessible is far bigger than in a store that usually has severely limited storage and therefore a rather small selection of products.
Even though these advantages are highly convenient for customers they impose tough expectations upon online retailers. Shops are not only expected to have exactly the product the customer is looking for, meaning that the range of products they have to offer has to be large, but they also have to offer a price that is competitive with every other shop the customer might find online. Also the expectations customers have toward service are not always easy to match.
Differentiation?
So now a shop fulfills all these customer expectations. Not only is this something that customers expect from every shop they consider, the customer also does not know about the quality of the service. So why should he buy at that one shop that offers the best price and product rather than at the other one that offers the same when he does not know which one might provide the better service. None of the shops has a competitive advantage anymore.
The first thing one might think of is to lower the price even further, but first of all the profit margins for retailers are already rather low, making it hard to gain a price advantage and second of all customers will become skeptical knowing that some shops sell counterfeit or refurbished products without declaring in order to get the price down.
So the best way to give customers an incentive to buy at a certain shop and thereby increase conversion rates is to increase the buying experience: Many customers still have certain issues when it comes to buying online concerning security, the typical questions often include:
- Can I trust this company with my credit card details?
- Are there additional costs that I do not know of yet?
- What happens if the shipment or anything else does not work properly? Can I count on supportive customer service?
- Am I maybe even facing a fraud here?
Customers often have these questions in the back of their head even when they have already decided to buy something online. They often even change their mind because of them when going through the purchasing process without any enhancement of their trust. Especially when buying products that are rather pricy, like many electronic products, customers become unsettled. This leads to overall eCommerce conversion rates of only 1.17% on average.
Letting Your Customers Know Whom They can Trust!
Giving your customers the luxury of not having to ask themselves these questions is the key to gaining an advantage over your competitors. But how do you do that? According to a recent Nielsen study more people than ever trust customer reviews they find online to advise them in a purchasing decision.
TrustedCompany.com offers a service that helps you reassure your customers not to worry when buying on your website. By displaying former customers’ reviews and the average score they gave you in a widget you can give them the confidence to finalize their order. Some of TrustedCompany.com’s successful and satisfied customers from the tech vertical include amplifiedhead.com, Mobilepulsa.com and 8share experiencing increases in conversion rates of 15% on average.
With profit margins decreasing and competition becoming bigger it is extremely important to wisely employ the available marketing budged and increase the marketing ROI. Many companies invest a lot in leading customers to their site, a step that is of cause very important. However, most fail to promote customer confidence and conversion during the buying process, thereby losing a lot of their customers in the middle of it. The solution by TrustedCompany.com offers an opportunity to increase on-site conversion rates thus supporting the ROI of all marketing investments through a rather small investment.
Companies can now calculate their sales Increase, profit increase and ROI at TrustedCompany.com/business. Sign up with TrustedCompany.com within the next 14 days and get a 10% discount.
