Conversion Optimization: When & Where to Address Customer Anxiety
“New visitors” account for a large percentage of an ecommerce site’s traffic. It’s not unusual for a site to have 70% new visitors, with 70% of these new visits landing on a page other than the home page.
New visitors that arrive on a product page through search engines, paid search ads, comparison engines or affiliate links may be ready to buy today (and may be comparing your site against a few other options). With no prior awareness of your website or company – addressing fears, uncertainties, doubts and dealbreakers (FUDDs) about doing business with you is even more critical than if you’re a well known site business Target or Toys R Us. Common FUDDs include:
- If there’s a problem with my order, can I return it? Will it be a hassle to return it?
- Is this the best price I can get?
- Can I trust that the product is as shown in pictures? (Sizing, colors, quality etc)
- Is this the best website to do business with?
Some anxiety is felt earlier in the process – when evaluating a product or price, some is felt when deciding which e-store to purchase from and some is felt when deciding to go through with the purchase.
Anxiety on Product Pages
Many product pages do not address concerns about “why should I buy from this site?”:
If a site does link to information about value propositions like customer service policies and guarantees, links are often hiding in navigation menus (top, footer or sidebar) or otherwise out of the customer’s eye path. Don’t expect customers to find these assurances on their own. Consider incorporating them as part of the product information:
Another problem with links to information is they point to actual pages which hijack customers off the product page. Rollovers and pop-up windows to show more detail keeps the customer on the page.
Anxiety on Cart Summary Page
Add-to-cart is not a commitment to buy. Some people use the cart as a bookmark to collect things they like as they surf your site (especially if your wish list requires registration). And there are many other reasons why customers may abandon a cart – including anxiety about privacy and security.
Invesp Consulting posted an article including some stats about how important privacy and security are to customers:
When you consider that recent studies of the past few years suggest that 84% of polled Internet shoppers don’t think that online retailers are putting enough effort into protecting customers (Forrester Research, Inc), 75% of customers left sites because they didn’t feel safe (Internet Retailer), 90% would have completed sales if they saw security logos on the website (Internet Retailer) and 70% of online shoppers will not purchase from websites without viewing security seals or logos, the importance of website security should be glaringly obvious.
In our Ecommerce Checkout Report (2007) we found 56% of the top 100 retailers did not display a security badge (such as Verisign or McAfee Secure) in the checkout.
Even if you don’t use a branded security product like Verisign or McAfee (well-known sites may not want to advertise for other companies), a prominent lock icon that communicates “this site is secure” is crucial. For example, Walmart:
Unfortunately Walmart addresses security anxiety on the first step of checkout but not on the cart summary page near the “Continue to Checkout” call-to-action. Before a customer decides to proceed with a purchase, any anxiety about security and privacy is experienced before hitting “Continue” and should be addressed before checkout begins.
Perhaps Walmart’s brand reputation is strong enough that most people will continue to checkout without blinking an eye — but no e-tailer should ever take this chance.
The key is to address FUDDs when and where the customer experiences anxiety in the purchase process. Address concerns about the product’s condition, availability, return-ability, price, quality and your business’ reputation on product pages, and privacy/security on the cart summary and checkout. A next step would be to test the placement and/or wording of your assurances for optimal conversion rates.
Like This Article?
|
Get New Posts Delivered to You
|
Add to del.icio.us
Sphinn It!
Stumble It
I think the point of assurances directly under the ‘add to cart’ button with all the links for wish list and such is too much. I would be curious if there is any test data on moving the point of assurances in different location on the page, like just to the right of the ‘add to cart’ button. Close to the ‘add to cart’ bottom but not right together with it?
I think there is a thin line between distraction and creating trust. If you offer to many resources around that button you could very easily pull that potential customer away from making a sale. Especially if they need to try to find their way back to that page.
Great post as always Linda ;) Just a reminder to all etailers that what works for one site does not apply to all!
We recently tested adding assurances to two sites that were addressing different markets that had similar anxieties. One site saw a 35% increase in conversion rate, the other site saw a 5% drop when assurances were displayed. That’s the beauty of testing software; the different combinations will help you determine the winning design for your specific target market. Just don’t overtest (meaning don’t test hundreds of scenarios on a page that doesn’t get a lot of traffic).
Prolonged testing will yield inaccurate results because of other external factors that impact the site during that testing period.
I hope that helps!
@Ayat,
Why do you think one site saw a drop by showing assurances? Was it related to industry?
@PetsRight it is related to that specific market really. Placing the assurances throughout the checkout in their case was a lot more effective than placing it in the cart. Location, design, and messaging all played a role in why users reacted differently. So, in the case of the retailer that saw the drop; based on our analysis and surveys, users felt increased anxiety seeing the assurances: “should I be worried about something here?” They were not as tech savvy and although they had reservations about shopping online, seeing the assurances made them question further their safety, etc.
I hope that helps :))
@Ayat,
Just goes to show that with conversion optimization you can’t make any assumptions about anything. You would assume (prior to testing) that assurances could only improve conversion.
As the saying goes, we all have to “test, test, test.”
@Ayat,
“seeing the assurances made them question further their safety, etc. ”
Kind of makes sense.. lol. Thanks. I’m learning.
I was on my way to implement the assurances under my cart button as in the example displayed in this article (not 3 of them.. just one) till I read Audio Bible’s and Ayat’s post. Now i’m reconsidering.
@Sell It! on the Web,
Like your site. THink I’ve found another great resource.. lol
Hi Linda,
I thought you may be interested in reading a similar article by Bala Janakiraman of Litle & Co. on shopping cart abandonment that was published in eCommerce Times.
Choosing the right payment management platform can make a big difference to help merchants drive conversion through seamless transaction. This article shares some things every merchant should consider to improve overall customer satisfaction until the checkout process is complete.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/Dont-Give-Your-Customers-a-Reason-to-Park-Their-Carts-67548.html
Best,
Alex
Wenn du tust 30-Tage-Tests im Hinblick auf Erweitern Sie Ihre Weltsicht, es ist eine gute Option
Yes and if any of you are attending SES in San Jose, I will be co-presenting with Google and Match.com about Real-world Multivariate testing :). The presentation is going to rock!
Great reminder about keeping customers on the page while offering assurance badges. Pop-ups and rollovers are a must for that.
Ayat – I will be attending. I look forward to seeing your presentation in San Jose.
iunderstand marketing a product.but are all the tricks nesscery.a good product will sale it self.with repeat sales. you donthave to scam .credit cards.the way mine was.the products i would have purchesed/****NO!!! YOU WOULD NOT NEED SUCH TACTICS IF YOU WERENT RUNNING A SCAM IN THE FIRST PLACE.
This is still a great topic. We’ve run many tests on these elements and sometimes the best placement of Anxiety-reducers can be surprising.
For example, a test of adding the McAfee logo to a site-wide cart resulted in a conversion rate *decrease*. See: http://www.widerfunnel.com/conversion-rate-optimization/do-mcafee-or-hackersafe-security-badges-increase-e-commerce-conversion-rate
Other tests, of course, showed a conversion rate lift. Usually, questions should be answered before reaching the checkout funnel and re-enforced subtly while inside the funnel.
Definitely check out http://www.performable.com/ and hope to see your test results uploaded at http://www.abtests.com/ soon!