Whether you run an online store or a brick-and-mortar shop, the ultimate goal remains the same- an increase in sales. However, there is a subtle difference between the online and physical stores. Factors influencing consumer buying decisions in the online store are mostly psychological. These include design, content, color, and even fonts of your online eCommerce website. Even the marketing method for the online shop focuses more on psychological factors. This blog talks on How To Drive Traffic To Your Ecommerce Store. Here we take the top ten factors to consider.

Top Ten Factors for Influencing Consumer’s Buying Decisions

1. Make Them Feel Special

This is the first and most important aspect to consider. Just like in a brick-and-mortar store, your attitude matters in an online store. The only difference is customers cannot see your smiling face and cordial welcome. However, you can compensate this by bringing a user-friendly and attractive online shop.

Your eCommerce website should have features like social media integration, support center, and customer reviews to attract more people toward your business.

You can also send personalized notifications regularly regarding promotional offers and new arrivals to engage them.

A friendly approach can make them feel special and as a result, they will be loyal customers of your store over the period.

2. Provide Numerous Information

Trust and confidence are dependent on knowledge. Simply put, consumers seek knowledgeable individuals who can help them purchase genuine products online.

You can spread awareness about various products online and enhance your consumers’ trust that ultimately leads to repeat sales. Also, you can provide all relevant information about the product in the description and remain available for resolving customers’ queries.

3. Involve Customers

Have you seen sections like ‘related items’ and ‘other items to buy’ on the eCommerce website? These sections are aimed at helping consumers in buying various products.

Though it is more difficult to create a sense of ownership in online business as compared to the brick-and-mortar business, you can encourage customers for purchasing by showing sections like ‘People who bought this also buy’. Such sections enhance the involvement of customers in your business and as a result, your sales can grow.

You can also provide a 3D experience using VR technology for your products to online shoppers. It can help your customers make a decision.

Also Read: Tips For Successful Cross Selling On Magento Store

4. Appeal to Millennials

Millennials prefer to search and shop online. However, the Gallup poll has suggested that millennials are not easily influenced by social media. Only 7% of millennials have accepted that their purchasing decisions are highly influenced by social media.

If you want to attract millennials, you should create a mobile-friendly content for them that can easily meet their needs and expectations. Also, there is no need to send notifications frequently with generic messages.

The Millennials like transparency. In other words, there should be no clash between your store’s policy and practice. It is better to apologize publicly, using social networks if there are major flaws in your products.

Building trust in your business remains one of the top factors influencing consumer buying decisions.

5. Engage Customers in Every Possible Way

Social media can provide a great platform to attract and engage customers. However, if you want to influence your customers’ buying decisions, you need to make them engaged in both online and offline ways.

It is fair to mention that customers get attracted to a brand that keeps them engaged and aligns all the touchpoints. Word of mouth publicity can be leveraged well when you can turn your customers into brand advocates.

Simply put, when your business or organization connects emotionally with consumers, it can influence their purchasing decisions effectively. You can connect emotionally with the target audience by meeting their needs and addressing their issues.

6. Remain Available for 24/7

Today, tech-savvy consumers expect immediate responses from brands for their queries. What if your business or online shop can respond to your customers even during nighttime and weekends? Yes, it is always beneficial for an online business to remain available 24/7.

Official research shows that 42% of consumers expect a response within 60 minutes of giving a complaint. Whether your business is online or offline, you must remain active on social media. You can scale customer service with social media channels. For example, when one of your customer service executives talks to a customer on the phone, the other can respond to other customers through social media.

You can also launch an online community for your business where customers can help each other and you can give your customers premium support services. In any community, some members are highly active and want to help others. You can make a strategy to identify and reward such persons to solve your customers’ issues more efficiently.

If you have a dedicated app for your business, it is better to keep a customer support section to help your customers on a 24/7 basis.

7. Give Discounts

This is one of the most popular and efficient ways to increase sales for any business. Festive seasons, launching of new products, and stock clearance are some of the genuine reasons to bring promotional offers or discounts.

Usually, merchants increase the price and offer a discount to get the proper price. It gives customers a feeling of satisfaction with the cost, and you can boost sales. It gives your customers a feeling of a cost-effective deal, which motivates them to buy frequently from your online shop.

You can also offer discounts on bulk orders or purchasing various products at once. Such discounts can encourage customers to buy more products or in bulk. The discount scheme is known for generating FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) situation among the customer’s mind because such schemes last for a limited time. Offering discounts is a proven way to move the stock rapidly.

8. Focus on Reviews

Reviews matter the most when it comes to making purchasing decisions. It is of vital importance when you showcase what your existing customers say about your products or services to other people. Your prospective customers have a fellow-feeling with existing customers. The customer’s reviews can motivate people to buy products from your company effectively as reviews can generate trust among them.

You can highlight some of the wonderful reviews and also consider giving a reply to people who have given negative reviews. It can strengthen the presence of your online business in the web world.

You can also consider tagging your products with ‘best seller’ and ‘lowest price’ to draw the attention of more people. Many online business owners also put customer ratings on the website and mobile app to encourage customers to buy specific products from their shops.

Also Read: Learn How Online Reviews Boost Your Sales

9. Emphasize on Design

It is said that ‘design speaks louder than words’- a user-friendly design with a seamlessly performing website can give a boost to your online business. Therefore, you need to focus on design.

You can keep the age, demographics, cultural aspects, social preferences, and lifestyles of the target audience while designing your eCommerce website or a mobile app. Also, a simple design can appeal more to customers.

Color, font, and even language of your business website matter to build a good rapport. Also, you can include various interactive features and functionality to entertain your customers. The design should be in line with your target audience, market trends, and business model.

10. Dial down Price

What is the difference between $500 and $499? It is a common tenancy of customers or buyers to round the ‘odd’ number down rather than up. In our example, your customers will prefer to give $499 instead of $500.

You can also consider dialing down the price by a cent as well, which is more effective than a whole number. While offering promotional offers, you can consider this tactic as well to attract more people toward your products.

It is fair to remember that you should not reduce the price considerably, but instead, reduce it by a cent or a dollar to draw the attention of many customers.

Concluding Remarks

How to influence customers to buy more from your eCommerce shop is a critical question. You can get its solution in these ten factors. Your customers will not only buy from your shop but also recommend it to others if you implement all these tips effectively.

You can provide them value and fulfill their expectations by offering the best services. It is fair to mention that when your customers feel valued, it will reflect in increasing sales volume and enhanced value of your business.

Solwin Infotech is a leading web and eCommerce development company in India. We have in-house teams for developing robust business websites powered by WordPress and Magento. You can contact us for any web project-related requirements to grow your business online. Simply drop us a line at info@solwininfotech.com and our expert consultants will get back to you soon.