Introduction

Even after the growing popularity of online shopping, one thing brick-and-mortar stores excel at is encouraging impulse purchases. While waiting in line to pay, shoppers are enticed to purchase drinks, snacks, and magazines. Every year, Americans spend up to $5,400 on impulsive buying.

According to Fox Business, 8 of every 10 impulse purchases are made in a physical store. Unfortunately, impulse purchases do not translate as well to the online environment. Shoppers typically find what they are looking for, add it to their shopping trolley, pay, and leave.

Because online businesses cannot use the same triggers (seeing, touching) to start encouraging impulse purchases, they must be creative. One method is to concentrate on constructing positive experiences for customers that allow for product recommendations. 

Constructing your online marketplace appealing and simple to use will encourage regular visits, leading to loyalty, trust, and impulse purchases. Here are eight strategies for encouraging purchases during the digital checkout process.

What is Impulse Buying?

An unintended purchase is referred to as impulse buying. This indicates it is not like typical buying, where you purchase something you require.

Individuals who shop for joy, according to Psychology Today, tend to buy impulsively. This happens because they get delighted from shopping, which causes them to buy products on the spur of the moment.

Store express checkout, if you notice, is generally well-lit and has enticing items on the shelves. These products intrigue clients’ attention, causing them to purchase and inspect the items before adding them to their shopping cart.

E-commerce buyers require stuff that can offer them a feeling of enjoyment that inspires them to buy more without natural triggers. As a result, make every visit a memorable and enjoyable user experience to encourage them to return to your webpage to shop regularly.

1. Free updates on the situation

With 94 percent of consumers more likely to buy because of free delivery, extra perks can be a major incentive to motivate impulse purchases. Determining your current AOV and handing out free shipments above a certain AOV (for instance, 20% above your existing AOV) can enable consumers to raise the worth of their bag. This is not possible for some retailers, but for the vast majority, it can be built into the cost of the product.

Impulse buyers expect quick delivery. Whether they were required to pay for it or not, the Whistl survey revealed that those under 24s were the most apprehensive, with only 16% saying they were willing to wait a week, particularly in comparison to 38% of those over 65s. As a result, another strategy could be to offer free improvements to high-price shipping options at the moment of purchase.

Customers, especially impulse buyers, enjoy surprises, so during the festive season, consider giving free gift-wrapping and personalization, as well as free samples, which can be managed in-house or by an outsourced e-commerce fulfillment center.

2. Provide Product Recommendations

It is critical to act as a guide for your customer during the shopping process. As customers add items to their shopping carts, show them a list of related goods at the bottom of the webpage. Then, just as retail stores use lighting and indications at checkout, use the same concept to draw clients to the item you want them to purchase.

Customers may be in a store looking for a specific item, but if they come across something that piques their attention, they will return. As a result, you must comprehend your items to recommend the appropriate products to your clients. Another strategy retail stores use to guide customers is to place low-cost items near expensive, in-demand items.

3. Use Low-Cost Products to Request an Upsell

A typical customer will not probably have spent $1,000 on an impulse buy. As a result, price is an important consideration when selecting products for impulse showcase.

The payment system is the same as standing in line at a physical store. So, before the customer clicks on checkout products, you can initiate some inexpensive impulse items to entice them to purchase more objects.

Maintain all impulse items under $20 to increase purchase values with items customers are eager to buy without hesitation.

You can also use your assigned impulsive buying areas to initiate products on sale. You can keep instinct costs low and motivate customers to purchase more in this manner.

4. Send and automate email marketing campaigns

To inspire impulsive buying, you can participate with two separate audiences via your email marketing platform: your existing client foundation and email subscribers who are not yet clients.

Whereas your clients may not start making an immediate buying when they first visit, you can incentivize impulse purchases later in the process by sending an email to buyers who are waiting for a special offer. According to invest research, more than 64 percent of online consumers wait until items go on sale before purchasing them, while more than 59 percent look for discount coupons before purchasing anything online.

Approximately 30 percent of online shoppers sign up for price history tools to receive an email when the price of an item they wish to buy reduces, but 22 percent of consumers only buy items from their favored brands when they are on sale or with coupons.

Another advised strategy is to set up prompts to email your consumers when they abandon their basket or spend a certain time frame on a specific product page. If they have previously opted into your sales funnel, these triggers may be quite effective in driving conversions.

5. Make Use of Social Media

Social media networks such as Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram assist consumers in finding the things they want. With trillions of unique visitors on these websites, there are countless options to market your items to a big audience and encourage impulse purchases.

Social media has made it easier for e-commerce businesses to market their items and increase sales. For example, if a person sees a product they like on Instagram, they may search for a product tag and buy the item on the appropriate platform.

You still collect the sales, and the consumer isn’t distracted while surfing. Furthermore, this is an easy technique to increase impulsive purchases because the consumer may buy an item that they can readily notice when browsing social media.

Ensure that your social media page is set up as a business account so you can use features that will help you advertise your items.

6. Use the need to fit in to motivate purchases 

When customers see what other people are purchasing, they want it too. People don’t like to be ahead of someone, so when they see some product going crazy viral, they will buy it. By informing shoppers about recent purchases, they are much more likely to choose such items based on social acceptance. 

7. Gamification

Humans are inherently competitive, and a new concept known as gamification allows internet businesses to tap into their tremendous incentive system. Online businesses can encourage consumers to make unexpected, emotionally charged purchases by using tactics such as prize giveaways, timers on deals, promoting sharing of a product page to get a discount coupon, and tiered benefit packages.

8. Use social listening technologies

Our final suggestion for encouraging spontaneous purchases is to employ a social listening tool or advanced search on networks like Twitter to locate potential consumers with unmet requirements in real time. For example, suppose a current issue on Twitter corresponds to your product offering. In that case, you and your brand may join the conversation to contribute value and engage with potential customers to boost in-the-moment sales.

9. Make Sure the Website Performance is Good

Nobody likes a slow online store. Nowadays, the average human attention is less than 4 seconds, and your website has 4 seconds to get the buyer’s attention. 

A slow website means less conversion with a high bounce rate. The impulsive buyer just decided to buy a product, but the product detail page takes too much time to open, resulting in the buyer losing interest and leaving your website. 

Always host your website on Managed WooCommerce Hosting to get high performance, full security, 99.9% uptime and fully managed cloud hosting so you can focus on your day-to-day business operations without worrying about hosting issues. 

Please check Devrims Managed Cloud Hosting platform, where you can host any type of Php-based eCommerce website like WooCommerce, Magento, OpenCart etc, in a few clicks with a post-paid flexible payment policy. 

Final words

Like every suggestion, check these adjustments before implementing them all over your entire digital assets. Conducting customer surveys to determine why they did not purchase can help you understand what is preventing your store from generating impulse sales. They may be willing to make an impulse buy at times, but your website is confusing. Your product may occasionally be out of stock. Because your online store is unique, your circumstances may differ greatly from those of other e-commerce businesses. Above all, make your digital assets as appealing, informative, and user-friendly as possible to capitalize on customers ready to buy right now.