Many eCommerce businesses admit, “I’m having a difficult time selling products online.” The Optimum7 marketers take a look at their site and we see that they have a pretty high price point product, from furniture to jewelry. They typically see that these individuals who have an average price point of over a thousand dollars will typically have a hard time selling on their eCommerce store.
Challenges of Selling Expensive Products Online
Why do you think that these eCommerce store owners are having such a hard time selling these high price point products?
Regarding the buyer’s journey, a person won’t make a purchase off of one click or the first time they see your wares. They’ll make a decision within a couple of days, weeks, even months in the case of some of our B2B clients. Keep your user engaged beyond just the first time they reach your site. Ensure they are engaged and have your brand at the forefront of their mind.
This isn’t going to be an impulse buy. Such a purchase is not a low ticket item or a necessity. Nurture has to be the priority.
Nurture this individual during their entire purchase journey. Throughout the consideration phase, put yourself in front of their face as many times as possible.
How do we ensure that we can actually engage with these users with follow-up and multiple touchpoints?
Utilize retargeting. For email nurture funnels, Klaviyo is a great tool because you can segment your users. It’s a data-driven, eCommerce marketing platform. Use classic retargeting channels, like Facebook, Instagram, Google Display network. Your customer won’t forget about you while they’re making this decision.]
For eCommerce store owners selling high ticket items, have a nurture funnel set up in place for your email. Stay at the forefront of this individual’s mind. Then when they are ready to pull that trigger, they can easily access your website and return.
Prospective customers will research you and other competitors. Put your name on top of their list when they come back and they’re ready to make that purchase. Implement this with retargeting via email. Other options include Facebook or Google Ads networks.
When customers are ready to purchase a high ticket item, the site’s content might not be enough to help or answer all of their questions or provide a live representative. In some cases, small to medium-sized businesses might not have the resources to have someone on the phone, ready to answer every single question. So what’s another great solution for these small to medium-sized businesses?
Aspects Of Successful Campaigns For High-Priced & Luxury Items
Offline Conversations, Automation And Chatbots
Prepare a couple of icebreakers or different bridge points for the customer. A chatbot is the simplest. You can create automated cadences to make sure that you can collect as much information from the client as needed before they actually hop on the phone. Sometimes a person is not ready to just pick up the phone and call, and having that in place will help later conversations.
You can have automated responses. Humanize them as much as possible. Users are very smart nowadays; they know when they’re speaking to a robot. Be careful in the way that you set it up and you definitely want to try to humanize it as much as possible. You’re going to see a better response rate.
If you do have the resources to take that communication online, the designated department needs to be ready. Whether in customer service or sales, the representatives need to have the expertise to take that lead, answer that question, and close the sale.
We’ve experienced this issue many times where we’re driving tons and tons of leads or inquiries. However, the sales team just can’t close the deal. Look beyond your marketing efforts and at your internal operation and make sure that you have the tools in place before you even set up that marketing and execute on that. If you don’t have your sales team trained to handle the types of questions or the volume that they’re going to be getting from your marketing strategy, you’re just going to be throwing money away.
So we’ve already talked about nurturing and retargeting and the importance of staying at the forefront of the potential customer’s mind throughout that considered part of the consumer journey. We talked about taking the communication offline, because in some cases, especially in B2B, it’s a necessity.
Technology
This should be a given, but in some cases, it’s not – if your website is not up-to-par with today’s standards, it’s going to be very difficult to sell a high ticket item online. The consumer judges your credibility based on appearance, presentation, navigation, reviews, and accessibility.
Step one is having your technology up to date, and that’s just a general rule of thumb.
However, clients may have an outdated platform lacking scalability, with terrible user experience. Their sales from this decade don’t compare to the sales they had in the past ten years because their site looked and felt like it was created in the past.
Split Payments Or Layaway Functionalities
These apply to B2C primarily. If you are selling a high ticket item, you need to have either a split payment where you could split the payment across multiple credit cards or a layaway functionality where you can pay in two, three, four installments.
The marketers have seen a huge increase in conversions after a functionality like this has been implemented. We have another Surge Session where we talk specifically about split payments.
Recap For High Ticket Sales
Have a nurture funnel in place. Execute retargeting on Google and Facebook. Have a team in house or the resources to handle any type of incoming leads, phone calls, or requests. Train your sales team and update your technology.
Make sure that that price point is justified in the user’s eyes, based on your website and the way that it functions. And then as well as having that up to date functionality such as the split payment and the layaway functionality.
Another simple functionality is a “Request A Quote” button. The conversation can help with icebreakers and carrying an interaction offline. Some of these simple out-of-the-box solutions can drastically improve your sales.
These points are tailored to eCommerce. However, with the exception of layaway functionality and split payments, the same approach applies to a service-based or lead-generation business. Optimum7 has tons of clients that both sell B2B and B2C, who wish to take the conversations offline or hear requests.
If you’re a service-based business or eCommerce business selling a high ticket item, these are all strategies that you need to have in place now for the next two years.
