We started this series of brief articles on “Why People Buy” when we suggested that people usually need a compelling reason to purchase a product or service, whether online or in some other manner. For online marketers and ecommerce merchants the challenges are increased because the selling process, if it is truly online, is not interactive.

Where the sales process is interactive it is facilitated by the dialogue. Questions may be asked by both parties, answers may be given, misconceptions may be clarified etc. When the selling process is literally online, with no personal interaction, then at best all questions are reciprocal and the prospective buyer’s reaction to solutions, opportunities, great deals and lifestyle factors cannot be assessed in an interactive manner by the online merchant.

We have given as five major reasons Why People Buy:

1. Your product solves a (major) problem

Why People Buy (Your product solves a problem) - By Leo Talbot

2. Your product provides a significant opportunity.

Why People Buy (The Product Provides a Significant Opportunity) - By Leo Talbot

3. Your product fills a lifestyle need.

Why people buy - The lifestyle factor - By Leo Talbot

4. The deal is too good to pass up.

Why People Buy (The Deal Is Too Good to Pass Up) - By Leo Talbot

5. Your product meets a particular want.

In this case, this ‘want’ is not one that falls into any of the above four categories. There are such wants (some people may insist that such ‘wants’ constitute by definition a ‘need’) that manifest themselves on impulse…they are simply items that people like, for whatever reason, or that they come to realize, just may have some use? In some cases a decision may be made beforehand that a particular product or service may be worth purchasing, based upon little more than a suspicion of potential worth.

This type of sale may be the most difficult to address? The situation can be very similar to a retailer with potential customers (traffic) walking through the store. The retailer cannot be certain just what has brought any given prospective buyer into the store. Is it the advertising, or perhaps a word-of-mouth recommendation; maybe a regular customer, or somebody making a ‘return’, or just a person taking a short-cut through the building? Smart retailers employ appealing merchandising techniques, intelligent store decorations, specials, music and of course well recruited and trained staff to maximize their chances of making a sale. Then of course, they trust that the in-store experience, product satisfaction and customer relations procedures will ensure that the customer returns again, and again, bringing their friends with them.

We have reiterated throughout this series that online marketers and ecommerce merchants, unless they have a monopoly, are in a very competitive marketplace, one that is growing by the minute as more vendors come on line. Smart online sellers, the ones who will be the ‘institutions’ of the internet marketing industry, already realize that in order to maximize prospective buyers (traffic) to their store (web site) and optimize sales opportunities (traffic-customer-conversion), they MUST invest in a constant review of current policies and procedures, just as successful bricks and mortar businesses do. This review will involve the consideration of all aspects of their internet sales and marketing strategy, including web site design, new search engine optimization principles (perhaps provided by an seo firm), and improved online marketing and ecommerce techniques, which, if not available in-house, will need to be outsourced.

Any way one looks at this, it is just business, and as in every other generation, no matter how challenging the new environment has been, the entrepreneurs have created the market. Some of these then fall by the wayside because they are either unwilling to accept the need to adopt rational principles to consolidate the business, they are attracted by some other mountain to climb, or they sellout to the real innovators!

Why People Buy…..Not just nice-to-know, but must-know information for the online marketers and sellers of this or any other decade.

You can do more online business by spending time to better understand what works today, and what tomorrow’s trends are likely to be.

• Why People Buy (Your product solves a problem) - By Leo Talbot
• Why people buy - They have a compelling reason - By Leo Talbot
• Why people buy - The lifestyle factor - By Leo Talbot

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 28th, 2005 at 10:14 pm and is filed under Ecommerce. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.