How to get more people buying online from your website

We all now realise that online shopping is more important than ever, now that we're caught in the ebb and flow of a global pandemic. So we're always trying to find ways to make it easier for you to:

1. Attract more visitors
2. Get these visitors to buy from your site

This is super important because statistics show that online sales in the UK alone have grown 74% year-on-year in January 2021. Typically online sales in January decline as people are recovering from spending over the Christmas period, however, with the announcement of a lockdown in the New Year, online sales in January skyrocketed, causing a record-breaking growth in sales.

Here are 10 ways you can get more people buying from your website

1) High-resolution photography

Photo Credit: Appley Hoare Antiques

When people shop online they need to be able to get as much of a feel for the item as possible. This can be achieved with things like high-resolution photography. A low-resolution photo is going to mean a lack of feel for the item.
Good quality photos give the visitors an almost in-person impression of the item and it will help build the emotional connection and engage visitors to buy from you.

Our sites can now store photos at double the resolution they did before; up to 6,000 pixels so that your visitors can view a high-res zoomed-in portion of the image

2) Prevent questions
 

Questions are good and they can often open up conversations and present an opportunity to sell, but if a potential buyer has to stop to ask a question, then they could have lost interest by the time they get an answer.

This could be down to either:

• They found something else they like and bought that instead
• They’ve had a chance to mull it over and aren’t so excited about it anymore. Purchases are usually emotional.

You need to catch people whilst they’re excited about a piece.

So you need to provide as much information as possible so that potential buyers don’t have to ask questions. Eg…

• List as many dimensions as possible
• Have a detailed, yet concise description
• Use your experience as an antique dealer to pre-empt the kind of questions buyers might ask about a piece

3) Show the price
 

Image credit: Mark Buckley Antiques

More often than not someone will be deterred from buying from you because the price isn't displayed, this can be for a few different reasons, such as:

• Being embarrassed to ask for the price in case it's out of budget
• Assuming it is out of budget

Those just being a few reasons, it can also lead to inefficient use of time because of people enquiring about the item that doesn't have the budget for it. So it's an all-around time saver and money maker to display pricing.

We even wrote an article on that, because research shows using POA simply doesn't work.

4) Make it so people can buy online

This can be a big barrier to sale if you don't offer the ability to pay online. We have written about the fact that website visitors want quick and easy access to purchasing from you, as Antiques can very much be an emotional and impulsive purchase so giving customers the option to make the transaction there and then, could mean that more visitors are converted into buyers.

5) Simplify delivery

A lot of dealers really stumble on this one, as they’re used to getting quotes from shippers before giving buyers a delivery price.

We recommend either offering free delivery in your country (eg for UK dealers offering free delivery in the UK), which research shows can increase sales by up to 10% which you can accommodate by just making sure your prices reflect this, or by having simple delivery tiers (not to be confused with Boris’ tiers).

Eg:-

Tier 1 - Small items (magazine racks, collectables) - £30

Tier 2 - Medium-sized items (chairs, small tables, consoles) - £75

Tier 3 - Large items  (large tables, large dressers etc) - £150

A new update coming to our websites very soon will allow you to do tiered delivery.

6) Establish trust

Lots of dealers don’t have shops or physical presences, especially after the pandemic, and so they don’t want contact details on their site. However, giving details of location and contact numbers is a way to establish trust.

Think about it, would you buy from someone whose whereabouts you don't know and can't call them?

7) Engage the monkey brain

There are 3 key evolutions of the human brain:-

First - Reptile
Second - Monkey
Third - Human

It's a very simple concept when you think about it because that’s how we evolved.

Pretty much everything we look at we do so using those brains in order. So if we looked at an antique chair on an antique dealer’s website, we would engage those 3 brains in that order.

The Monkey brain is our emotional brain. This is what triggers us to look at a picture of an antique chair and think "oh, I love this!".

After engaging emotionally with an item and falling in love with it, the human brain (the rational one) kicks in. It’s important to not let the buyer’s rational brain decide against loving the item for sale. The longer the rational (human) brain spends looking at something, the more chance there is of this happening as the human brain will question things like “can I afford this?“, and “will this fit in my living room?“.

So make sure you have as much information as possible available so the buyer can make a decision without delay and continue to fall in love with the item.

So making the website very visually appealing is key to triggering that emotional reaction.

8) Make it simple

The key here is to make your website as simple and as beautiful as possible. If your website is difficult to navigate and is your checkout is complicated to use then it deters visitors from coming back, remaining on the website and of course buying from you.

We have a range of stunning website templates and our websites have a quick / guest checkout, so it's really quick and easy to make that purchase and give your website visitors what they want when they want it (Which is usually now, now, NOW!)

9) Mobile and tablet sales are in the lead

Research shows that more than 60% of all online transactions are now made on a mobile or tablet, so it is absolutely essential that you make sure your website is mobile and tablet friendly and I don't just mean that your website shrinks down to fit a mobile screen. It has to be easy to use, simple to navigate in addition to having a simple checkout.

Statistics show that 40% of users will go to a competitor after a bad mobile experience, so this is your time to make sure that your website is fully mobile and tablet responsive and that it's super easy to use!

10) Make sure you’re Google optimised and have a business listing

Optimise your item titles

It's always a good idea to make sure you're taking full advantage of your website by optimising your item titles. This means including important information in them such as:

• The time period e.g 19th Century
• The material e.g Mahogany, Oak
• The name of the item itself e.g table
• The location it's from e.g French, Italian, Swedish
• The size (Small)

Be sure to include words that would be searched for, I always advise you to think about the sorts of things that you would search if you were looking for something in particular and then include those terms in your item title.

Google my business listing

You can get a Google business listing for free by visiting https://business.google.com, this is great for people finding your business locally as when people enter a search term, Google will use your business listing to recommend your business to people who search for it locally, or if someone searches for something in your area such as, Antiques in Derby, for example.

In addition to local SEO, it also helps with the overall SEO on your website.

Our websites will help you rank better in Google images

Google Images is a fantastic way to get buyers to your website. To help ensure you show up, our websites are specially optimised for Google images and include up to date info like schema data based on the very latest standards. So when your items appear on Google images, they'll include information like the name of the item, the price and the description.

It's a great way to drive sales to your website

Contact us today if you'd like to discuss how we can help you with your online presence and encouraging your website visitors to buy from you.