When shopping on an eCommerce website, not every customer who wants to buy is going to buy today.
Sometimes, when we’re shopping online, we’re merely collecting information for a later purchase. Because of this, while your website may do a fantastic job of persuading your visitors to want your products, they still might not buy today. So how do we change that? Well, we need to create a sense of urgency by giving reasons why they should buy right now. When well executed, some of these techniques can have a fantastic effect on your overall conversion rate because you won’t be competing against customer procrastination.
Here are just a few of my own techniques for creating a sense of urgency with an eCommerce website:
1. The Limited Time Offer
Perhaps the most common way to discourage window shopping is to put an expiration date on your offer. “50% Off All Shirts Until Sunday!” will tell customers that they need to buy it now or the deal is gone. This can work for both special pricing and limited the products themselves. Oh that reminds me, I need to go get a Happy Meal today if I want that new toy, it is only out for a limited time and I really want it!
2. Only Four Left!
This technique, while similar to the one above, has one key difference. It’s repeatable with any product at any time. It can also be automated. Showing that you only have 4 in stock doesn’t mean that it’s never coming back once you’re out; it simply means they’ll have to wait for you to get more in stock. This also means that you can show stock levels on all products store-wide because it isn’t an offer, it’s simply a standard metric. The ‘offer’ part happens in the customer’s mind as they start to panic knowing that those 4 remaining bicycle seats might sell out at any moment.
3. Create Customer vs Customer Competition
This is a fun one. In fact, it’s my favorite of the bunch. Essentially what you are doing here is adding two pieces of dynamic information next to your 'buy now' buttons. The first, is how many are left in stock. The second, is how many people are on your website as of this moment. This is illustrated in the picture below. 
What happens here is quite simple. Any customers who would normally have left the page to continue shopping around.
4. Generate A Pre-Launch Buzz
This final method is a little different than the others in that it is a much more pro-active approach.
This is all about creating excitement about the product well before it has launched. This can easily be done by adding a counter to the website on the product page and your home page: Available in 1 day, 1 hour and 27 minutes. When properly positioned on the website in a highly visible area, this can create excitement about the product and can lead to customers coming back on the day to buy it as soon as it is available.
In order to make this fully effective however, we need to add one more additional element: an email form. Simply add a quick form which lets visitors fill out their name and email address to be notified when the product is available. When that email goes out, the sales will come in! These are just some of the clever ways in which we can encourage your visitor to buy immediately. The trick however, is to use them carefully and sparingly. If every product has a limited time offer, the power of the offer is lost. Feature a small number of key products at a time, and try to use a different product category for each. This way each offer captures a different type of potential visitor. This will widen your audience and further increase your ability to convert.
Happy selling!
Written By Chris
Chris can usually be found in one of two places: Behind a computer screen wizarding websites and marketing strategies, or on a stage making things disappear. Chris has been applying his conversion focused website skills for over 10 years and is happy to share some of that experience here on the TechWyse blog!
Chris these are great points. I would like to share a few more tips with you guys that are working perfectly for my e-commerce site. Most importantly, consider adding CTA buttons to every pages of your site. It can act both as a signpost to your visitors and as a navigational tool as well. Then next is incorporating a 'special sale' or 'clearance sale' section in the site. Then last but not least, if possible offer freebies with every main purchase. No doubt these are definitive elements that can help you skyrocket your conversion rates.
Great tips to increase product sales ! All the four methods mentioned here will have positive impact when implemented carefully. First study / analyse your business and potential customers and make offers / plans based on your research. For example, if your products are targeted for retailers as well as wholesalers, make offers for bulk purchase such as Buy 25 get 2 free, Buy 100 get 10 free etc. Also make sure such offers / promotions are displayed in an attractive and flexible way. Thanks Chris for your insight in to eCommerce conversions.
Strange that you are suggesting to provide a blantant lie to a consumer, such as suggesting there are only 4 left. Sure, I get that it may increase the sense of urgency, but if I have 25 in my warehouse and you told me to lie to get more sales, how ethical is this?
What irks me more is that you're a marketing firm, attempting to earn my business and here you are telling your readers to lie to get more sales.
the other suggestions are pretty good and well written, thank you.
I'd reconsider the information you chose to publish.
Great pointers for top selling. Very compelling and insightful. Cool tips like the form for a pre-launch or the status message on the 'Buy' button. It really makes one urge him/herself to go pick up something even if they hadn't wanted to. Impulsive buying needs impulsive punch lines to nail a positive buyer!
Simple, short and precise! Good ideas Chris. Sometimes the solutions are within us but won't realize it. In one way or the other we all are buyers and sellers. So it is just a matter of getting into the other person's shoe and thinking what will make them buy!
Thanks everyone. Just to clarify Mik, if you were to put a statement of how many items were in stock, it would of course pull that information from the actual inventory levels within your shopping cart system. We certainly would never want to suggest inventing information to display on a website! It's all about using the actual data available to you via your shopping cart system and making that information available to your customers to help encourage a purchase.