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The Smallest Little Things Can Greatly Affect Your Sales - A $1000 Lesson Learned.

by Daniel Brock
11 replies
What's up, Warriors??

I just learned a very expensive lesson today.

Basically about a week ago I launched a product and it did OK. There was one problem that was really bugging me and that was I noticed that a lot of people were bailing on the order form.

They would submit their details, but they wouldn't complete the payment process.

I just assumed it was because the product was semi-expensive and that they had second thoughts or something....

It turns out that I was right, but that I could have avoided it!

Through contact with one of the people that bailed out, he said:

"I was about to buy but your order form took so long to process that I had second thoughts".

(my order form is a name and email submit that forwards to Paypal to buy)

It dawned on me that even little 3-5 second delays is enough time for someone to second guess a purchase.

From what I have gathered from all this, it is all about getting the person to submit their credit card information before they have time to second guess their purchase.

I feel like after they read your sales letter they are super pumped, but with each passing minute they slowly lose the 'heat', if you will.

I always assumed that 'if they want the product bad enough, they will wait'. Which is probably true, but not everyone is going to want your product bad enough and are still partially unsure whether or not to buy the product.

Giving them those few extra seconds to talk themselves out of it is only going to make things worse....

All in all - considering the amount of incomplete orders I received from this launch, this lesson easily cost me over $1000.

Moral of the story: go through your order process and remove all things that are delaying a completed order.
#affect #greatly #learned #lesson #sales #smallest #things
  • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
    Dan, you might want to try the online equivalent of those "an agent will be with you shortly" recordings when you call tech support.

    Set your order link to the interstitial page with a "One moment, please" type message and maybe one of those dancing pinball type graphics. Your interstitial then redirects to the payment page. That way, your buyer knows the transaction is moving forward rather than being stalled in the ether somewhere.

    You could even use an animated gif with a benefit recap instead of the bouncing balls.

    If you can catch their attention while they wait, you don't give those second thoughts a chance to form...
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    • Profile picture of the author jasondinner
      Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe View Post

      That way, your buyer knows the transaction is moving forward rather than being stalled in the ether somewhere.
      Man, having first learned of that word "Ether" a couple of months ago from
      Napoleon Hill's "Law of Success," I have a great appreciation for what "The Ether"
      represents and just wanted to thank you John for using it here

      - Jason
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    • Profile picture of the author Daniel Brock
      Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe View Post

      Dan, you might want to try the online equivalent of those "an agent will be with you shortly" recordings when you call tech support.

      Set your order link to the interstitial page with a "One moment, please" type message and maybe one of those dancing pinball type graphics. Your interstitial then redirects to the payment page. That way, your buyer knows the transaction is moving forward rather than being stalled in the ether somewhere.

      You could even use an animated gif with a benefit recap instead of the bouncing balls.

      If you can catch their attention while they wait, you don't give those second thoughts a chance to form...
      Done as a temporary fix

      I want to get rid of the wait time all together but I need to have my programmer whip me up something that will add people to my mailing list via API and send them straight to the Paypal buy page.
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  • Profile picture of the author Odhinn
    I guess my question would be why you included the "order form" part anyways, since paypal will give you that info when they pay.
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    • Profile picture of the author Daniel Brock
      Originally Posted by Odhinn View Post

      I guess my question would be why you included the "order form" part anyways, since paypal will give you that info when they pay.
      Because I wanted to put them into my opt-in list before sending them off to pay.

      Often times Paypal email addresses are invalid because they can be years and years old without people updating them.

      I dont want to put the opt in after they pay because people get pissed off about that.
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  • Profile picture of the author Neil Morgan
    Hey Daniel

    Thanks for the reminder to check this out.

    Prompted by this thread and analysis of some numbers I'm going to make a couple of changes to my order process.

    I'll post the results of the changes if they're significant.

    Cheers,

    Neil
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  • Profile picture of the author duncanb
    Very good and valid point dan, that few seconds can make all the difference.
    We once we ran a project where we ran a split test selling the same product, used the same advertising mediums and targeted the same people but changed variables such as speed of transaction, method of payments, sales page layout and a host of other factors and the difference was astounding!

    At least you have learnt from this and can implement this in your next venture.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mattaym
    I bought daniel's product today.

    Going to go through it and review it in 1-2 weeks or so.

    Although one thing I didn't like, was the automatic upsell to the hosting. Although very smart, I just found it very annoying.
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  • Profile picture of the author jasondinner
    Daniel,

    Great job actually being aware of the issue and learning the lesson.

    If you are still sending traffic to the offer, have you thought about ditching the
    name and email submit and seeing if that increases your conversions?

    You can always get that info after they buy.

    Although I can appreciate getting that info first so in case they don't buy,
    you can follow up with them until they do or unsubscribe.

    Just a thought I'm sure you've already considered or have implemented

    - Jason
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  • Profile picture of the author DogScout
    Used to huff it
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  • Profile picture of the author Simon Lim
    Hey Daniel,

    Great tip!

    Make it as quick and easy as possible for the customer to go from paying to receiving the product so they can get stuck into it. When they're in that pumped up state, they just want to get their hands on the product, but if it takes too long, then they'll start to have doubts.

    Thanks!

    Simon
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