How to Ensure Your One-Time Buyers Turn Into Loyal Customers

Any eCommerce expert knows that there’s one secret to increasing your turnover online – making the most of returning customers. According to RJMetrics, although repeat customers only account for 8% of an average site’s visitors, they’re responsible for 43% of online spend.

How then can webmasters increase ROI by turning buyers into loyal customers? Which types of customers are more likely to come back?

The holy trinity of eCommerce

Contrary to popular belief, repeat customers don’t come back to your website to spend their hard-earned money out of a sense of loyalty. Brand is important, of course, but shoppers online are far too savvy to only take a look at your site, with potentially dozens of alternatives out there.

A global study of online shopping trends by PWC showed that people in the UK cared principally about three different things:

• Fast, reliable delivery

• Innovative products

• Innovative marketing

If you can give your customers inventive products that are presented in a way that’s relevant to them and delivered double-quick, you’re doing eCommerce right. The more your brand can deliver on these three major points, the more customers will be coming back for more.

Price isn’t king

The PWC study also found that product prices aren’t a huge factor in whether customers return to your site. It’s undoubtedly an important factor when converting first-time customers, who are far more concerned with keeping costs down, but keeping people for the long-term is about more than cost.

You need to be cost-effective at some point, but returning customers – particularly the biggest spenders – want a product and a service that they trust.

How cookies help convert returners

A key part of the all-important innovative marketing that return customers crave is the use of cookies on a well-functioning website, which aims to make shopping as convenient as possible. Despite the negative news stories surrounding the likes of the NSA, customers seem generally unconcerned with businesses storing their personal information, so long as it benefits them through the shopping process.

Adapt, adapt, adapt

A good eCommerce site will make it as easy as possible for a shopper to find what they’re looking for and be always willing to evolve to suit the lifestyles of ever-changing customer behaviour.

Therefore, it’s the challenge of eCommerce providers (and by extension their eCommerce developers) to find new ways to understand user behaviour and adapt to suit them. For more information about how we can help your business to reach out to and convert past customers, talk to us. Call 01633 415 364 today!