Being Honest Can Be Good For Your Conversion Rate
Hey I’m Shane, welcome to another issue of The CRO Weekly where each week I explore how to build a high converting Ecommerce store. If you’re not subscribed you join 928(!) people that are right here:
Quick note: next week I’ll be moving so I’ll be taking a week off from writing here. See you in two weeks!
I don’t have to tell you that things suck right now.
Shipping delays, container prices, iOS updates… the list goes on.
The natural thing to do is try to hide these problems from your customers.
Pretend like nothing is wrong so they don’t lose faith in your ability to deliver, right?
That can work but probably only for so long. While you’re burning cash trying to keep the status quo, things don’t look like they’re changing any time soon.
Instead of hiding these issues, what if you used them as opportunities. Opportunities to introduce a little scarcity, update some of your policies, or even increase your prices?
Today I’ve got a few examples of client’s I’m working with that are doing just that. Let’s dive in.
No more free shipping for everyone
I’m working with a client that offered free shipping on all orders. After what I learned removing this policy with another brand, I recommended we give it a try.
The challenge is, their customers are raving fans. They have an active Facebook group with thousands of loyal customers that they wanted to try reallyyy hard not to piss off.
So how do we nix the free shipping policy while keeping them happy? First, we grandfathered them in so ‘loyal customers’ will always get free shipping. Then, we give them an honest rundown of what’s happening in the world.
In an announcement we basically said:
Prices of everything are going up because of COVID
We don’t want to pass that cost onto you in the form of higher prices
So instead we’re going to stop offering free shipping on all orders to new customers
We’re being honest about the challenges we’re facing while at the same time using it as an opportunity to update some of our policies. At the same time we’re making our loyal customers happy by not passing costs onto them, which we very well could have.
Honest scarcity
Scarcity is a great way to increase motivation. But sadly it’s something internet marketers have abused for years. The “X People watching this product” and the “only 30 seconds to get this offer (but actually it will always be here)” type of tactics are very short sighted.
One trend I noticed last year when Caraway Home and Our Place were exploding in popularity is that they would tell people straight up – “we’re selling out and will probably sell out again in a couple days”.
They weren’t lying. Their products really were selling out shortly after they restocked.
For a client I’m working with, COVID is making it difficult to forecast demand and delivery timelines. If a product is unexpectedly popular, you may not be able to restock it for a while.
Instead of hiding this fact from customers, we decided to test letting them know. We added a bit of copy on the PDP that basically says “We’re doing our best but once something goes out of stock it takes 3-6 months for us to restock. If you want something, grab it while you can!”
Justifying price increases
Margins are getting squeezed and sometimes you have to increase prices. You can only run on razor thin margins for so long.
Due to shipping costs during COVID a brand I used to work with decided they were going to increase the price of their product. From $120 to $130.
With their product being a gift—aka not a ton of repeat purchases—they decided to just go ahead and raise the price. A few weeks in they checked back and noticed no decrease in conversion rate. For basically every order they were leaving $10 on the table.
If you’ve been thinking about raising your prices, just start by sending your customers an email + survey. Give them an honest rundown of what’s going on with COVID + shipping containers + cost of producing your products and ask how they’d feel if you increased prices by 5 or 10%.
This is probably the scariest thing to move on but could very well solve a lot of issues for you.
That’s all for today’s issue. I’d love to talk with you about how you’re overcoming some of the challenges COVID has created for you on Twitter.