Are There Any Hidden Charges?
A while ago, there were junk-mail ads offering products with
incredible prices. They also, however, charged incredible
shipping and handling fees. So it turns out those were actually
bad deals. How about your site? Are you hiding any fees?
Products or services are well presented on most web sites, but
not all charges are presented well. This prevents potential
sales from closing.
--Don't Give Customers a Surprise--
Here's a simple example. A potential customer, Mr. Smith, visits
your web site and picks a product. Your site instructs him to
"proceed to checkout" when he's made his choices. He types in
his name and shipping information, and the total charges appear
on the screen. Now, suddenly, extra shipping and handling
charges appear. Those charges are reasonable, but he wasn't
aware of them when he began the checkout process. It's a total
surprise. Customers don't like this type of surprise!
--Don't Hide Extra Charges--
Okay, so maybe today's Internet shoppers are expecting shipping
charges. Now your customer is trying to find out what those
shipping charges will be. A good way to annoy a shopper is to
make it more difficult to find out about shipping charges than
it is to choose a product from the thousands of products on the
same web site. After looking around a while, they may finally
figure out that the only way to determine the charges is to go
though the checkout process. Just before giving his credit card
number, Mr. Smith (from the example above) will finally view the
shipping charges. You could have saved him a lot of time and
aggravation by telling him this in the beginning. Of course it
could be even worse. You could ask for his credit card number
before showing total charges. But surely you're aware that, in
this security-conscious era, no one will give out credit
information until the total charges are revealed, right?
--How to Make Extra Fees Acceptable--
While this is just about shipping charges, just one simple
example, there can be lots of hidden charges that won't show up
until the last minute. If this happens, even though those
charges are reasonable, your customer won't be happy with them.
People accept things more easily if they are expecting them. For
example, if customers are aware that there will be shipping
charges and are told about those charges properly, they will
accept the charges more easily. Also, they will feel comfortable
with the checkout process. Customers will click the final
"order" button more willingly.
You can't make money just showing people your products or
services. You have to ask them to give you their money. But
here's the problem: they won't give you that money unless they
trust you. One way to earn that trust is to make all charges
easy to find . . . just as easy as finding a product. As it gets
harder to find out about extra charges, people become more
resistant to them. The sooner your customers know about extra
charges, the better they will feel about them. Feeling better
means a better shopping experience, and a better shopping
experience encourages return visits.
About the author:
Akinori Furukoshi, owner of http://www.thatswise.com Need tips
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