Your product page receives many types of visitors. There are 2 I really care about:

For visitors visiting to buy my singular focus is presenting them our product story.

But not everyone to your product page is here to buy today.

A 2017 Baymard Institute study found that 57% of visitors who abandon shopping carts do so because they are in research mode.

Don’t make the mistake of trying to force a sale. You will fail (personal experience).

Instead, do this: for visitors in research mode shift the focus to earning permission to keep in touch.

The best way to know if a shopper is here for research or to buy is to simply ask. But don’t make the question stand out too much. It should be blended into your product story. The best approach is to start the story and insert this question at the end of the first paragraph:

Are you here today to research or buy? {Research} {Buy}

Here {Research} and {Buy} are clickable buttons.

In the case study below reveals how to use smart logic to present this question.

Case Study

We were working on optimizing the bestseller sales for BakingSteel.com.

One critical question was knowing if the visitor was here to buy or simply to research. Our strategy would have to change based on the bucket the visitor fell into.

So, at 2 strategic locations, we inserted a question. Notice how the questions are subtly woven into the product story. They don’t stand out and will only really be visible when readers’ eyes reach that section of the page. Notice the 2 red boxes in the screenshot below:

And this is what we showed when the user interacted with our question:

What best describes your visit today? {Research} {Buy}

For people who clicked {Buy}, we simply showed a Thanks for your feedback message for 2 seconds and got out of the way.

But for people who said {Research} we showed this offer:

The idea was simple: convince and convert shoppers in research mode via email.

This approach allowed us to both maximize conversions of buy mode visitors (46.42% improvement) and generate thousands in email sales for people in research mode.

The test was so successful the product went out of stock. It’s still on backorder.

One important detail

In the screenshot above you would have noticed we repeated the question at 2 locations. The reason for this is that shoppers are highly distracted and only notice around 20% of what’s on a page.

But there is a problem. Say a visitor notices and interacts with the first instance of the question. Then, as they get lower on the page they notice the second instance, which is a repetition of the first question. Seeing the question twice can be annoying.

To minimize annoyance we added code logic. For visitors who interacted with the first question, all subsequent mentions would be hidden.

This minimizes annoyance while maximizing visibility.

ABOUT FRICTIONLESS COMMERCE

Product pages matter because that’s where our prospects make the crucial buy / no-buy decision.

We specialize in Shopify product pages. Watch your bestseller convert 20% better in 90 days. Our process.

If you like doing the hard work yourself, our founder Rishi shares conversion ideas on LinkedIn every day. Connect with him here.

If you want to make your life easier and still increase conversions, jump on a call.