Get customers to browse more, so they buy more!

Posted on April 30, 2024 by Stylaquin1

Browsing behavior is key to increasing sales!

How many of your site visitors have something they want to buy in mind when they visit? How many searched for something online and came to your site because they either saw it in an ad or on the organic list? How many of your customers stop by your website just because they want to shop? All of these shoppers can be encouraged to browse. Browsing is a hobby, a game, or a sport, depending on how you look at it. Browsing can be a key selling feature of your website.

Not everyone is born a browser. There are people who love to shop. It’s a hobby. They want to browse and take a look at things. They may have started with something in mind, but they are always willing to check out what’s on offer. These are the customers you want to target. Even getting a percentage of them to view more products will do wonders for your bottom line.

Why is browsing so important?

Browsing brings two important benefits. First, it greatly increases the likelihood that shoppers will see something they like. If they just grab and go, you won’t be getting any additional sales. If you can get them to check out even a few more items, they are more likely to make an additional purchase. Amazon uses this tactic by having a row of other things that might be of interest at the bottom of the product window.

Another reason to encourage browsing is that it helps your site’s SEO rank. The more engaged shoppers are with your site, the higher your site rank will be. Google and the other search engines want to send their customers, the searchers, to sites that will make them happy. The metric they use to measure that is called engagement. When a visitor looks at more than one item, Google considers that a vote of confidence. The more items and pages they view, the better the score. Having a better SEO rank will also reduce ad costs since Google gives preference and lower rates to sites with a higher site rank. It’s Google’s way of rewarding quality websites and discouraging spammy ones.

Who are browsers?

Women are more likely to browse than men. That said, if you show a guy who loves to fish a large selection of lures… pretty sure he’s gonna browse. Browsing is curiosity. Browsing is playful. Browsing is a leisure activity. Anyone will browse if you give them the right environment.

Does Your Site Do This?

It can with Stylaquin! Stylaquin is the easy to add Shopify app that transforms your website. Stylaquin makes shopping faster, more engaging, and more fun. Stylaquin shoppers stay longer, view over 85% more products, come back more often, and buy more when they do. Find us in the Shopify App Store.

How do you get someone to browse?

They have to have time to browse. Rushed people don’t browse, they grab and go. Doesn’t matter if they are online or in-store. They have to see things they’re interested in. You can’t get customers who don’t like what you sell to browse. Cheap customers are more likely to browse the sale collection, but making sure your site is geared to your target audience will encourage browsing. Browsing has to be fun, so make it visually stimulating.

The key is getting them started

Enticing customers to browse has tried and true tactics like showcasing best-selling items. Best-sellers are the items most likely to get the ball rolling. Be sure to put them where visitors will see them.

You can encourage browsing with coupons. Knowing that everything is 25% off can be a great browsing motivator. Creating collections of items that work together or complement each other is another classic way to encourage shoppers to start browsing.

If you are looking for an innovation designed to radically increase browsing, check out Stylaquin. Stylaquin makes browsing more fun and engaging. Fun is a great motivator. We all tend to do more of the things we enjoy. Shoppers who use Stylaquin are three times more likely to become repeat visitors and up to 9% more likely to convert when they do. You can add Stylaquin to any Shopify site in under 15 minutes and the monthly charge is tiny compared to the engagement it creates. Check it out—here’s a link to the Shopify App Store.

Add a Styling Board and a Wishlist!

The Stylaquin Idea Board keeps customers engaged in two ways: it’s an interactive styling board where shoppers can collect and curate all the things that interest them; and it also acts as a wishlist that shoppers can return to. Find us in the Shopify App Store.

If you’re a well established brand with a loyal following, having a sale is probably enough to get your customers to come for a visit. You have to give up some margin, but they show up. If you’re a new or emerging brand you have to pay for advertising and, chances are, you have to also give up some margin.

What is the value of a repeat customer?

Posted on April 22, 2024 by Stylaquin1

How much more is a repeat customer worth?

There are a few things to consider when you look at the actual value of a repeat customer. Why they came back is important too. If you had a going out of business sale and you had repeat customers, maybe they’re not so valuable… just saying. From a more practical standpoint though, repeat customers are easier to keep, worth more to the bottom line, and will do wonders for your SEO and advertising costs. Let’s get into a bit more detail to understand why.

Lower acquisition costs

Acquisition costs are simply how much it costs to get a customer. When you look at the amount you spend on advertising, and then divide the number of new customers that advertising brought in, you get a simple acquisition cost. Repeat customers, even if they only come back once, are half the cost of new customers. If they come back multiple times, the acquisition cost drops with each visit. So the first value you get from repeat customers is lower acquisition costs.

Does Your Site Do This?

Improved site rank

While it’s easy to do the math on acquisition costs (not getting into attribution here), it’s harder to put a firm number on benefits like site rank because the search engines won’t tell you how their algorithm counts them. The best way to quantify this is to track it. Here is a list of sites that will rank your site.

Semrush for overall functionality
SEO Tester Online for an all-in-one SEO suite
Ahrefs for keyword analysis
Nozzle for data visualization
Advanced Web Ranking for reporting
Moz Pro for integrations
Rank Tracker for unlimited keyword tracking
Mangools for low-volume keyword tracking
Keyword.com for free keyword analysis

Why does having more repeat visitors improve your site rank?

Google’s customer is the person searching, not the ad revenue it earns from advertisers. In order for Google to keep its place as the top search engine it needs to make its searchers happy by sending them to sites that meet their query, and then sends them to a page they’ll like.

So how does Google decide which of the millions of sites are the best choice? It starts by finding sites that have what the searcher is looking for. Then it determines if geography is important to the search, like “best pizza near me”. Say the search is for “jeans with pockets”, well honey, there are a whole lot of sites that have jeans with pockets. Sites that have made a point to add “pockets” to their product copy will rank better than sites that just have Jeans listed. But that still leaves a lot of sites that Google needs to rank. They have a secret formula that looks at several factors. How much traffic does the site get? How fresh is the content they provide? How relevant is the content provided to the person searching? AKA is the site showing expertise in jeans? Google also looks at engagement. That is, how engaged are visitors to the site?

Add a Styling Board and a Wishlist!

Repeat visitors signal engagement

Repeat visitors tell Google that your site was so good that the searchers they sent there, came back. Google wants its customers to be happy and repeat visits are their most reliable signal that the searcher was happy with the result. It’s like getting a gold star on your book report. There are other factors that go into a site’s engagement score, like dwell time (time on site) and the number of events they trigger. Events are things like clicks and drags. Basically, the things you do while on a site.

How does more engagement translate into value?

In terms of money, the better your site’s rank, the less you pay for ads. Google discounts ads for stores with better site ranking. It’s a way to encourage sites to step up their game, and it also makes spammy ads more expensive. So, if you’re running ads on any of the major search platforms, getting more repeat visitors is also getting you a discount on your ad spend. Who doesn’t like free money?

Brand value is the big bonus

Money is always nice, but when you’re building a business, brand loyalty is priceless. There are millions of websites out there selling what you sell and getting customers to pick you first is a huge boost. That’s when customers sing your praises. That’s when the media starts to notice. That’s when the magic happens!

The easiest way to get repeat visitors is with Stylaquin

If you’re a Shopify site and have traffic that isn’t coming back, give Stylaquin a try. It is easy to add, inexpensive, takes no work to maintain, and increases repeat visits like no other app we’ve seen. Here’s a link to the app store where you’ll find a video and lots of helpful information.

How to boost your Shopify conversion rate

Posted on April 15, 2024 by Stylaquin1

How do you increase your Shopify conversion rate?

Once an online store has gotten over the first hurdle, which is getting traffic, the second hurdle is conversions. Getting shoppers to visit your store is different from getting them to buy things from your store. Crazy stunts and amazing sales can bring in traffic, but if what you’re selling doesn’t match up with the type of customer you’re attracting, your conversion rate is going to be crap city.

Start with your target customer

Are they cheap, or chic. All shoppers fall somewhere on the curve below.

Chic shoppers

Chic shoppers want beautiful images, plenty of white space, and no mention of savings or pricing. Prices don’t scare them because they expect to pay for the best. Chic shoppers may buy less, so the conversion rate may be lower, but they are willing to spend more when they find what they want. Chic shoppers are interested in trends, and name brands. They like to be a little ahead of the curve and see themselves as trend setters.

Cheap shoppers

Cheap shoppers don’t want to see you spending an extra dime, they want you to give them the best price possible. They will sort through a mountain of offers if it means winning the best price for an item. They live for sales and come armed with discount codes. They convert when they feel they’ve found the best available deal. Cheap shoppers are not necessarily short of cash, they just love to save money. It’s as much of a lifestyle choice as being a chic shoppers is. Cheap shoppers are just as happy telling you how they saved $10 on a small item as they are saving thousands on a new car.

The great middle

Shoppers in the middle are looking for a balance of chic and cheap. They’ll spend more for things they value, and you can still entice them with a sale or coupon. We all see ourselves as a little younger and a little chicer than we actually are so, unless you are going for rock bottom prices, try to make your site a little prettier and a little cooler than your basic target customer. Shoppers in the great middle convert when they see themselves in a brand, and feel confident in the value they’re getting.

Does Your Site Do This?

So how do you increase conversion rates?

You can increase your store’s conversion rate by making sure the customer you’re marketing to is the type of customer who will see themselves in your store’s brand and products. If you’re attracting chic traffic and offering lots of cheap or discounted products, they will not see themselves in your brand and they’ll leave. Same goes the other way. If you’re attracting cheap traffic and offering high-end products, they’ll bounce lickety-split.

Add a Styling Board and a Wishlist!

The magic of best sellers

If there is one secret weapon you can deploy that will help you win any type of customer it’s your best sellers. They are best sellers for a reason. If you have Stylaquin on your site, you can easily find your best sellers, most viewed products, and more in the insights panel. Make sure your best sellers are shown on your site’s home page and are featured in the site’s navigation. New shoppers are statistically more likely to buy best selling items than they are to buy anything else you offer.

Sale items

Unless you’re attracting the very chicest of chic shoppers, having a sale area is smart. If shoppers see that they are in over their heads price wise, they may still check out the sale pages. Unless you are specifically targeting a cheap customer, don’t put sale items on the home page. Promoting sale items tends to build a cheap customer base. That’s only a good thing if selling on price is a part of your strategy.

Try Stylaquin

An easy and inexpensive way to increase your conversion rates is to add Stylaquin to your site. Stylaquin engages and delights shoppers so they stay longer, view more products, come back more often, and buy more when they do. Stylaquin shoppers stay over 3 minutes longer and view more than 4 additional items when they shop. The conversion rate is over 1% higher. The real kicker is that Stylaquin shoppers are over three times more likely to become repeat visitors, and the conversion rate on repeat visits is up to 9% higher. Not bad for an app that starts at just $29/month.

Make an amazing shopping experience a key competitive advantage

Posted on April 8, 2024 by Stylaquin1

Is the shopping experience one of your key competitive advantages?

Key competitive advantages are what sets you apart. They’re often things like a tight market niche, wide selection, exclusive products, or low prices. Take a moment to ponder your current key competitive advantages. When you look at the landscape of your competition, what makes your online store stand out? Seriously, take a minute. I’ll wait. Are they obvious, how do customers know about them, would they make prospects come back? Retailers spend a lot of time, energy and money on making the in-person shopping experience memorable and a whole lot less on the online experience. That’s not because they don’t care, it’s because it’s hard to significantly differentiate a store beyond changing the images, brand colors or theme. The actual experience of online shopping is mostly the same no matter what store you shop at.

Does Your Site Do This?

Major brands use the shopping experience as a competitive advantage

When you walk into an Apple store, the first thing you notice is how different the shopping experience is. Visit any IKEA and you walk along on a journey that is totally different than other stores. Every major department store is constantly working to engage and delight shoppers so they will have a memorable shopping experience that will make them want to come back. Then you get to online and it’s all largely the same.

When online shopping got going I had lots of people assuming that I would head for the web, or become “dot gone” as we dubbed it. The web was new and cool, but it wasn’t fast enough to be really interesting. Online design was in it’s infancy. Years later it’s fast, but still not all that interesting. This is truly remarkable because the actual shopping experience has ALWAYS been a huge differentiator and key competitive advantage for brands that understood how to leverage it. It’s especially important for brands catering to women shoppers who are more likely to shop for fun, and who look for and appreciate beauty.

Add a Styling Board and a Wishlist!

So how do you make the online shopping experience one of your key competitive advantages?

If your store is on Shopify, creating an engaging and memorable shopping experience is as easy as adding the Stylaquin app to your site. Shoppers who use Stylaquin when they shop are three times more likely to come back. What would you pay to have 20% of your visitors come back three times more often? What would that do to your SEO and Google rank? What would that do to your sales, especially since those repeating customers are 9% more likely to convert. That’s the power of being remarkable. That’s why big brands are putting so much effort into their shopping experience. That’s why Stylaquin can be your key competitive advantage.

Stylaquin is leveling the playing field for Shopify stores. Stylaquin transforms the online shopping experience. Shoppers who know what they want, and just need to find it fast, can shop the old fashioned way. Shoppers who want a different experience, one that’s faster, more visually interesting and that offers additional tools to make the experience more engaging, can use Stylaquin. It’s easy to add, takes about fifteen minutes to set up, and depending on which Shopify plan the store is on, costs less than a dollar a day.

Your key competitive advantages are what sets your brand apart and creates customer loyalty. Being remarkable is a key competitive advantage. So go ahead and be remarkable. Stylaquin makes it easy!

How to have great online conversations with your customers

Posted on April 1, 2024 by Stylaquin1

How do you create engaging conversations with customers?

You’re probably reading this because you have a brand and you want to engage your customers so that they feel connected to your brand. You look at big brands like Nike, L.L. Bean, Sephora, and Home Depot who have huge followings and real brand connection with their customers. How do you get there when you have no control over which post, reel, video, or website page your customer will see when they start the interaction? The first thing to do is decide what conversations you want to have.

When you talk about everything, you say almost nothing

There are big box stores, like Walmart, that sell a little bit of everything. You can buy tires if you have a common size. You can buy vegetables if you don’t want anything exotic. You can buy sheets if you don’t want a lot of colors or patterns. This is actually a really hard strategy to make work. How do you advertise everything? How do you compete with everyone? They can’t effectively position themselves as the expert because they don’t carry expert-level merchandise in any category. It’s a real challenge. Big box stores typically have conversations about price and convenience because they know that they can’t have in-depth conversations in any category they sell. But they are one-stop shopping and they have great prices.

What conversations should you be having?

The ones that matter to your customers and you can support with your brand authority and key competitive advantages. To do that, you need to figure out what your customers care about. Start with what you sell. If you sell clothing and accessories online you can look at who your customer is: Age, income, gender, hobbies, and education level is a good start. Then think about how what you sell can help them, delight them, or educate them. What makes your company special? Why should they buy from you and not another company? What expertise can you offer them? Go where they’re hanging out online. Visit your competitors’ sites. Stay curious!

Does the conversation need to have a start and an end?

Yes and no. Yes, each conversation has to have a start, but none of them have to have an end. That’s the beauty of online conversations. You can add links to continue the conversation, ask for feedback, and invite the customer to return. Because the order of any conversation is random and uncontrollable you have to assume that you are always starting fresh. If you’re dropping knowledge on folks, you need to make it easy for them to self-select their level of expertise so they don’t feel stupid. A store that sells fishing gear will want to keep the conversation at a pretty high level so they don’t lose the serious fisherfolk, but the newbies will need links that make it easy to keep up. The newbies who fall in love with fishing are likely to upgrade gear faster than the folks who already have great gear they only replace when it breaks.

Do you need words to have conversations?

No, you don’t. Think of all your customer interactions as conversations. If you create a coupon for 10% off, don’t stop at 10% off. Have a conversation about why they should buy from you and what getting extra can do for them. You can do this with words or images of best sellers and customers enjoying your products. Think about the fishing store example. Offering a 10% off coupon is great, but adding a picture of a grandparent teaching their grandchild how to fish is even better. It turns the coupon into a visual conversation.

If you are a Shopify store and want to look at other ways to engage your customers visually, take a look at Stylaquin. Stylaquin delights and engages shoppers, so that they stay longer, view more items, come back more often, and buy more when they do!