Spoiler alert, it is a lizard who makes you buy the bundle deal!
When you face a client instore, you have all the human psychology at your hand to persuade or delight your client to purchase that awesome Brazilian Silky Straight Bundle Deal!
You can see the facial expression, or hear the tone of her voice change, as an experienced sales-woman or man you know what to say next to help het making that positive purchase decision. And you will succeed when you see a happy client leaving the store.
But what when you are building a webstore online? You can not see the face of the client when she is browsing through the store, you can not see when she is frowning her eyes because she does not understand the pricing method used. How can you help her?
Think like your client when building a webstore
Thanks to behavioral psychology we can improve the human to computer interaction when it comes to the hair and beauty industry. In other words, the normal, day to day behavior of your client is not different online from instore. This knowledge you can use when building a web store.
Most hair and beauty webstores are structured in a way that assumes your client makes rational and well considered decisions. She carefully weighs all pros and cons of the possible purchase of that Brazilian Silky Straight Bundle Deal. Wrong. When building a website, you should create compelling scenes to engage users of the webstore emotionally. Why?
Your client needs her survival instinct in your webstore
The cerebrum is the part of the brains of your clients that make the decision, to buy the hair or not. This cerebrum interacts with other parts. And some of these other parts of your brain are very emotionally, or impulsive. Our behavior is still controlled by the earliest section of our brains, the so called lizard brain. I am sorry if I spoil your dream of starting a hair business, by telling you it is the lizard inside us that makes the decision to buy body wave or loose wave!
It is our survival instinct that influences us deciding to purchase hair. If we fear others will buy the hair we like, we are willing to go the extra mile. This explains the success of the count down of hair bundles in stock. In survival mode we want to be sure we have enough in house to survive. So, when you plan a sales campaign, make sure you share with your clients the stock that is still left. Another way is to communicate a clear moment when the dales will end.
Think of your Ideal client when building a webstore
Why would somebody pay for the hair you offer? Your client will only empty her savings account when she feels the value of the hair you give in exchange significantly outweigh the money she must pay, or the time she must wait to get the hair. This makes it once and again important to really understand her needs and desires. It pays off to create a buyer persona, the ideal client.
When you understand her needs, you will understand she is less interested in the features of the hair. Okay nice to know the hair is 100% human hair, but will this hair give me more volume and make me feel confident when I am at work? How does your hair help you client in her day to day life?
This is at the same time a challenge when you start your business. How to show on your webstore images of scenes that not only show the bundles of hair, but also how these bundles look on a happy and self-assured looking girl? You can write stories about the experience when wearing the hair. Take some selfies and later exchange these selfies with images of your clients and later when you have enough budget do a funny photoshoot.
What is the hair worth?
It is too simple to think value is the same as money. Because there are more things to consider when your client wants to give you her money for the hair.
An important factor is the availability of the hair, or better how scares is the hair (show stock levels and others buying the hair)
When you already made some steps, like being part of a community or have been thinking about the creation of the wig design.
And of course, always compared to something else, what if she can buy a nice dress instead?
Look for others to help you!
We like to see ourselves as a unique human being, but the truth is we really need others to survive. This makes the social media so important when selling online. Every time a client buys the hair, ask her to leave a review or comment. When others check your social media or the page with reviews and they feel the connection with the people sharing the reviews or comments, this will help to make a positive purchase decision.
Avoid being original
I never thought I would advise you not to be original, but everybody has a mental picture of how things work out. You enter a shop and collect the goods and pay afterwards. The shopping cart will appear on the top of the screen at the right side.
When you want to surprise with a shopping cart on the bottom of the page, you will lose a lot of selling opportunities.
So, it is important to understand the user’s mental picture and do not deviate from this.
What is next?
Visit other webstores when you want to learn on how your ideal client is making her buying decisions. In a next post I will take a deep dive in what to do to make it easier for your clients to buy from you!
