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Why it’s important to convert guest to customer?
Owners of eCommerce stores always try to get more and more customers to register on their online shops. They don’t do that for no purpose. It brings enormous benefits for both the merchants and the customers when convert guest to customer.
In terms of customers, registered accounts will help them to
- Have a more enjoyable shopping experience because online shops usually offer exclusive access and attractive prices for registered customers.
- Have better interaction and communication with the merchants.
- Leave reviews and comments to express their evaluation and feelings and get more involved in the community shopping in the same product category
How about the merchants? Getting more customer registration will help them to
- Gather information for marketing strategy. You can easily collect data source to send out product recommendation or promotion programs.
- Personalize on-site experience of customers based on their shopping habits.
- The boost shopping experience of customers.
Why customers hesitate to register?
You may not know that 31% of customers abandon their carts during the checkout process because they have to create accounts (Baymard Institute Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics).
What are the reasons for that?
- Feeling afraid of losing personal information
- Having to fill in a super long form
- Feeling annoyed to remember another password
- Feeling concerned with receiving tons of advertisement and spam emails
After researching the causes of the reluctance of the buyer to register an account, we come into 2 ways to effectively convert guest to customer for eCommerce site.
The first way to boost the customers’ registration to your eCommerce site is to give visitors very clear reasons for creating an account at the time of purchase. Why do I need to register? What are the special benefits I will receive when I spend time filling in my personal information?
The second way is to reduce the time and efforts required for checkout as well as the registration process. It also means to simplify and minimize the stages in these two processes.
7+ tips to efficiently convert guest to customer for e-commerce site
Considering the 2 methods as a principle, we will provide you 7 tips to efficiently convert guest to customer for eCommerce site.
Now, let’s look at them in more detail.
#1. Save personalized data of each customer for the following visits
What is eCommerce personalization? It means showing individualized offers, product recommendations and other relevant content based on the customers’ previous actions and their data.
As you can see from the figures, personalization is an easy and effective way to make your customers satisfied and encourage them to buy more.
Consequently, to persuade your customers to register, you can offer them personalized shopping experience after registering. When they visit you in the future, they can see related products that are relevant to their needs and even in the same price range they want to spend. Moreover, they can reorder the previous purchased products or access online order tracking to view their purchase history.
When applying this tip to convert guest to customer for eCommerce site, remember to always be sensible to customer experience with smart recommendations. This Magento 2 recommended product extension can be a useful tool for you.
Offer exclusive access ( products and services, discounts, coupons)
#2. Offer exclusive access (i.e: products and services, discounts, coupons)
This is a direct answer to the question “What will I receive if I register ?” People will be more likely to do what you want if you can offer them attractive benefits.
According to Statista, in 2019, some 92% of survey respondents said that they have ever used coupons for shopping. This means that the majority of buyers are looking for discounts. Everyone loves good deals. Everyone is happy after buying goods with an attractive discount.
Customers are 4-5 times more likely to make a purchase if you offer them free shipping (The World Street Journal). They can be willing to buy something at $10 with free delivery and be reluctant to buy something at $5 and an extra $5 for shipping.
Let’s provide exclusive discounts, deals, coupons, free shipping for registered customers and your buyer will be willing to create an account to get them. Sometimes, you can also set limited access to special products and services for those who register.
In conclusion, this tip is all about showing your customers the advantages of registered accounts and they will follow you.
#3. Create an account after purchase
Forcing customers to register before completing the purchase process is estimated for 31% of cart abandonment rate.
If it is the first time they buy products on your online store or do business with you, it is easy to understand that they don’t trust you enough to provide their personal information.
Next, imagine that you have chosen goods to your cart and a dialog box appears to tell you that you have to create an account to pay for your selected products. How will you feel? Interrupted and annoyed. Moreover, you will think again about your purchase decision and it is more likely that you will not buy anymore. That’s why forcing customers to create accounts before completing buying is a top reason for increasing cart abandonment and reducing conversion rates.
Why not let your customers directly to the payment process?
Offering your customers to create accounts after they finish their purchasing is an amazing solution for your eCommerce store. At that time, most of the information has been filled in such as name if customers pay by credit cards, email address for receiving receipts and updates, etc. As a result, it will be more convenient and comfortable for the buyers to add only a little information.
A fun fact is that your customers are more likely to create accounts after they purchase. Why is that? The best time to ask someone to do something for you is after they purchase. Most people will have satisfying feelings after they buy their desired products. At that time, they also have a connection with you, so they will be more willing to create accounts.
#4. Offer social sign up and display payment options
Another tip to convert guest to customer for eCommerce site is to provide social sign up and display payment options. This way enable your customers to go straight to the payment process without having to fill in lots of detailed information.
Not only will these options pave the way for an enjoyable checkout process, but they also have great effects on the mobile checkout rate. Remember that no matter how short your form is, nothing can beat a pre-filled form, especially with mobile customers. Customers using mobile phones to purchase will face more problems than those who use desktops, so you should optimize the checkout and payment process to the most convenient extent.
Let’s try to offer social sign up and PayPal as payment methods to simplify the checkout process for your customers.
#5. Simplify checkout process by one-step checkout
Offering a convenient and enjoyable checkout experience is a key tool to satisfy and impress your customers. If they feel happy and satisfied with your services, they will be more likely to register to become your loyal customers. One-step checkout is one of the most effective ways to simplify the checkout process.
With a one-step checkout, all necessary information to complete the purchase (account information, shipping method, payment method, ect) will be presented in only one page, which will prevent customers from confusing with too much information. They will complete the purchase within only one page that has a clear and neat interface.
To install a one-step checkout function for your eCommerce store, you can consider the support of Magento 2 one step checkout extension having 75% faster speed than default checkout.
#6. Simplify checkout process by guest checkout
It is estimated that 14% of customers will abandon their shopping carts if there is no guest check out option. (Khalid Saleh, Shopping cart abandonment rate statistic). Meanwhile, the average abandoned carts rate of an eCommerce website is 65,23%, which means that customers don’t finish their purchase after choosing products 65 times out of 100. The figures tell us that online shops are losing tons of potential customers because of not offering a guest checkout option.
This may be the most general tip that combines all the tactics I have mentioned above. Online shopping requires trust in merchants. However, customers don’t always feel comfortable to leave their contact information for the first time visit your eCommerce store.
You can offer them to check out as a guest instead of registered customers. You should also display other options for signing up with social accounts or creating an account after completing the purchase. Besides that, let’s show them the attractive benefits they will get as registered customers.
Disadvantages of guest checkout
Although guest checkout boosts shopping experience of customers, it causes drawbacks for the merchants’ side
- Will not be able to request reviews from customers
- Being difficult to review, modify and keep track of orders
- Being difficult to enhance customers’ services and assist buyers with their orders
- Does not support much for marketing strategies
- Cannot build close relationships with customers
How to overcome all these disadvantages and utilize guest checkout options to convert guest to customer for eCommerce site?
You need a tool to help you achieve that.
How Magento 2 Guest to Customer from Landofcoder support to convert guest to customer for eCommerce site?
- First, Magento 2 Guest to Customer offers customers to make purchase with or without an account, which means that they can check out as guest or registered customers.
- Then, this extension will automatically create an account after guest checkout is completed, which means your customers don’t have to do anything to become registered customers.
- Finally, after guest account is converted to registered customer account, a notification will be sent automatically to your customer via provided email.
In conclusion, the most effective way to convert guest to customer for eCommerce site is to offer guest checkout option and try to persuade your customers register after completing purchase. To achieve your goal easily, let’s consider installing Magento 2 guest to customer extension for your eCommerce stores.
