Competition for e-commerce shoppers will be more heated than ever this upcoming holiday season. One way to get customers to buy from your e-commerce website is by adding email alert buttons.
Email alert buttons typically display near the “Add to Cart” button on a product page. They can be used to alert customers to changes in price, new stock, or other changes to a product or its availability.
Email alert buttons are becoming more important for retailers because e-commerce customers are becoming more sophisticated about online shopping. Here are four email alert buttons you may want to consider offering, and why.
1. Price drop alerts. Price is perhaps the number-one factor in online purchasing behavior. In a recent survey reported in MediaPost, for example, more than four out of 10 consumers say that rather than buying a product online when they first see it, they typically wait for a sale to make the purchase. A whopping 87 percent of consumers in the survey said they would opt in to receive email alerts of product price drops, making this the most popular type of alert.
2. New product alerts. More than half (55 percent) of shoppers in the survey say getting a new product alert would motivate them to buy. You can add a new product alert button to let shoppers know when a product becomes available in a different color, material or size, or when a complementary product is added to your inventory. For example, if you own a furniture website and sell a leather sofa, you could alert customer when you add a matching leather ottoman.
3. Back-in-stock alerts. Out-of-stock products are a big problem for e-commerce retailers and their customers. Half of customers in the study say that when a product is out of stock, they immediately go online and search for it somewhere else; 43 percent don’t even both with a search, but just go straight to a competitor’s website. Instead of automatically losing those customers, adding a back-in-stock alert button enables you to make the sale (assuming you can restock the product fairly quickly). Provide even more help by listing an estimated date when the product will be back in stock. Two-thirds of survey respondents said they would sign up for this type of alert.
4. Alerts about wish list items. If your e-commerce website offers customers the ability to create a wish list, offering wish list alerts is a smart idea. You can alert customers when products on their wish lists drop in price, when a new variation becomes available (such as a different color), or when a product on their wish list is almost out of stock. All of this can help motivate sales for products that customers may not even remember they put on their wish lists.
Photo by Bench Accounting on Unsplash
Author information
Maria Valdez Haubrich
Maria Valdez Haubrich is Chief Liaison Officer of GrowBiz Media, a media company that helps entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses.
