Ordering Offline Boosts Online Sales?

In another forum, a lis­tener to my call with Gary Hal­bert, where Gary men­tioned that order­ing online is a strate­gic error, asked me the fol­low­ing question:

“After lis­ten­ing to your sem­i­nar with Gary Hal­bert, what’s your opin­ion on Gary say­ing not to take orders online?”

That’s a great ques­tion. As you know, I con­ducted a free tele­sem­i­nar with Gary Hal­bert Tues­day night. (You can access the record­ings by click­ing here.)

My per­sonal opin­ion is that Gary’s right in prin­ci­ple — but not in practice.

Here’s why…

For exam­ple, he’s right about effi­ciency ver­sus effec­tive­ness, and that it’s bet­ter to be effec­tive than to be effi­cient. And he’s also right espe­cially about peo­ple aban­don­ing their order forms and shop­ping carts… or that the online order­ing process is too hard for some peo­ple, etc.

(I’ll explain these in greater detail later on.)

Another sup­port­ing rea­son is, peo­ple click on the “click here to order” now because they’re only check­ing out the price, which is, as a mat­ter of effi­ciency as well, on the part of the buyer, a speed­ier way to skip the sales copy and learn the price…

… and then…

… they leave.

(Peo­ple are lazy. If they can skip the copy, they will. And they will check out the price with­out know­ing the true/​full value of the offer, which is explained in the copy.)

But for the exact same rea­sons, I don’t agree with Gary.

Because of 3 major points…

(And you’ll notice, too, that my points also sup­port Gary’s prin­ci­ple, but for the oppos­ing viewpoint.)

1) What about impulse buyers?

Remov­ing the chance to order online slows down the process of order­ing, caus­ing them to “think” (it’s what we call, in sell­ing, “cog­ni­tive dis­so­nance”). It means that peo­ple get 2nd thoughts. If given the chance, they will PROCRASTINATE. Because peo­ple fear being hurt, being wrong, being defrauded.

It’s also the rea­son why remov­ing external/​extraneous links, and only hav­ing one order link, as Inter­net mar­keter John Reese teaches, increases response. Because you are not giv­ing peo­ple a chance to pro­cras­ti­nate. You are not giv­ing peo­ple a chance to “think it over.”

2) Peo­ple are intrin­si­cally LAZY.

Say what you will, but “effi­ciency,” for many peo­ple, is not just for efficiency’s sake. Because it’s more effec­tive to make it as con­ve­nient and as com­fort­able for peo­ple to order. While some peo­ple can’t or won’t order online because tech­nol­ogy does make this inconvenient…

… If it’s counter-​​intuitive (and believe me some shop­ping carts and order forms I’ve seen are indeed hard to work with!)…

… Or if the mar­ket is made up of new­bies and techno­phobes who are either new to the Inter­net or sim­ply hate tech­nol­ogy — like Gary Hal­bert is, for exam­ple (remem­ber, he said on the call wanted a cell phone that does noth­ing else but take calls, and doesn’t have a gazil­lion other features)…

… The major­ity of peo­ple buy prod­ucts and ser­vices because they make their lives eas­ier, bet­ter, more convenient.

So why would they order online if the process of buy­ing works against that nature? (That is, if the order­ing process is long, counter-​​intuitive and, of course, incon­ve­nient?) But then, for peo­ple who can and pre­fer to order online, what about THOSE peo­ple? Would they pre­fer to order online for the same rea­son? (That is, because it is more convenient?)

Of course, both are right.

3) Some peo­ple want to feel and be in control.

That’s why it’s best to offer options so THEY can choose. Not you. You should give them con­trol over when and how they order. (Of course, the “when” is dic­tated by many cir­cum­stances, not the least of which is how tar­geted they are for your offer and how good your copy is.)

So as you can see, these rea­sons sup­port Gary’s prin­ci­ple. But they are also the same rea­sons why it’s impor­tant to order online, too.

The solu­tion?

Don’t remove the order form or link. BUT def­i­nitely offer two options to order: 1) online way and 2) offline way (such as a print­able order form they can fax, call or mail in).

I’ve tested this and in the major­ity of cases, it has increased response.

All you do is cre­ate an HTML form that’s print­able or printer-​​friendly, even with a “print-​​this-​​page” javascript. It almost looks like a direct mail order form, for exam­ple. I do this on most of my saleslet­ters, and it’s often a link that opens up in a new win­dow, which they can print, fill out, call in, or fax right away.

Now, back to my ear­lier point.

My guess as to why peo­ple need both options is both partly based on Gary’s asser­tions, partly because peo­ple are still skep­ti­cal about secu­rity and order­ing online, and also partly because of the stage at which the Inter­net has pen­e­trated the mar­ket­place, which is still in its infancy. (Many peo­ple still don’t even know how to ‘click here’. Believe me!)

For­rester Research has even cre­ated a new “cat­e­gory” of buy­ing behav­ior to describe this, called “techno­graph­ics” (in addi­tion to demo­graph­ics and psy­cho­graph­ics, for instance). That is, your market’s techno­graph­ics are either “tech­nol­ogy enthu­si­as­tic” (technophiles) or “tech­nol­ogy averse” (technophobes).

So many peo­ple have now jumped on the Inter­net that they’re still not com­fort­able with it.

(Recent stud­ies show that peo­ple are buy­ing com­put­ers and log­ging on to the Inter­net for the first time, and that the major­ity do so almost strictly for email and instant mes­sen­g­ing… and not even for brows­ing or buy­ing online.)

The Inter­net is still a child!

This will change soon, of course, as the Internet’s adop­tion curve bolts upwards (“adop­tion curve” is an aca­d­e­mic mar­ket­ing term, mean­ing as more and more peo­ple become edu­cated about, famil­iar with and use/​adopt the Internet).

You see it now with “con­ver­gence” (where TVs and stereo sys­tems are now becom­ing inte­grated with com­put­ers), with cars becom­ing equipped with OnStar and GPS dig­i­tal dash­boards, and kids learn­ing to browse the Inter­net and use it as a research tool as early as kindergarten!

Bot­tom line, any new tech­nol­ogy or new process, there’s a “speed bump”. We’re still in that speed bump right now. The early adopters (13% of the mar­ket­place, also called “enthu­si­asts” and “vision­ar­ies”) are usu­ally those techno-​​nuts who are inno­v­a­tive and buy every­thing (or try any­thing) new, tech­no­log­i­cally, the moment they appear.

But then, the mar­ket hits a gap — until a period of time goes by, and the “mid­dle major­ity” (or 64% of the pop­u­la­tion, often called “prag­ma­tists” and “con­ser­v­a­tives”) adopt the new tech­nol­ogy and become famil­iar with it, as well as when more and more peo­ple see oth­ers adopt it too, and when they become more edu­cated about it, get bet­ter tools to take advan­tage of it and acquire more expe­ri­ence in using it.

A great book on this sub­ject is ‘Cross­ing the Chasm’ by Geof­frey Moore, and his sequel, ‘Inside The Tor­nado’. Moore explains this excep­tion­ally well.

Exam­ple: Look at DVDs. When CDs and DVDs first came out over a decade ago, they sold like crazy… and then.… Wham! Sales went crash­ing down. (It’s also the same major rea­son behind the dot com bust of 3–4 years ago.)

Peo­ple are crea­tures of com­fort and habit. They are used to VHS, for exam­ple. Why change some­thing they are com­fort­able with? Most peo­ple are prag­matic and con­ser­v­a­tive, so they pre­fer to stick with the famil­iar until such a time where a new tech­nol­ogy becomes the norm — and, since we’re social ani­mals too, as they see and fol­low the crowd.

So they cross the chasm.

And then sales skyrocket.

You see, as more and more peo­ple bought DVDs, and more and more DVD play­ers pen­e­trated the mar­ket­place (and all of them went down in price as they become cheaper to make), then the more and more peo­ple became edu­cated on DVDs (i.e., what they are, how to use them, why they’re bet­ter than VHS), and, over time, they became more and more affordable.

(Price usu­ally goes down with time, as it becomes cheaper to make because it’s increas­ingly pro­duced is larger quan­ti­ties, thus mak­ing the cost of acquir­ing raw mate­ri­als cheaper as they are pur­chased in bulk.)

Any­way, here’s a link that explains it more.

Specif­i­cally to your question:

My point is, it’s best to cater to all seg­ments of your mar­ket — both early adopters and techno-​​nuts (by offer­ing a link to order online, as well as a phone num­ber or a printable/​faxable form to order offline).

Case in point: Dell com­put­ers reported a huge increase in sales when they added 1–800 num­bers to their order forms, at the last minute, thus decreas­ing shop­ping cart abandonments.

Also, by giv­ing a chance for peo­ple to order offline, the per­cep­tion is, it increases buyer con­fi­dence (they feel it’s a real busi­ness, and it’s more secure), and buy­ers also get a chance to speak to a human being or ask ques­tions, before they make a deci­sion to buy.

Remem­ber, we’re social animals.

But we’re also lazy.

So this proves Gary’s the­ory… in part.

Another exam­ple: that’s why “hybrid” prod­ucts are becom­ing so pop­u­lar these days on the Inter­net. That is, sell­ing a pack­age that includes both dig­i­tal and phys­i­cal com­po­nents — i.e., imme­di­ate deliv­ery online of the dig­i­tal com­po­nent, and a phys­i­cal prod­uct sent by mail or courier.

Why? Because peo­ple get the best of both worlds: instant grat­i­fi­ca­tion that the Inter­net offers (they order online, and get to down­load or access some­thing right away), and then they also get the phys­i­cal prod­uct by mail.

(This is also great for busi­nesses, too, as it reduces buyer fraud. They can’t ask for a refund unless they wait for the phys­i­cal prod­uct in the mail and are forced to return it. Physically.)

It’s also what prod­uct con­sul­tant Fred Gleeck calls the THUD! Fac­tor. Peo­ple also like some­thing they can touch, smell, feel, keep. And in some cases, the big­ger and bulkier, the bet­ter. Per­haps because the per­cep­tion of size is equated with value and/​or jus­ti­fi­ca­tion of purchase.

(Illog­i­cal, true. But per­ceived truth is more pow­er­ful than truth itself. Size is often syn­ony­mous with value.)

Another sim­i­lar exam­ple is soft­ware: many peo­ple will opt to buy the soft­ware, down­load it but also add to their shop­ping carts a “backup” CD to be sent by mail. With hard-​​drive fail­ures and com­puter upgrades being com­mon­place, hav­ing a backup CD makes one feel more secure and flexible.

Again, it’s all about con­ve­nience, being lazy and being in control.

Any­way, that’s my 2 cents worth.

About the Author

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