In the previous installment of the series, we shared with you five typical behaviors of online consumers to help you improve your website and increase conversions. But there are so many more insights like these. Here is another batch of five to help you create a website that is sure to capture the heart of every shopper.

In the first part of the consumer behavior insights series, we argued that there are certain online consumer habits that are typical for and shared by the vast majority of individuals. Those consumer behavior patterns are extremely valuable as they are literally golden pieces of insight ready to be implemented on your website in order to rid it of what people hate and fill it with what they want. We pointed out that customers:

Here comes another five.

Consumers would love to trust you

Did you know that according to data gathered by Bargian Fox, about a quarter of consumers flat out refuse to shop online because of fear of fraud? This is why consumers usually search for anything included on the website that could help them trust the seller just a bit more. As many as 61% of shoppers would consider abandoning the sales process should they fail to find any sort of trust seal such as the Norton Secured Seal. They are just as fond of all kinds of guarantees, the ability to return the product is just one example. The popular leather bag go-to shop, Saddleback Leather, offers the distinct 100 year warranty – as opposed to the typical lifetime warranty. What seems to make it so powerful is the definite number on it – 100 years seems like a real deal; “lifetime” can’t help but feel a bit vague as well as overused and abused by all kinds of shady online businesses.

Why do people crave trust online so much? That’s because aside of the trust factor, online shopping almost always beats the hassle of going to the shop yourself. It’s faster, more convenient, usually cheaper and the choice is wider. All it takes to trigger the purchase craze is to give them a good reason to trust you. They’re waiting for it.

With every second… there are fewer of them left

According to research by Amazon, with every 100 milliseconds of page load time the overall volume of sales drops by 1%. At the same time, customer satisfaction drops by 7% per each additional second the website loads. How terrifying is that?

Aside of the usual lack of patience of all online users, it’s easy to figure out why this happens. The vast majority of shopping we do online involves non-essential items. If waiting for the site to load takes too much time, we’re likely to drop out. After all, we can always try again later, possibly on a different website. There are many stores that cover just about every niche and people don’t like to go back to places, which caused them a bad experience. It’s really worth taking that into consideration. If your site has never been optimized for speed, it’s possible that with the help of a developer noticeable improvement can be achieved relatively easily.

Is your website too slow? We recommend you try the page speed insight tool by Google to get a rough estimate and some suggestions on how to make it better.

They care about aesthetics… more than you could ever imagine

Besides trust, aesthetics is another matter that is often underestimated by online store owners. It’s probably because neither of these two are easy to measure and both are highly subjective. But most of the time, it’s easy to tell a unique and professional looking website from one that didn’t take much time to develop or customize, thus appearing as a haphazard jumble.

According to data by Bargain Fox, as many as 42% of your visitors formulate an opinion on your website based on its design alone, and a whopping 93% take aesthetics into consideration when making their purchase decision. It also has a lot do with trust – a professional looking and responsive website free of any kind of bug just seems more trustworthy. You should never underestimate the impact that a good redesign could have on your conversions. Here are some eCommerce inspirations from the official website of the acclaimed Website Awards contest.

They appreciate images, like animations and adore videos

In the previous article on consumer behavior, we pointed out that using images and simple GIF animations can go a long way to imitate the way consumers get to experience products in a physical store. But while images and animations are great conversion boosters, videos are even better. A simple A/B test by Vwo found that merely replacing an image with a video contributed to a 12.62% increase in conversions. What’s more, 58% of shoppers believe that companies that produce videos on their own are more trustworthy.

There are many ways you can use videos to your advantage:

Engaged customers are less likely to drop out

According to Forrester Research, 44% of online consumers believe that the help of a real person is possibly the best feature a website can offer. At the time a customer ponders making a purchase, he or she is very likely to think about many arguments for and against it. A little piece of advice or discount may go a long way to tip the scale in the seller’s favor.

A live chat is a great tool to engage store visitors in conversation in quite a non-intrusive way. It’s always there so that the customer can use it to ask for help. At the same time, the customer is not required to answer back if you make the first step. It’s an extremely convenient tool for the end user.

However, if you do implement a live chat, make sure that it doesn’t affect the speed of your website too much, which often may be the case with any additional plugin or functionality you add to your website. You may need the help of an experienced developer.

We still haven’t exhausted the long list of typical consumer behavior patterns. Be sure to take them all into consideration while making strategic decisions regarding your online store and reap the benefits from it.