How to sell online to 20-year olds
About 48% of the total online ecommerce market is held by the top 10 stores. Further, the next 100 stores hold about 83% of all web sales. So while the exploding growth in ecommerce is an encouraging sign for most budding online retailers, we need to dig deeper – beyond macro statistics – to understand the challenges in starting a new online store today, and what a merchant can do to get noticed, attract customers and drive sales.
According to Nielsen, the largest segment of mobile shoppers is the millennials. In 2014, sales from mobile devices is expected to hit 21% of all online sales, up 80% from 2013. Combining the two trends of exponential mobile shopping growth and the tendency to buy from mobile devices amongst millennials, we conducted some ethnographic research to understand the mobile shopping habits of 20-year olds.
The goal of this survey is to help new mobile stores get noticed and increase sales.
The ethnographic study was conducted with 33 random people, distributed evenly amongst men and women, and all within the age bracket of 22-27. These participants were studied in natural environments including their place of work, study, play and stay. The focus was to understand their interactions with new (and hence unknown) mobile stores as opposed to popular online stores that have the luxury of being top of the mind for most shoppers.
For the purpose of this article, we will refer to such stores as “unknown” mobile stores. These stores were defined to participants as niche stores that hadn’t been publicized or recognized by mainstream shoppers – stores that a very small percentage of their social circles were aware of, let alone customers of.
Do 20-year olds buy from unknown mobile stores?
79% of the participants had bought something at least once on mobile (smartphone or tablet). The encouraging news for new mobile commerce merchants is that 42% of them have bought from unknown mobile stores. To reinforce the definition of these “unknown mobile stores”, the participants stated that these were stores that their social circles were not aware of and had not received mainstream recognition.
Why do people buy from unknown stores?
So what prompted these shoppers to buy from an unknown store rather than a popular (and hence reliable) brand? The two primary drivers for buying from an unknown store are product catalog and pricing. Further, almost 30% of the participants said that they fell in love with the brand and would like to go back and buy more from this store that they discovered. To summarize a general perception amongst the participants, they said it was “cool” that they know of a store that none of their friends have ever heard of. This also probably had something to do with the fact that all the niche stores were apparel stores with trendy designs that are not very common.
What convinces people to hit BUY in unknown stores?
Another notable trend in the data was the emphasis on user experience. Participants who had bought something from an unknown mobile store said they were hesitant to pay and make a purchase from the store because they weren’t sure if the store was for real. The impulse reaction was to hold on to the purchase and review the website from a laptop or a tablet. However, the experience that the store provided, its general look and feel and the checkout process either gave them the confidence or dissuaded them from making the purchase, depending on how authentic the experience was.
How do mobile shoppers find these unknown stores?
Discoverability is obviously a huge obstacle for new and unknown stores. So how did these shoppers find the stores from where they eventually made a purchase?
The two sources mentioned frequently by the participants were search engines and word-of-mouth (more than 55% each). Surprisingly, just 10% of the shoppers were redirected to the site from an email. And almost none from social media or paid ads. These statistics reinforce the shoppers’ self-image of belonging to a “secret club” that buys from very exclusive stores that most others have not heard of. Once a store goes mainstream and gets posted on social media or advertised online, it loses its “cool” factor and becomes a known store. At that point, the motivation to buy from that mobile store could be very different and are beyond the scope of this study.
Checklist for a new mobile store (apparel) merchant:
1. Either have a really trendy product catalog, or have the lowest prices anyone has to offer. 2. Make sure the shopping experience you offer is on par with the more popular stores out there. This is absolutely crucial for credibility and for shoppers to hit the BUY button. 3. Target the early adopters, the niche segment of shoppers who want to belong to the “secret exclusive club” and buy stuff that very few people know about. 4. Seduce (don’t incentivize) your early adopters to spread the word (ask them to share you awesomeness). 5. Make sure you are mobile SEO friendly 6. Build a brand that resonates with this target segment. Make sure your web copy, your emails, your logo and your overall user experience reflect the trendy product catalog you have.
At MartMobi, we believe that mobile is the present, not the future. We help online retailers go mobile in less than a day, through both mobile sites and native apps. Our extremely friendly pricing allows customers with almost zero budgets to also increase conversion dramatically on mobile. We have taken great pains to make the entire process code-free, so it is really simple to use and ready to go.
Finally, we believe that every merchant is a brand. So our aesthetic designs allow customization so your mobile site and app reflect your brand. We would love to see you reap the rewards of the holiday shopping season, so write to us at [email protected] or call us anytime if you think we can help!
