Wondering why your sales numbers are not increasing and you are not achieving higher quotas – despite good quality products and active online stores? You may have already resorted to all sorts of promotions to sell your products. Chances are, you may have not been handling what we call ‘sales objections’ or the failure of customers to proceed with the purchase of products or services. Don’t worry, many businesses face this problem
Here are some of the common sales objections and also tips to overcome them, which can guide you especially if you’re new to e-commerce.
- A price that isn’t within the customer’s budget Often, customers fail to check out products online or cancel transactions because the price is out of their range. Customers become more cautious about the pricing of new products or brands. This can make or break their decision to buy.
To overcome this hurdle, imply offering discounts as low as 10% could change a buyer’s mind about a certain product. Recommending alternative products that are lower in price in place of those the customer is considering is another way to counter pricing objections. Going to this extra effort not only adds value to the product but also demonstrates that the product is worth the customer’s money. However, this approach may only be effective for already established brands and not for businesses just starting up, since another sales objection comes into the picture that is more difficult to overcome and should be prioritised.
- The second common objection is a lack of trust in the product and/or the sellers . This usually happens to start-up businesses, as we know even from our experience, that it is quite hard to trust products from brands we have never heard of before.
Solving this type of sales objection requires more effort in marketing strategies especially if the business has just debuted. But one of the already proven and effecient ways is to use social proof. This means having someone reliable to testify that both the brand and product can be trusted. An example of this is a Dermatologist’s promotion of a starting skin-care product or a popular person using an unknown brand of dress during a fashion event. All those positive reviews and comments in your business’s website also hook consumers’ interest in proving the worth of the product, eventually building up the trust among the target audience.
- The lack of urgent need for the product is the last but not the least in our list. This refers to customers not proceeding with the purchase as they are not in a hurry to buy or not yet in need of the product. Some businesses may think that they can’t do anything about urgency because every consumer has different needs and often opt to sell the products during the times it’s most convenient. A better marketing strategy to help overcome this objection
is known as ‘scarcity marketing’. This marketing strategy uses psychology and takes advantage of the consumer’s fear of missing out which tends to increase the product’s value in their mind. For example, flash sales are offered in department stores a few months before holiday season, making customers inclined to buy r Christmas, etc gifts well ahead of time.. Another example is limited-time offers in the form of discounted prices within a specific period of time such as the 50% all items after 6 p.m. promotions in malls. Or online sales offering large discounts by midnight that day.
There are various tactics that can help businesses overcome sales objections but it is always better to anticipate them and prepare ways to counter them in advance. This could be done by intensive research and consumer observation. It is also of utmost importance that businesses listen to what their consumers have to say as this helps form a proper response to problems and objections that may arise.