How To Create Lifetime Customers

Takeaways:

Store accounts are great for merchants to create lifetime customers since it gives you valuable first-party data to use for future campaigns. Shoppers love store accounts, too, because they can get easy order tracking, personalized recommendations, as well as exclusive discounts and features.

But signing up for multiple, different store accounts can be annoying. So annoying that nearly half of our survey respondents would rather squeeze into a middle seat on a plane instead of having to create yet another one. Now that speaks volumes.

Here are some actionable tips to create more lifetime customers using store accounts:

• Move your store signup option to the end of the transaction.
• This is the ideal time to capitalize on your shopper being happy with their completed purchase. Use your copy here to showcase the benefits they'd get from this account—this could be order tracking, exclusive discounts, and more.
• Don't make your customers jump through hoops to create an account.
• You should also minimize the amount of forms it takes to sign up for an account.  If you're following the advice of the first tip and asking for this after a purchase, it could be as simple as having the customer check a box to have their account.
• Look to innovative solutions that make logging in and account creation easy.
• Who wants to remember another password? Solutions like Bolt give your shoppers a secure, one-time password right on their smartphone.  And that simple step really pays off—some Bolt merchants have seen a 4x increase in sales from logged-in customers.

Now let’s learn about three different types of shoppers you might find at your online business. Catering your ecommerce strategy and campaigns to these key customers will maximize your dollars and drive results.

Takeaways:

For most shopping categories, price is one of the most important factors shoppers consider before purchasing, prioritized even above product quality.

About 14% percent of people specifically described themselves as discount-driven—meaning their primary reason for purchasing is because of a discount or coupon. We like to call these bargain hunters the Discount Divas.

So, how can you better serve these “Discount Divas”?

• Make discounts a part of your loyalty and store account programs.
• It’s not just the Discount Divas that are driven by price, as a whopping 63% of shoppers said a promotional discount has gotten them to make a purchase they wouldn’t have done otherwise.
• Use robust testing on your discounting strategy.
• Sometimes, it’s not always the highest percentage off that gets Discount Divas to buy. It could be free shipping or even a free gift.
• Make applying discount codes easy.
• Finalizing the purchase with discounts has to be a seamless part of the checkout experience. Make sure you’re not hiding the discount code fields.
   

Takeaways:

Forty three percent of those surveyed chose online shopping on a desktop or laptop as their preferred way of shopping. Not just ecommerce but shopping in general. In fact, shopping via a computer outranked mobile shopping and in-person shopping.

Why? Shopping on a larger screen gives people more real estate to check out products and do research on what they’re going to buy.

A good portion of these shoppers are what we call Multi-Tabster shoppers—the 1 in 5 of us who have multiple tabs (at least 7!) open in their web browsers at all times.

Your store is competing for attention with the various open tabs that might draw away the shopper’s attention at any moment, resulting in an abandoned cart.

Here’s how to drive the Multi-Tabster to the checkout finish line:

• Adjust your metrics to account for the Multi-Tabster.
• Assume a portion of your shoppers are Multi-Tabsters who are browsing items on their mobile, a tablet, or other browsers—and then may purchase later. These shoppers likely won’t be signed in on each of these visits, so it can skew your top-line conversion metrics and make them appear lower than they truly should be.
• Make it simple to pick up purchases from any device.
• Services like Bolt make it easy for the Multi-Tabster to complete their purchases in one click, from mobile, desktop, or tablet.

Takeaways:

The dreaded Checkout Ghoster keeps many merchants up at night.

You might already know that more than three out of four online shopping carts are abandoned and that number is even higher on mobile devices. 

The survey showed that 14% of those responding are simply window shoppers. They never had an intention to complete that purchase and could be using the shopping experience as a wishlist or to just dream for a few minutes. 

So, what can you do about the Checkout Ghoster?

• Offer options to reduce cart abandonment.
• Cart abandoners could be a signal that these shoppers want something else from the shopping experience like a wishlist option. Offer wishlists or "save items for later" options which could lead to future purchases down the road.
• Eliminate barriers to buying.
• Allow users the option to create store accounts after purchase, reduce the need for shoppers to manually input their payment and account info each time, and offer multiple payment methods.

You don’t have to battle the Checkout Ghoster alone: Bolt empowers you to provide an amazing checkout experience, converting more browsers into lifetime customers and improving the overall shopping experience.

Retailers using Bolt see double the store accounts created, thanks to a one-click creation process. Saying goodbye to guest checkout gives merchants more valuable information and it satisfies shoppers’ desire to not have to remember so many usernames and passwords when shopping.

Bolt shoppers have a higher rate of repeat purchases vs. guest checkout thanks to seamless checkout, no-hassle logging in, and a plethora of ways to complete your purchase (alternative payment methods, gifting and more).

* Total sample size was 994 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 3rd - 4th January 2023. 
The survey was carried out online.
The figures have been weighted and are representative of all US adults (aged 18+)