The sell was going really well. I received a little slip of paper in the mail with a dead simple form to order personalized address labels from Artistic direct for only $7.99. I'm thinking, "Great, I can get this done right now, and pay the bill later." By the time got back home and sat on my sofa, I almost forgot and cast the paper aside.
But then I saw a line that said, "save $1 if you order online." "Excellent," I thought, and went ahead and tried to purchase. I was one click away from checking out when I saw this:
21 business days (3-5 days processing, plus 10-14 days 3rd Class U.S. Postal Service) - $2.99Are you kidding me? In this day and age, I'm going to wait that long for simple personalized labels? While I was about to just say "screw it" and check out anyway, I was irked enough to Google "address labels." The first result that came up would then proceed to sell me 60 labels for $1 and $1.99 shipping, and it'd get here in 3-5 days.
Here's the lesson: it's still possible to make ridiculous margins on simple products because the average consumer won't comparison shop. As soon as you have them "on the line" so-to-speak, do not give them any excuse to bail out. It's hilarious to see ecommerce statistics showing that something like 85% of people bail out on their orders when they reach the check out page. If you add any extra steps or put anything that breaks the shopper's flow, you are asking them to open a new tab and do a Google search. Keep the shopper in flow and you can sell them anything.
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