What Makes Customers Buy From Your Website?

Key Takeaways

• Customer reviews and visible trust signals outweigh fancy design for conversions

• A 3-second delay in loading times can cut sales by 20% or more

• Hiding delivery costs until checkout is the fastest way to lose customers

• Most people shop on phones, if your site's rubbish on mobile, you're finished

• Forcing account creation before buying basically asks people to leave

• Specific details ("120cm oak desk") sell better than vague claims ("premium quality")

• Real urgency works, fake urgency backfires spectacularly

  
  

Understanding What Drives Purchase Decisions

Look, people buy online when two things align: they believe they're getting what they expect, and you haven't made it unnecessarily difficult. Simple as that.

Every purchase has a rational side, will this solve my problem? Am I paying fairly? Can I trust this company? And a gut feeling side, does something feel off? Am I confident clicking that payment button?

Both matter equally. Your product might be brilliant and competitively priced, but if something feels dodgy about your site or checkout makes people want to throw their laptop out the window, they're gone. Cart abandonment sits around 70%, and most boils down to fixable problems.

Why Trust Trumps Everything

Before anyone hands over card details, they need to believe you're legitimate and reliable.

Customer reviews carry the most weight because they come from people with nothing to gain. Display them prominently and watch conversions climb, we're talking 20-30% improvements just from showing verified reviews on product pages.

Payment and security logos matter more than you'd think. Those little Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal icons signal "this is safe." Just make sure they're real, fake trust badges are disastrous.

Making contact details easy to find helps massively. Physical address, phone number, actual humans available, these signal you're a proper operation. Companies hiding behind contact forms? Major red flag.

Strong return policies reduce purchase anxiety. Offering 30 days to return something gives people an out, which ironically makes them more comfortable buying. Most won't use it, but knowing they could matters.

Speed Isn't Just Technical, It's Commercial

Slow websites bleed money. Every additional second of loading time costs roughly 7% in lost sales.

Picture this: someone clicks your ad, stares at a blank screen for four seconds, gets impatient, and bounces. They never saw your product. You paid for that click and got nothing. This happens thousands of times daily on slow sites.

Sites loading under two seconds convert dramatically better than those crawling at four or five seconds. A retailer doing £100,000 monthly could pick up an extra £15,000-£20,000 just by speeding things up.

Mobile loading speed is even more critical. People on phones have less patience, often dealing with patchy connections. Take more than five seconds on mobile and you're practically invisible.

Optimising your site for speed isn't rocket science. Compress images, cut unnecessary scripts, enable caching. Basic stuff that makes a massive commercial difference.

Being Specific About What You're Selling

Vague product descriptions kill sales. People need concrete details to feel confident buying.

Instead of "luxurious bedding," tell them "300-thread-count Egyptian cotton duvet cover, king size, machine washable." Rather than "rapid delivery," specify "next-day delivery on orders placed before 2pm Monday-Friday."

Multiple images from different angles help people understand exactly what they're getting. Adding 5-7 product photos instead of 1-2 typically bumps conversions up by 25% or more. Online shopping lacks the tactile element, so comprehensive visuals compensate.

Measurements and specs aren't boring, they're essential purchase information. Someone buying furniture needs exact dimensions. Someone buying tech wants precise specifications. "Powerful" and "spacious" mean nothing without numbers.

Being upfront about limitations actually increases trust. Mentioning "this runs small, order a size up" shows you're prioritising customer satisfaction over making the sale. That honesty reduces returns and builds loyalty.

The Real Cost of Hidden Pricing

Springing surprise costs on customers at checkout is commercial suicide. It's one of the biggest mistakes ecommerce businesses make.

Display all costs upfront. VAT? Show it. Delivery charges? Make them visible from the start. Handling fees? Mention them on the product page. Hiding costs until checkout guarantees cart abandonment.

Sites being transparent about total costs see cart abandonment rates 30-40% lower. You're literally cutting sales in half by not being straight about pricing.

Delivery charges deserve special attention. "Free delivery over £40" works brilliantly, encourages larger orders while being clear about costs. What absolutely doesn't work? Waiting until someone's entering payment details to hit them with £15 delivery.

Payment options should be immediately obvious. Show those PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay logos if you accept them. Any ambiguity about payment creates unnecessary friction.

Mobile Shopping Is Now Default

More than 60% of website visits come from phones and tablets. If your site isn't excellent on mobile, you're excluding most potential buyers.

"Mobile-friendly" doesn't cut it anymore. Your site needs to be designed mobile-first. Big buttons easy to tap with a thumb. Clean navigation. Quick loading. Streamlined checkout.

Button sizes matter more than you'd expect. Making tap targets larger, from 40 pixels to 48 pixels, can improve mobile conversions by 15-20%. When someone keeps missing "Add to Cart," they abandon the attempt.

Forms on small screens need careful thought. Phone keyboards are frustrating, so ask for the absolute minimum. Use the right keyboard types and enable autofill wherever possible.

Streamlined design with guest checkout, saved cards, and one-tap payment options removes every possible point of friction.

Where Checkout Processes Fall Apart

Checkout should be brain-dead simple. Unfortunately, most sites turn it into an obstacle course.

Forcing account creation before purchase is a guaranteed way to lose sales. Asking people to register before they can pay adds hassle at precisely the wrong moment. Let them check out as guests.

Keep form fields absolutely minimal. Name, email, delivery address, card details, that's it. Each additional field increases the chances someone gives up.

When checkout spans multiple pages, showing progress helps. "Step 2 of 3" reassures people they're nearly done rather than trapped in an endless process.

Error messages need to actually help. "Payment declined" is useless. "Your card was declined, please verify the card number and expiry date" gives clear direction.

How Social Proof Influences Buyers

People trust other customers way more than they trust your marketing. Social proof isn't just helpful, it's essential.

Reviews work because they're independent verification. Show them prominently and conversion rates climb. But you need to display negative reviews too. Sites showing only perfect scores look suspicious. A mix of ratings appears genuine.

Review volume matters as much as rating. A product with 200 reviews averaging 4.2 stars typically outperforms one with 10 reviews averaging 5 stars. High volume signals popularity.

Fresh reviews carry more weight. "Reviewed last week" beats "Reviewed 18 months ago" because it shows current relevance.

Show star ratings on category pages, not just product pages. People browsing use ratings as quick quality filters.

Customer photos beat professional shots for authenticity. Someone's actual picture of your product in their home is powerful proof. We've seen this increase conversions 15-25%.

Making Your CTAs Impossible to Miss

Call-to-action buttons need to grab attention and communicate clearly what happens next.

Colour matters less than contrast. An orange button works if your site isn't predominantly orange. The principle is simple, make it stand out from everything else.

Button copy should leave zero doubt. "Add to Cart" is perfectly clear. "Submit" could mean anything. "Buy Now, Free Next Day Delivery" combines action with incentive.

Position matters enormously. Your main CTA should be visible without scrolling on product pages. For longer pages, repeat the button at natural decision points.

Give buttons breathing room. Cramming a CTA between text and images makes it disappear. Surround it with white space and it becomes a focal point.

Getting Navigation and Search Right

Can't buy what you can't find. Navigation and search need to work intuitively.

Organise menus how customers think, not how your warehouse is laid out. Someone wanting running trainers shouldn't navigate through multiple subcategories. Just put "Running Trainers" in the menu.

Search needs to be forgiving. Handle typos, understand synonyms, work with natural language. UK customers searching for "trainers" should find "running shoes." Autocomplete helps steer people toward what they're looking for.

Filtering options help customers narrow down choices. Price ranges, sizes, colours, brands, let people focus on what's relevant. Good filtering typically lifts conversion rates 20-30%.

When search returns nothing, give helpful alternatives. "No results found" is useless. "Try searching 'lightweight jackets' or browse Men's Outerwear" gives people somewhere to go.

Creating Real Urgency vs Fake Pressure

Genuine urgency motivates purchases. Manufactured urgency destroys credibility.

Stock level indicators work when they're accurate. "3 left in stock" creates legitimate urgency if there really are only three. But if that number's been "2 left" for six weeks, customers clock it as fake.

Time-limited offers need actual deadlines. "Sale ends Sunday midnight" drives action when the sale genuinely ends Sunday. "Limited time only!" with no end date is meaningless waffle.

Popularity indicators like "86 people bought this today" provide social proof without feeling pushy. They show real demand rather than creating artificial pressure.

Authenticity is everything. Real constraints create helpful urgency. Fake scarcity tactics might grab impulsive sales but will cost you 30-40% of repeat business when people realise they've been played.

Not sure where your site's losing sales? We'd be happy to take a look and walk through what's working and what isn't.

Stay Classy

Tom Griffiths

Frequently Asked Questions

What single factor has the biggest impact on online conversions? Trust. Without it, nothing else matters. Build trust through genuine customer reviews, visible contact information, recognised security badges, transparent pricing, and professional presentation. Everything else builds on this foundation.

How significantly does website speed affect sales? Massively. Each extra second of loading time costs around 7% in conversions. A site taking 5 seconds to load instead of 2 seconds loses over 20% of potential sales. On mobile with slower connections, the impact is even worse.

Are customer reviews actually necessary? They dramatically boost conversions, typically 20-30% improvements when shown prominently. Reviews provide independent validation that reduces buyer hesitation. Sites displaying some negative reviews alongside positive ones convert better than those showing only perfect scores, because mixed feedback appears more authentic.

Is offering free delivery worth the cost? Free delivery significantly reduces cart abandonment. But the key is transparency, not necessarily making it free. Surprise charges at checkout cause 30-40% of abandoned carts. Whether you offer free delivery, charge for it upfront, or use a threshold, being clear from the start is what matters.

How critical is mobile optimisation in 2025? Absolutely essential. Over 60% of web traffic originates from mobile devices. If your site performs poorly on phones, you're effectively turning away most potential customers. Mobile optimisation isn't a bonus feature, it's a baseline requirement.

What's the most common checkout mistake? Requiring account creation before purchase. This adds friction exactly when someone's ready to buy. Let people check out as guests, then offer account creation after they've completed the purchase. That simple change can recover 10-20% of lost sales.