Starting or running a business may feel more challenging than ever before due to the volume of businesses that exist. In 2020, over 6 million SMEs (Small-medium enterprise) existed within the UK alone. Despite these high levels of competition, we are going to provide you with 10 reasons why people should buy from you.
Authenticity
Your brand is unique. Similar to people, everyone is unique and no one person is the same. This is something you can use to your advantage so that you stand out from the crowd and it gives people a reason to buy from you. This is because people enjoy authenticity. The world would be boring if everything was a clone so why should your business.
Authenticity shouldn’t be difficult because all you need to do is stay true to yourself or the brand. Do not try to become something you are not.
Your unique selling point
For customers to buy from you, there needs to be something unique about your product or service that you are offering. This factor could be the features of the product or even the quality. Either way, you need to identify a way for your product or service to deliver something special, otherwise, your customers can easily justify buying from your competitors.
Trust
In every relationship with your customers, you need to build trust. Without trust, there is no certainty for customers and this increases the likelihood of customers shopping elsewhere. One study has found that 81% of consumers buy based on trust (Edelman, 2019). This significant figure proves that you need to leverage your brand to establish trust with your customers so that they have a strong incentive to buy from you and become a future loyal customer.
Price
Potentially the most obvious reason why a customer would consider buying from you or not is price. What is not so obvious is the reasons why people buy based on price.
You don’t always have to be the cheapest in the industry to win over your customers. Your quality and your unique selling point enable you to charge higher prices but you need to be able to illustrate this to customers. By illustrating your unique selling point or the value you have to offer, your customers can then justify making a purchase. Studies within behavioural economics have found that we as humans like to think we are rational. In reality, this is far from the truth. For example, why buy a £60,000 Porsche as a form of transport when there are more practical options available for £10,000. The reason is that there is a range of emotional factors to take into consideration that persuades and convince us that these products or services are worth the higher price tag. Now, there is also quality to account for but the point is that you need to understand what you or your products are worth to have any success in your market.
Quality
We mentioned quality as a factor of price and your unique selling point but it has also been included as a standalone factor due to the importance of convincing people to buy from you.
It’s true to say that we all like to receive a high-quality service or product because quality tells us that something works and does the job we expected of it. From a business owners’ point of view, quality is everything and if you spend enough time on developing your product, it will sell itself. This is because your customers will receive a positive experience which they are likely to pass on this experience to friends and family. This ‘word of mouth’ can quickly build momentum and it is one of the most effective ways to gain new customers because we trust no one more than our friends and family.
Experience
The benefits of delivering a positive experience for your customers is similar to delivering high-quality. Customers that receive a positive customer experience are 77% more likely to recommend it to a friend. On other hand, customers who receive a bad experience are a lot more likely to tell a friend. Bad news spreads quicker than good news, unfortunately. If you want to give customers a reason to buy from you, make sure you provide them with a positive experience.
Easy to access
Making your product or service easy to access is super important in the modern world. With businesses like Amazon existing, customers can receive free next day. Not all your competitors will be up to the speed of Amazon but you need to consider how you can make your offering easily accessible for your customers. The less pain or friction they have in receiving your product or service, the more likely they are to buy from you and continue shopping with you in the future.
Local
This does not apply to everyone but if you are a local business, this could be a reason why customers decide to buy from you.
More than 55% of UK customers have stated that they prefer to shop local and support the small-medium businesses that exist in their community. It’s a sense of community that provides some customers with the incentive to shop locally and this local support can be enough to keep a business running. As a local business owner, you might want to consider how you can contribute to the community. Not only is this a good way to give back but you might also sustain your business as a result.