A lot of people click "buy" but don't follow through

[Valen]

I'm almost finished with my sales tracking system the main goal of which is to track downloads from which sites result in sales, and one of the pieces of the system tracks how many users click on a Buy button. I only activated this piece yesterday, and already I have 44 clicks on the Buy button (I use the user IP to uniquely identify them so there're few if any duplicates). Yet I can honestly tell you that I don't get 44 sales in a day.

So what are your thoughs about customer psychology when it comes to clicking on the Buy button? Do people do it just to see the price? Or do they have intentions of purchasing and are put off by something? Technically they should already know the price since I post it under the buy button on my site (maybe I should make the letters bigger) and almost all download sites list the price as well. Even my AdWords ads have the price in them.

[Gilzu]

I have those myself, and I believe these are attempts to check the ground before purchasing the game.

Secure site
Money back Guarantee
Is the buy page the same as the rest of the site (does it "throw" you to another website which is a big demotivator)

those are just a few things that come to my mind when I see these numbers of people entering and exiting the order page.

[Coyote]

I do this all the time because prices aren't listed. Failure to list the price outside of the "Buy Now" link is actually one of my pet peeves. Glad you don't have that problem

Is there also a demo button nearby? Maybe they are looking to see if there are more screenshots or a free demo on the "buy now" page?

[Greg Squire]

...Is the buy page the same as the rest of the site (does it "throw" you to another website which is a big demotivator)...

If you're thrown to another site but that page has the same "look and feel" as your website, then I don't think that's much of a demotivator. In fact, I doubt most people would notice that you're on a new site, if it looked the same.

I also agree that most are just testing the waters, as Gilzu mentioned. Along with this some may be looking to see how easy the process is. If there's tons of fields to filled out (more than the basic data needed), they might be inclined to just forget it.

[Jack Norton]

LOL 44 buynow hits and no sales?
I get about 100-110 buynow hits on UBM page before getting a sale, and it's perfectly normal (I asked other developers...).

[Reactor]

It's no wonder people are clicking it- it's so BIG! I had a tough time just stopping myself from clicking it, just to see what might happen

[lexaloffle]

It's also quite easy to hit a buy now button by accident. Sometimes I see a buy now page, and just hit enter without thinking. It's a good way to monitor roughly how many people are playing your game (:

[nemo54321]

It's no wonder people are clicking it- it's so BIG! I had a tough time just stopping myself from clicking it, just to see what might happen

lol... I find this to be true. I know a lot of people who are just button pushers.

Perhaps some of the psycological reasons are second thoughts on game quality, or explaining to your spouse/whatever your purchase.

Some of the clicks may be generated by children, or people unable to complete the purchase. While others may be made by people unfamiliar with buying on-line who do not have a credit card.

And lastly, there are people like me who click the link, get up to get their credit/debit card, and ADD out of interest by the time they get back to the computer... OR someone else has snatched their spot and lost the page....




It's like the random items you find strew throughout Wal-Mart, people like to pick stuff up, but sometimes find that when it comes down to it, they don't want it.

-- Joe Hawkins

[SonSon]

I often push the "BuyNow!" buttons just to see the developer's Payment Processor.

[arcadetown]

Yup lots of buy page hits per sale is pretty common. Many people are plain old window shoppers.

[Valen]

Great comments guys! This makes me feel a bit better.

Is there also a demo button nearby? Maybe they are looking to see if there are more screenshots or a free demo on the "buy now" page?

Yeah the Demo Download button is right next to it. It's possible some people hit it by accident, but so far over half the clicks are from within the game.

It's no wonder people are clicking it- it's so BIG! I had a tough time just stopping myself from clicking it, just to see what might happen

Hehe yeah that could be. But as I said above, over half are from the in-game button so that rules out people clicking it on the site. What I'm most curious about is what goes on in the minds of people who're clicking from inside the game. Still, making it easy for people to buy the game can't be a bad thing.

[Andy]

What I'm most curious about is what goes on in the minds of people who're clicking from inside the game.

Most of ours are probably thinking something like: "... and what that idiots want for their BS..."

[Air]

Of some of the not-quite-so-computer-literate-as-ourselves types I've seen, many of them click Buy buttons because they apparently don't really undertand what "Download demo" even means. Yeah. That's based on my older relatives and friends relatives who all have pretty chronic online game playing habits. I get to watch what they do over their shoulder and, unlike many people, I don't bother to correct them every 3 seconds so I get to see how they actually think when they aren't being instructed by a computer wiz on what to do.

They're all up on how to play all those inline Yahoo/Web games, but they get confused real quick when they try to explore for games outside that box. They click the Buy button because it's more 'familiar' and 'safer' to them than "download demo" -- and yet they're still not sure what's on the other side. When they find out they either go back and download the demo or abandon their quest and revert back to Yahoo.

- Air

[otaku]

Definitely interesting comments on this subject. It's not a metric I've been monitoring. I know this sort of thing happens a lot for companies like Amazon or Best Buy, people fill up their shopping cart, then just abandon it. It's just psychological window shopping. An ex-room mate of mine would do something very similar when he had gone through a shitty day at work. He'd find an on-line store with stuff he wanted and go through adding all the things he'd like to have, then just abandon it at the end. I know this happens, so I haven't bothered tracking it, but maybe it is time to start.

One thing I wonder is actually changing the "DOWNLOAD DEMO" button to something more "meaningful" to lesson user confusion.

And what about changing the "BUY NOW" button to be more "descriptive", i.e. "please have your credit card ready" beneath the button -- though of course that wouldn't for work if someone wanted to order via snail mail or fax. Certainly an interesting thought exercise.

[Nemesis]

I prefer "Try Now" instead of "Download Demo". It gives it a sense that you can do it almost right away as opposed to emphasizing that you need to download first.

As for the "Have your credit card details ready" note I wouldn't bother.. just let the customer get close to purchasing as subtly as possible. Putting such a note is like a restaurant owner asking you if you have money to pay for the meal before going in. After all, there is no risk that the customer can download the full version first and pay later.

[GBGames]

It could be that besides the button the right, there is the menu option on the left that is the same link. Ignoring text, it doesn't look like a button that would take me to the purchase page, since it looks like the others. Maybe that is what everyone is clicking on?

[Valen]

The "download demo" vs "try now" argument may have some merit. Mike Boeh goes so far as to say "Play Now" but the problem I have with that is users might confuse "Play Now" to mean online flash or java games instead of the ones you download. Still I guess it's worth a try.

@GBGames:
That's an interesting thought. I can modify my links to track exactly what button on the site users are clicking, but that's something I'm going to do a bit later. That'll be done at the same time that I add dynamic page generation so I don't have to modify each page on my site each time I change a navigation link.

[Redclaw]

The "download demo" vs "try now" argument may have some merit. Mike Boeh goes so far as to say "Play Now" but the problem I have with that is users might confuse "Play Now" to mean online flash or java games instead of the ones you download. Still I guess it's worth a try.

That's exactly what I experienced. I tried the "Play Now" buttons for a while, but it just lead to more cancelled downloads. Like people were clicking on the button expecting the game to launch immediately, then when it didn't (I tried both serving the file, and using a download page) they just cancelled.

I'm now trying incredibly large "click to download" buttons which seem to be working out rather nicely.

[freddyfly]

The best way to get customers to buy is targeted web traffic. I've been using this for some time and have seen sales shot through the roof.

visit http://www.affordable-traffic.com for more info

[Valen]

That looks interesting, but isn't "Games" a bit broad in terms of targeting? That could mean any games, but at $0.004264 per visit with the cheapest package it's worth a try.

By the way, what's your company URL?

[SunAndGames]

The best way to get customers to buy is targeted web traffic. I've been using this for some time and have seen sales shot through the roof.

visit http://www.affordable-traffic.com for more info

www.affordable-traffic.com sounds like a nice solution, but I'm a little skeptical. I did some browsing around some other shareware forums, and the general impression, was that these sites sent a lot of useless traffic, and some even used robots to generate hits to your site.

Wondering what volume of traffic you bought, what percentage of that traffic actually downloaded demos, and what percentage of that traffic actually pryed their credit cards out of their wallets and put them to good use. And what is your website URL?

Not trying to be critical, just looking for a little more info.

[Sillysoft]

I think buying traffic is not a good way to get sales. I am willing to bet the guy who posted about it is involved with the company. It is his first post here and doesn't really have much to do with this thread. And he neglected to state what product his "sales shot through the roof" for.

[GameStudioD]

This site buys expired domains that still generate traffic. When someone types in expiredgamedomain.com, they are redirected to your site.

This isnt a quality lead. The user thinks that they can return to your site by typing in the same name later, which wont be the case. Plus, the address they typed be 'game' relevant and have nothing to do with shareware games.

I wouldnt want my company to be associated with this, its like tricking someone to go to your site.