Capturing intent to buy is essential in creating a personalized shopping journey for the customer, ultimately leading to a timely purchase decision.
If your product pops up on an Instagram ad, a consumer is intrigued, and they head to your website, intending to acquire the product and complete the purchase. In another circumstance, a consumer realizes they have a need for a new product. They remember someone mentioning your product, and search for it online with the intention to buy it. Intent to buy, also known as buyer and purchasing intent, is the probability, degree of willingness, and inclination of consumers to buy a product or service within a certain period of time – and it matters.
Why does this happen in the first place? Where is intention triggered?
According to a report by the Science of Ownership, psychological ownership starts with perception, cognitive surrogacy, and the endowment effect. To boil this down, what actually happens to your brain as you tap through your Instagram stories looks something like this:
You come across a new must-have product. As you swipe up to view the product, your brain gets emotionally attached to the image of that product. You begin to imprint a type of ownership, or desire to own, the new product, likely leading to actions such as taking a screenshot of the product page, opening the link in a new browser, or texting that item to a friend, partner, or even yourself. Now you have achieved some small level of cognitive surrogacy - “owning” the product in your camera roll or DMs. Now you can move on and go back to swiping and scrolling – without ever buying the product.
In theory, the practice of marketing your product and piquing the interest of consumers enough to capture the product and intend to buy it is relatively straightforward. However, mCommerce can be overwhelming, and the distractions that present themselves throughout the buyer’s journey can absolutely deter sales – leading to abandoned carts and incomplete purchases. This not only results in fewer sales for you but leads to frustrated and overwhelmed consumers – who never actually get their hands on the products they want and need.
But what if we told you there is a new, modern cart technology on the rise that can not only capture a consumer’s intent to buy but also keep them coming back again and again? Developed by ex-Snap leaders, all with over 15 years of industry-relevant experience, Whym is here to make sure you never miss a sale.
Read on to find out how they do it, and how you can be a part of it.
In order to understand the importance of buyer’s intent, we need to talk about the buyer’s journey within the scope of e-commerce.
The buyer’s journey is the active research process a potential buyer goes through leading up to their purchase. It follows them through the stages of becoming aware of a need, considering different solutions to fulfill that need, and then making a decision between the different solutions. The buyer’s journey is comprised of three stages:
The first stage, awareness, is all about discovery. A potential buyer realizes they have a need for a new product or service, and they begin to fully define their problem and search for a solution. In the second stage, consideration, the buyer has identified their problem, and they begin researching specific solutions for that problem. This leads them to potential solution providers, partners, or vendors (you!). In the third stage, decision, the buyer can narrow down their solutions, and make a confident decision about what product will best suit their needs. Then comes the final stages – becoming loyal to one product, and then going as far as to recommend that product to others.
Again, on paper, this all seems easy. But unfortunately, the follow-through rates with online purchases are surprisingly low. On average, it takes 56 impressions to make a sale. Even if a well-intentioned potential customer makes it to your site, only 2% of web traffic currently converts to a sale. This begs the question – what is the problem? How do you capture the other 98% of potential customers? And how do you make sure they come back?
Even with the best marketing tools, customers are getting lost along the way. Why does this happen? And what can you do to help them stay on track?
Picture this. A potential customer realizes they need a new swimsuit. They google some key search terms, filter through the results, and find the perfect suit. They put the item in their cart and fully intend to buy it, only to end up abandoning their cart. After all, 80% of shopping carts are reported to be abandoned by the shopper, so this is not an unrealistic possibility. So what happened?
A few things are possible. Maybe they made it all the way through the checkout process only to realize there were unforeseen shipping costs that deterred them from clicking the “complete checkout” button. Maybe they didn’t have their credit card on hand, so they couldn’t enter their payment info. Or maybe they were distracted by other ads on your site, forcing them to reexamine their selection and wonder if they’d made the right choice.
These incomplete purchases are also possible on a different scale. Let’s say the same bathing suit popped up on a targeted Instagram ad. The buyer swipes up, only to be redirected to the company’s website, not the suit at all. The buyer gets distracted by other items on the site – forgetting why they swiped up in the first place.
In both scenarios, the intent to buy is there. The customer wants the bathing suit. They were ready to buy it. But distractions or costs got in the way of completing the purchase, interrupting the buyer’s journey and completely losing the buyer’s intent. In order to capture a customer’s intent to buy, you have to figure out a way to minimize distractions, promote brand loyalty, and get your product in front of the right audience. So, how is that possible?
Whym eliminates distractions and captures intent to buy in a way that has never been done before. With their cutting-edge link-based cart technology, Whym gets rid of the traditional website-to-cart model and all the distractions and roadblocks that come with it.
With Whym, a customer receives a link to your product – whether that be via a text message, direct message, or swipe-up link. All they have to do to complete the purchase is simply reply “Y” to buy. If the consumer has never used Whym before, Whym will onboard them for you, using their phone number as their unique user ID. They’re only onboarded once – after that Whym remembers their info, so purchases can be completed by just hitting send.
Whym also makes it easier to capture shopper interest from your website. Whym’s Patented “Text me this Item” button appears on every product page of your website, inviting customers to remember your product if they aren’t ready to buy now, but will be later. Whym then follows up on a 1:1 basis, encouraging customers to remember your product and close the sale – all within their texts. This way, even if a customer isn’t quite ready to commit, they are reminded about your product later, ensuring the intent to buy is never lost.
Whym meets your customer where they meet you. Whym works on every messaging service, every social network, and every advertising environment without integration. This way, intent to buy can be captured where conversations and research about your brand are already happening – helping you to decrease website and cart abandonment and increase brand awareness and sales.
With Whym, you can say goodbye to lost customers and hello to new sales. Whym makes it seamless to be a part of every stage of the digital buyer’s journey – your customized link can be shared effortlessly the second someone expresses a need for a product like yours. Further, you maintain a direct, over-the-top, connection to your customer. Whym never injects itself as a middle man – it just onboards them, and occasionally reminds them that they might need a little bit more of you. Essentially, Whym does the heavy lifting for you, so you can focus on perfecting your product.
If you’re ready to capture intent to buy, kiss website distractions goodbye, and watch your sales skyrocket, schedule your demo with Whym today. And don’t worry – you really won’t have to change a thing. Keep using your back-end of choice. We know you’ve got a business to run, and we won’t ask you to change anything about what you already use. Merchants today easily onboard with a self-service onboarding that can take as little as 5 minutes of your time.
So, do you have 5 minutes? If you do, we can get you on your way to meeting more customers and making more sales.
ABOUT WHYM
Whym is an intent to buy platform transforming the way we shop and sell online. Brands trust Whym’s tools to capture more first-party data and shopper intent across their selling channels. For shoppers, Whym’s wishlist provides an organized and personalized shopping experience—helping browsers collect, save and rediscover their favorite products anywhere online. No matter how your shoppers find you, Whym makes sure they don’t forget you.
