{"id":91010,"date":"2019-10-02T15:56:46","date_gmt":"2019-10-02T22:56:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thegood.com\/?post_type=insights&p=91010"},"modified":"2025-05-21T13:55:01","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T20:55:01","slug":"create-urgency-increase-conversions","status":"publish","type":"insights","link":"https:\/\/thegood.com\/insights\/create-urgency-increase-conversions\/","title":{"rendered":"8 Tactics to Create Urgency and Increase Conversions on Your Ecommerce Website"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Imagine for a minute that you\u2019re looking to buy a new car. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ve already visited the dealership and know the model you want, but it\u2019s just slightly out of your price range. If only there were a promotion running that would get the price down to your budget…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suddenly, you receive a text from the dealership announcing a 24-hour discount on the exact model you were looking at. You start to feel the pressure to buy the car even more. After all, you wouldn\u2019t want to miss out on that discounted price!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Urgency is a tactic used by so many ecommerce websites to motivate users to complete a purchase. Creating a sense of urgency for your customers can be a highly effective tactic for increasing buyer motivation, and can have a direct impact on revenue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this Insight, we\u2019ve detailed a variety of tactics you can utilize to help reduce buyer hesitation and improve the overall conversion rate of your ecommerce site. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

8 Tactics to Create Urgency<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Note: <\/strong>Before you move forward with implementing any of these ideas, remember that the purpose of creating urgency on your website isn’t to cause a panic or rush your customers through the purchase process, it’s to increase buyer motivation and combat the hesitation involved in online shopping. The bottom line is: never sacrifice your user experience for quick revenue gains. If your customers don’t have a frictionless buying experience on their first visit, chances are good that they’ll never return for future purchases. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Show stock levels on the product page<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

A great way to increase urgency on your site is by allowing customers to see stock levels if an item is close to selling out. Not only does this create a sense of urgency on your product detail pages, but it\u2019s helpful information for the customer to know. This tactic can also be used to combat cart abandonment. Showing low stock levels on the cart page can increase urgency and grease the path to conversion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

J Crew<\/a> makes great use of this tactic by displaying stock levels when a product is close to selling out. This feature doesn\u2019t distract from the user experience, and is giving the customer extra motivation to complete the purchase without causing panic or frustration. They also utilize this tactic on their cart page as an additional attempt to reinforce the limited stock availability. Remember to be honest with these numbers though. You\u2019ll erode trust<\/a> if your customers see the same stock levels three days in a row and realize you\u2019re tricking them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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2. Alert your customers via text <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s an ongoing debate as to whether text message marketing is a viable option for reaching your customers, but there\u2019s no denying the results that SMS messages are producing. The response rate of SMS text message marketing is 45 percent vs email response rates at 6 percent<\/a>, and what\u2019s even more interesting is the average open rate of promotional text messages being 90 percent<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nobody has the time or patience to open every single<\/em><\/strong> promotional email from the brands that you\u2019re subscribed to, but you will<\/em><\/strong> open every text message you receive, even if you know it\u2019s promotional. Create urgency by sending a text message to your subscribers as soon as your sale launches. Create a short and attention grabbing message that will take less than 10 seconds to read, and make sure your send time is optimized<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Utilizing branded vanity links<\/a> can also help increase the conversion rate of SMS messages being sent to customers. Branded links get up to 39 percent<\/a> more clicks than generic short links because customers are more likely to trust a link that has your name attached to it as opposed to a random \u201cbit.ly\u201d link.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Testing will be essential to you having any sort of success with text message marketing. If you want to figure out what your customers respond positively to, you\u2019ll likely need to run a thorough testing program to help determine the specific wording and approach you\u2019ll have to take in order to have success with this tactic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Keep your text as short and value packed as possible. Give your customers a compelling reason to read more than the first three words of the text before deleting it. <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

3. Allow customers to see other buyers<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Scarcity is a significant driver of demand, so showing your customers how many other users are interested in the same product will have an impact on their perceived value of the product and their urgency to purchase it. Consider the classic study<\/a> on scarcity and its effect on demand that involved to two identical cookie jars. In 1975, researchers wanted to know how people would value cookies in two identical glass jars. One jar contained ten cookies and the other jar contained only two cookies. Despite the cookies and jars being completely identical, subjects perceived the cookies in the near-empty jar as more valuable. The presence of scarcity had a direct impact on their perception of value. <\/p>\n\n\n\n