Encourage customers to purchase online in a craft business

By Ilana Davis

As a craft business, so much of your work often involves attending markets, bazaars and other craft fairs in order to sell your product.

You become the face of your business and oftentimes, people buy from you directly. They not only like your product, but they also like working with you.

As such, they may message you to place the order instead of going to your Shopify site. This doesn’t do you any favors. Now you’re keying in their order manually and playing the role of data entry instead of CEO/Creator.

You’ve got more important things to do right? Well on one hand I would say a sale is a sale. But as you grow, yes you do have more important things to do. Your job should move from keying orders in to growing your business.

So how can you get them to your website to place the order?

Encourage them to use your site

Next time someone asks to place an order, send them a direct link to your product.

Share with them any deals you’ve got on your site as well. With any luck, they may find other products that peak their interest and add that to their cart too.

You may need to add a bit of extra encouragement with a discount code or some sort of incentive like a gift with purchase.

Over time, they will learn to go to your Shopify site directly.

A clear path to your Shopify site

Your branding and content needs to be clear so they know where they can buy your products.

When a customer buys from you in person, include a business card or pamphlet directing them to your website.

If you’re using a point of sale system, send them an electronic receipt with your website included.

Customers contacting you on Facebook messenger to place an order may not know any other way. Make sure they can actually find your website from your Facebook page. It’s possible they see you posting your products but you don’t have your website in your about section. I’ve seen that far more times than I care to admit.

Frictionless website

It could also be that your website isn’t user-friendly. If you have customers asking for help, ask them if they’ve gone to the website. Maybe there’s a reason they want your help.

It’s entirely possible they can’t actually checkout on your website.

IIf you don’t want to throw hours of your time down the drain, let’s fix what you’ve got. The Website Rescues is designed to fix friction points that plague Shopify stores.

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