Buying Cycle of products in an Ecommerce website by Manish Shrivastava

Be it apparel merchandising or an adult website promotion, planning for it is of vital importance as that would ultimately drive in more customers for the product. The Buying Cycle defines the complete process of searching to sale completion of the product.

Before purchasing a product, a customer usually goes through different stages. The customer would search for the product in general, check for the required features, create a preliminary list of features and other options, check the seller credentials, check after-sale support, check for discounts and finally buy the product. Although, the process appears to be very lengthy, it can be summarized into some definite stages, which may help in understanding the customer behavior and product performance. These are:

Research stage A customer searches for the product over the Internet before making a final decision to buy. In this stage, the customer should be provided with relevant information and gradually convinced about the product. From Search Engine Marketers perspective (for example, adult web promotion or promoting any service), the customer should not be "pushed", even though he should be followed up with related information.

Comparison and analysis stage After deciding to buy, the customer would now compare the product with those of the competitors and analyze the pros and cons. For example, in an adult web site promotion campaign, the customer should be made aware of the "edges" or advantages of the product and its unique features.

Buying Stage In this stage, the customer finally decides to buy the product. Here, the customer should be given any available promotional or discount offer or any suggestion on other available products or related items.

Post-buying stage Once the customer buys, he should be thanked for his/her decision and made aware of the return policies and possible options for existing customers (for example, special offers for adult web marketing campaign as cited above). He should also be given the details of customer support and should be encouraged for future shopping.