I will pay more for a better purchase experience

What is more important to you: a cheaper price, or a better purchase experience?

It’s time to reorder the flea and tick medication I buy for my dogs, and last time, I ordered from a well-known online pet pharmacy. After that order, a friend told me I could get the medicine cheaper using an online competitor. The info stuck with me (good marketing, right?) so I went to that competitor’s site this morning.

I found the medicine and tried to order it. Several things got in my way:

1. They offered a coupon on the homepage, but I didn’t see an obvious place to enter it.

2. The pop-up windows to enter all this info was not wide enough to show all the text, and the text was small and hard to read.

3. I had to enter an unnecessary amount of info about each of my dogs, one at a time (I have three).

4. My vet was not listed in their database, so I entered the vet’s info, but they must need to approve it, because I needed to enter the same vet info three times.

5. Once the vet info was entered, I tried to add the medicine to my cart, but it wouldn’t let me (probably because the vet had not been approved on their end yet).

Cheaper price, or a better purchase experience?

I gave up. I went back to the well-known pet pharmacy because of its better purchase experience. I logged in, made the renewal order, and was done. It ended up costing me $10 more than the cheaper place. Yes, my info was already in their system, but when I first registered there, it was still easier than the competitor’s site.

And I am absolutely fine with that, because I am happy to pay more for a better purchase experience.

What could the cheaper pet pharmacy have done to make my experience eaiser?

1. Pre-load all of the vet offices into their website. There has to be a source for this info they can purchase.

2. Allow me to proceed with the purchase even though they need to update info on their end (why have anything for sale if I can’t buy it?)

3. Ask for the minimum amount of info about my dogs, get me to buy, and then follow up to get the other info they want.

4. Increase the font size and user test the site so that it is easy to find where to put in the promo code, etc.

Bring these thoughts into your experience. What is stopping your customers from purchasing (and what competitors are they running off to?). How can you simplify the process and give your customers a better purchase experience? Or can you charge more for a better purchase experience?

Header image by archivesnz. (CC BY 2.0). Cropped