Importance of pop ups for your e-commerce store

In 2014, we became aware of the true power of e-commerce. Not only did they provide quality service to their customers present worldwide, they made sure that each and every customer could avail absolutely anything, while enjoying the comforts of their home. Not only that, given the easy accessibility of various e-commerce stores on mobile devices, users were able to access and shop for their favorite commodities while confining themselves in their warm bed. In short, inline shopping has made shopping a hassle free affair. But to make sure that their customers remain updated with latest deals and offer, they had to think of a way to enroll their customers for email subscription or something of that choice. And they were able to do just that using e-commerce pop-ups.

Description of pop up

Pop-ups and e-commerce pop-ups are one and the same. The only difference being, for e-commerce websites, these pop-ups help bring forth a lot of traffic and potential customers. If we were to start from the very basics, then pop-ups are message boxes that pop up when a user performs an activity over a website. They can impart valuable information to the user or even as for personal info from the user so that they can keep themselves updated with the recent information from that very website.

If you personally have experienced similar occurrence, you must be thinking that, including pop-ups in e-commerce websites is a no brainer and would do more bad than good. But according to statistics from leading e-commerce websites, pop-ups led to 1375% more collection of user info than similar efforts provided on side bars.

How do they work

As the name suggests, e-commerce pop-ups helps to highlight or bring forward certain crucial information to the users. So when a user visits a e-commerce website, and when the page loads completely, the web page gets masked with the pop-up. For some cases, the pop-up can be triggered on performing any click function, scrolling down to a certain length of the page or simply after a mandated time duration. When the pop up appears, it contains some vital info, which may or may not prove to be valuable to the regular user. So if a user wants to close to pop-up he can simply click on the close button present over the pop-up or even press the escape button to collapse the pop-up. After collapsing, the user can carry on with his regular browsing without getting interrupted any further. Also, these pop-ups are regulated by the browser cache. Some e-commerce pop-ups are designed to appear only once a week/ month, irrespective of the number of times a user visits the website within that period.

Why are they important

If pop-ups distracts a user from browsing through various products, how can they be so important? Well, pop-ups can provide a vital information which can help user save time and money. Pop-up can be used to highlight any upcoming discount or current offers that a visitor can avail. Thus, they can not only make the best out of a e-commerce website, but also be benefited from it. They can also be used to subscribe new users to email newsletters, so that they can be updated about all the offerings the e-commerce website has for them.

Different types of pop ups

In accordance to varying functionality, pop-ups for e-commerce websites also comes in different types. Some of the notable ones are as follows:

– Time-based – These pop-ups are triggered after a user persists to remain on a page for a certain duration.

– Content-based – These pop-ups are specific to the contents of a page, and only show up where the relevant keyword is present.

– Scroll-based – When a user scrolls through a certain portion of the page, the pop-up gets activated.

– Exit-intent – This type of pop-up tracks your mouse pointer or cursor, and on detecting that you are about to close the website, pops up at that very instant.

– Pop-out – A pop-out is slightly different than a regular pop-up. While pop-ups compels a user to stop what they are doing and perform any action of the surfaced pop-up, a pop-out doesn’t hinder the browsing experience and opens a pop-up outside the browser.

Uses of pop ups

As already stated pop-ups are a great utility and can cater to a number of purposes. Some of the prevalent and widely used purposes are as follows:

• To highlight vital information regarding the e-commerce website. For example, free shipping information, massive discounts, e.t.c.

• To encourage users to download guidelines or informative data, such as e-books, sample audio/ video. E-commerce users can use this strategy to clearly lay down their policy information in a downloadable pdf version.

• To encourage users to participate in a poll or ask for their opinion. They can use pop-ups to ask a user whether they were satisfied with their service, and if not, to clearly state the reason what made them arrive to such a conclusion.

• Showcase and create awareness about an upcoming product in their e-commerce store.

In short, e-commerce pop-ups are extremely helpful for creating a sturdy fan base and following. But they should not be misused as it would severely impact the user experience and hinder the performance of your e-commerce website.