Keep making it easier for your customer to purchase

Find a book that you may want to read. Click on the big orange button and receive an SMS from your bank saying that $10.39 has been…

Find a book that you may want to read. Click on the big orange button and receive an SMS from your bank saying that $10.39 has been deducted from your credit card. Before you’ve had enough time to consider whether you’re really going to read that book it had been paid for and delivered to your Kindle.

“Buy now with 1-Click” is part of the magic of Amazon. In certain parts of the world it works with toasters, coffee mugs, running shoes and over 100 million other items that aren’t books.

Once 1-Click became the standard, Amazon introduced the Dash Button.

With the Amazon Dash Button you can order things like washing powder, pet food, toilet paper or even Red Bull with the push of the physical button that you’ve stuck to your washing machine, cupboard or fridge.

As soon as you realise you’re running low of something, it has been ordered. The process is so fast that you can’t imagine ever changing brands or outlets.

Then Amazon introduced Go.

Amazon Go is a physical store that allows you to scan in using your phone, grab things off the shelf and just walk out. No tills or queues. The store knows who you are and what you’ve walked out with. It then bills you automatically. Walk-in. Grab a Coke. Go.

Amazon is constantly looking for ways to remove frictions and delays that will make customers second guess their purchase or their shop.

You should be doing the same.

In addition to building a product or service that your customers will want to buy, you need to keep making it easier for them to buy it. Remove any unnecessary obstacles or hoops for them to jump through.

Do your customers need to phone a support centre to upgrade or can they do that online? Can they top-up while on the move or must they go into a specific physical shop?

Keep looking for ways to make it easier for your customers to spend money. If you don’t, perhaps one of your competitors will.