Does Your Website Have a £300 million button?
March 24, 2017
No one likes bad websites. If you can’t find the information you’re looking for in a nano second, you’ll simply click away and find it somewhere else. Your website is great: all the information a potential customer needs is right there at their fingertips, with no need to click onto a competitor’s site.
But what if I told you that just by adding one button to your website, you could potentially create a rich stream of vendors, keeping you busy with valuations for evermore?
Let me tell you the story of the $300 million button.
It began when a major retail website, let’s call it eSell, discovered they were getting a lot of abandoned shopping carts. This is when a customer clicks to buy, but doesn’t complete the transaction. eSell approached a web developer to help them fix the problem. At first glance, eSell’s checkout looked great; nice and simple; but it had one step that customers just didn’t like – the login. Right before they could pay for their purchases, eSell had a login page requiring the customer to enter their email address and password. You wouldn’t think this was such an issue, would you? After all, lots of websites ask you to login before you buy.
The web developer set up tests and watched what people actually did. Their reluctance to fill out these fields surprised him. When asked why she had abandoned her cart, one shopper told him, “I’m not here to enter into a relationship. I just want to buy something.”
The developer discovered that new customers were worried about giving their details, in case their inbox was bombarded with marketing messages. If a returning customers forgot their password, it was just too much trouble to retrieve it. The result? Thousands of abandoned shopping carts. And millions of dollars lost.
The developer knew what to do immediately. He changed the Register button for a Continue button with a simple message: “You do not need to create an account to make purchases on our site. Simply click Continue to proceed to checkout. To make your future purchases even faster, you can create an account during checkout.”
The results were instant and mind-blowing: the number of customers purchasing went up by 45%. The extra purchases resulted in an extra $15 million the first month. For the first year, the site saw an additional $300,000 million. All for the change of a button
Where’s your £300 million button?
Your website is different; you’re not selling anything. You don’t have to worry about failed transactions and abandoned shopping carts. What you do need to worry about, is invisible customers. These are visitors who drift through your site, clicking here and there, but disappearing without you ever knowing who they are. It’s like having a fishing net with big holes in it. Your fish are simply swimming away. You need something tasty in the net to grab their attention, and tempt them to stay for long enough to at least identify themselves.
Look at your website. Is there anywhere a potential customer can give you their name and email address, and have you given them a reason to do that? You may have a Register for updates area, but isn’t that just for purchasers and tenants, so you can send them the latest listings? Think about whose details you actually want: vendors and landlords. Yes, you probably have a Book a Valuation form, but I bet you don’t get any enquiries. They just aren’t ready to take that step.
Look at my site for sellers: you’ll see that in exchange for an email address, I give away my Selling Secrets. In this way, my list of vendors grows by hundreds each year. In fact, if I were an estate agent, I would probably have no need to canvas or advertise for new vendors. My list would be enough. What would a button like that be worth to you?
What to do next: Do you get my Supertips? They’re jam-packed full of great tips and marketing strategies just like this one, and best still – they’re free! Get yours here -> www.samashdown.co.uk/samsupertips
Speak to Sam: If you’d like to know how I think you could improve your marketing, just answer a few short questions here and I’ll tell you if and how you could be more effective.
You May Also Enjoy
Latest ONS Private Rent and House Prices Index
Average UK monthly private rents increased by 5.0%, to £1,360, in the 12 months to October 2025 (provisional estimate); this annual growth rate is down from 5.5% in the 12 months to September 2025. Average rents increased to £1,416 (5.0%) in England, £817 (6.7%) in Wales and £1,008 (3.4%) in Scotland, in the 12 months…
Read More 
Winter property checklist: How to protect your home this season
As temperatures drop and winter approaches, Propertymark, the leading professional body for estate and letting agents, is urging homeowners and tenants to prepare their homes for the colder months with a few simple maintenance checks that can prevent costly damage and ensure safety and comfort throughout the season. According to Propertymark, winter is one of…
Read More 
London homebuyers have paid nearly £25bn in Stamp Duty over the last decade
The latest research from Jefferies London shows that, as many await news of potential Stamp Duty reform in the upcoming Autumn Budget, homebuyers across the capital have collectively paid almost £25bn (£24.9bn) in Stamp Duty over the last ten years, with buyers in prime central London contributing the largest share by a considerable margin. Jefferies…
Read More 
Slow maintenance responses are driving tenant anxiety
New research from Adiuvo, the UK’s leading provider of 24/7 property management support, reveals that almost 60% of tenants report feeling increased stress or anxiety as a result of maintenance issues in their rental property, and for most, the lack of landlord action is more stressful than the maintenance issues itself. Adiuvo has surveyed 1,.013…
Read More 
Agent confidence split as housing market braces for Autumn Budget impact
The latest agent sentiment survey from GetAgent.co.uk reveals that, while property market activity has remained resilient through 2025, confidence among agents is now divided as the industry awaits key housing announcements in the Autumn Budget. The survey of estate agents, commissioned by GetAgent, found that whilst cautiously optimistic, there are increasing concerns about external economic…
Read More 
Letting agents to play pivotal role in Renters’ Rights Act rollout
The latest lettings sector insight from Dwelly, one of the UK’s leading lettings acquisition and success planning experts, has revealed that 57% of landlords do not feel prepared for the introduction of the Renters’ Rights Act, with many looking to their letting agent for guidance, highlighting the vital role letting agents will play in helping…
Read More