As we have discussed quite a little in a previous episode, I want to take a look, but from a different angle to this really important question of “why would I want to buy from you?” You know very well by now that competition over the internet is crazy.

Instead of a brick and mortar store spending money on a lease, you give it to Google or Facebook in the form of ads, the developers as they build out the experience, and your employees as they keep customers happy. We aren’t here to discuss the comparison of online vs offline, but what I want to share with you is something that will apply in both scenarios. 

In a world where businesses struggle and grasp at anything they can do to set themselves apart from the competition, we look for new and fresh ideas. Yet, those new and fresh ideas can be really valuable.

I am a merchant, and love most every minute of it. About 20 years ago, I began programming, when I was 10. Feel free to do the math—yes, I may be younger than you. Close to 10 years ago, I began focusing exclusively on the online commerce platform Magento. I demonstrated my learning by passing and achieving Magento certifications. To pass this, I wrote pages and pages of notes. I began sharing this. Ultimately, thousands of people have used these materials. This provided the platform from which I began my online store and continue to grow it.

You are likely not interested in Magento certifications and that’s fine. You are interested in growing your store. I want to share my most recent findings with you.

Here’s the deal. Let’s say your boss tells you that you need to get Magento certified. Of course, the first thing you do is to go to Google and type in “how to prepare for this test”. You land on our website. Who is SwiftOtter? Why would you want to buy from them? What really is this? You rightly have a lot of questions.

What if I told you that I will keep your money only if you pass the test? Now that’s a guarantee.

I’ll turn it around to you later in this show, but here’s the first question that is on your mind: “how much money will I lose when everyone returns everything they ordered? That could entirely shut down my business!”

Yes, done incorrectly, it could. But this is my story of how this has actually helped me, and I have numbers to prove it. Will this revolutionize your business? Maybe. I will share my story and tell you how you can know for yourself.

I have experimented with two offers. I started from the beginning with a pass guarantee: you pass the test or I will return the money you paid me. Yet, until recently, I never tested to see if and how much this actually improved sales.

Let’s start by seeing how much a pass guarantee helps:

Bounce rate is 5% lower.Conversion rate is up 25%.Revenue is up 11%.For all age demographics, the conversion rate was improved.

All good numbers, right? And, the guarantee is not prominently posted. It’s part of the description but that’s it.

Why do people like a guarantee? It says a couple of things:

It says that we take our products seriously. Guarantees are tough as they most often rely on the end user’s performance: will they actually follow the instructions? Will they be reasonable? If our products are really bad, we would lose a lot of money and either drop the guarantee OR fix them up. In other words, we are putting teeth behind our value proposition.It eliminates (or reduces) the customer’s risk. They know that if this product does not perform as expected, then they will have recourse. In my case, I hope they are motivated to use the product as expected, otherwise, they are still out the test money (which ranges from $200 to $300).

My customers know that I say something, but if the product doesn’t live up to expectations, then they have recourse. They can go write a bad review, but we all would much rather our customers email us so we can resolve the problem.

We had one particular test that seemed to get more failures th