Relationships = Revenue

Four Types of Ecommerce Site Visitors Using I-ching

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The “i ching” is one of the oldest books in history and has been considered a source of wisdom for over 3,000 years. It uses eight trigrams to understand the stages of life. In this post we’ll interpret the trigrams to understand your 4 types website visitors.

Each Trigram is comprised of Yin and Yang. Yin is passive or emptiness, and Yang is active or fullness. In our example, we will treat Yin as indifference to, and Yang as excitement of, a product’s benefits.

Each trigram also has three stages. We will view them as Past, Present, and Future.

Trigrams are made up of 1 of 4 forms of the Yin and Yang. These four forms also make up the four types of website visitors.

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The Major Yang, which are your “Yes” visitors
The Major Yin, which are your “No” visitors
The Minor Yin, which are your “Maybe No” visitors
The Minor Yang, which are your “Maybe Yes” visitors

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In the Major Yang, the customer in the past has known about the benefits of the product, and also presently acknowledges the benefits while on your website. Products that solve Real problems have many “Yes” visitors. The product has great market fit, and merchants don’t need to rely on conversion tactics. A visitor’s natural action is to click “add to cart” and most likely complete their purchase.

In the Major Yin, visitors didn’t care, and still don’t. This visitor is a “No” customer, and trying to convince them to purchase will be difficult. Conversion tactics won’t help. Their natural action is to close the window. The product simply doesn’t solve a big enough problem for them. Stores that drive lots of traffic but have very low sales numbers fall here and Merchants should try to find a new product niche, or connect with Coach (link in the description) to learn more.

In the Minor Yin, the customer in the past acknowledged the product value, but maybe isn’t quite sure at the moment. These “Maybe No” visitors are attracted to your product and might take a positive action, but are likely to abandon their checkout because of concerns. Re-targeting apps can help but I’d also recommend a “call back request” app like Raven. A button like a “call back request” is important here because, it gives a “Maybe” customer a Positive Alternative Option rather than to close the window.

Finally, in the Minor Yang, the visitor wasn’t aware of the product or benefits, but recently sees the value. These visitors make up the “Maybe Yes” category. They’re looking for more reasons to buy, but because it feels new to them they have natural questions. The Raven and Scout apps can help convert sales by identifying these kinds of customers. What’s important here is these visitors have the potential to become great customers if provided with an awesome post-sale experience… like a free surprise pizza.

So to recap: being aware of the four types of visitors helps identify product-market fit. And helping and educating the “Maybe No” and “Maybe Yes” visitors is the first step in growing sales.

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