We are experienced event organizers; however, when we sell tickets to our events, we have to start thinking like e-commerce experts. You most likely have all your numbers memorized, but, do you know your conversions, bounce rate, drop offs, page views or what percentage cart abandonment is at?
Buying a ticket and registering to an event is simply a credit card transaction. We don’t think of our event sites as shopping carts; but that’s exactly what they are. We don’t think about our event registration as a check out process, but that’s exactly what it is. The only thing more important than the people at the event is the experience we provide. And, that experience needs to be holistic, from the first impression to the last – from check out to check in.
When you send your attendees off site to a third party event ticketing website, you’re taking them away from your brand and sending them to someone else; this is where a majority of drop off occurs. Drop off is when an interested user visits your website, engages and then suddenly disappears – we just lost a ticket sale! Roughly 70% of your visitors are dropping off when you send them off site; that’s a lot of lost ticket sales.
When we first started building nvite, a ticketing solution used by BizBash, it was to remove ourselves from the process in order to get your customers through the sales funnel as quickly as possible. We built the first fully embeddable and customizable ticketing experience. With just one line of code you can take all of your attendee registration and payment information on your site without them ever going off site. It’s as easy to embedding a YouTube and radically reduces drop off, decreases consumer confusion and significantly increases time-to-purchase.
When popped off site, your customers are often sent to a cluttered experience as opposed to what should have been a simple check out experience. Consumer confusion caused by switching sites costs us sales. Every distraction placed in front of a consumer at check out costs us sales, this is where cart abandonment occurs.
Shopping cart abandonment is when a customer is ready to check out, starts to enter their payment information (they’re ready to buy), but suddenly disappear before they complete the purchase. This is caused almost exclusively by bad design and outdated technology. Many traditional ticketing solutions are now over a decade old, and they are unfortunately starting to show their age – which is costing us more sales!
It is possible to get the lowest fees and the best experience, for you and your attendees -- that’s why we built nvite. When planning your next event, think like an e-commerce expert. Consider the numbers that really have an impact on the bottom line. And while we want to sell more tickets faster; ensure your ticketing partner’s technology isn’t holding you back and having you sell less tickets, more slowly.