Sales Funnel for an Online Computer Accessories Shop

A sales funnel is a marketing concept that maps the steps a customer goes through when purchasing a product (??????, 2019). Just as the normal funnel narrows downward, the sales funnel concept depicts such a property. The business needs to manage the prospects as they go through the buying process until they become a customer to the business and retain the buyer as a future customer because the sales funnel contains holes where prospects may drop out and never convert to a customer.

The sales funnel has five stages which include awareness, interest, decision, action, and retention. At the awareness stage, prospects become aware of the company’s products through advertising, social media, and other promotional methods (Markina, 2021). If the prospects determine that the product has the potential of solving their problems, the prospects would move beyond the awareness stage to the interest stage of the buying process. At the interest stage, the prospects evaluate the product based on their interest level and compare the products with other available options (Markina, 2021). Having information and interest on the company product, the prospects dig deeper to know about pricing, after-sale services, and packaging. Then, the prospects move to the action stage where they either buy or not based on the all information at hand (Bondarenko et al., 2019). Lastly, if the prospects make a purchase, they because customers, based on the quality of product/service and experience with the company they may repeat the purchase thus moving to the retention stage (Bondarenko et al., 2019). It should be noted that the number of prospects decreases as the sales funnel narrows down.

In the case of an online computer accessory shop, the business creates a website that can be accessed through google search or social links. When visitors land on the company's website, they become prospects. The prospects go through the first stage of awareness by checking blog posts and browsing the company's product listings. If prospects get interested in the company's products, they move to the second stage of interest by signing up for an email list. The prospects then move to the decision stage in which they fill out forms and they because leads. The company then gets an opportunity to market to the prospects directly through email, phone, or face to face. After pitching to the prospects, they move to the next stage of action in which some prospects will be converted to customers by closing sales with them while others do not purchase any computer accessories. To continuously enhance the customer base, the company usually keep the record of the leads and regularly contact them when special offers, new products, and information are available so that the customers can make repeat purchases and some of the lead prospects that did not buy the products last time can take the advantage of special offers to purchase the products. Therefore, the sales funnel used by the company enables the company to retain more customers and potential customers during the retention stage of the sales funnel hence increasing the customer base for the company.