Number of products sold and why you should display it on the storefront

Number of products sold or Total products sold is the total amount of products you have sold over a given period. This is one of the important indicators that allow businesses to calculate their sales performance.

On eCommerce websites, displaying the number of products has been purchased will help increase conversion. Customers consider it as an ensured social proof. According to a study of human psychology, between two same products, the item that has a higher sales quantity will be more attractive to shoppers compared to the lower sales one.

In this article, we will learn about how the total number of units sold influences customers and some tips to apply to your own PrestaShop store.

How total number of units sold influence customers?

Displaying the sales figures on product listing pages and product detail pages of your website helps your customers to know the popularity of the product which in turn, drives them to purchase the items.

A popular product that has good sales figures along with customer testimonials can establish credibility. You’re using real people to show success in your product or service and therefore convert more prospects into customers.

The intrinsic features of a product, as well as the cost of production, are irrelevant. What counts most is the customer's perception of the product's worth. They will be more ready to buy your product if they believe it is valuable. They'll probably ignore it if they don't think it's worthwhile.  

Generally speaking, people associate a higher number of sold items with having more quality. I know that I do this all of the time on a subconscious level.

For example, if I’m comparing two similar products from different brands, I tend to think that the item with a better total number of units sold delivers more quality since there are more people who have faith in it. It’s just a natural reaction. Therefore, the number of products sold can play an important role in polishing your brand’s profile by increasing the product’s perceived value.

Sales figures reinforce the positive qualifications of customers about brand and service in general.

As I have stated above, showing sales figures can build customer belief in your products. It is like strong proof that your products proved their usefulness and win the heart of customers. Especially if you include the customer reviews and ratings within your online store, the number of total products sold will be evidence to ensure the reliability of high-rating reviews, comments, and feedback displayed.

Thanks to the high sales figures, customers will somehow easier to leave a positive rating for your products or services. And this leads to better branding for your business and helps boost the conversion rate.

Some useful tips to take advantage of sales figures for your online store

• Add some PHP code to keep track and display the number of products sold not only on the product detail page but also on the product listing page (homepage, category pages, etc.)

If you are not confident with coding, there are many PrestaShop sales count modules, both free and premium that allow you to count the sales and show these numbers on the storefront. Select one that can satisfy your requirements and be compatible with your current theme.

• Highlight high sales and popular items in the most eye-catching positions on your website.

This action will attract visitors' eyesight right from the moment they land on your online store and create a good first impression on your potential customers. Therefore, encourage visitors to discover more details about your items.

• Play a little trick with new arrival items by adding sales quantity to give customers the confidence to buy them.

With newly released products, customers tend to hesitate to order since the lack of feedback and reviews from other people.
In addition, the blank sales figures may affect the way customers rate your product value and they will be more likely to skip or wait until there is another customer who shares his/her experience with your products.

You may increase the sales quantity of new arrival products to an acceptable number to encourage customers to bypass the initial hesitation and put these items into their shopping cart.

An excellent approach to convince clients to make a purchase is to display the total number of items sold. It is social proof that shows the visitors that other people also buy this product, so the product must be useful.

Although PrestaShop doesn’t offer any default feature to display the count of units sold, it is not that difficult to configure. I hope this article will help you understand the benefits of displaying sales figures and some helpful tips to apply to your store.