E-Commerce Pricing Teardown Part 2: Dr. Axe

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

When coming up with pricing strategies, especially as an up and coming e-commerce store, it can be helpful to look at how the greats already do this. In this post, we’re going to look at Dr. Axe, a health and supplement store.

Only, with all the tasks you need to complete, like finding great products, researching new ideas and coming up with marketing strategies, it’s hard to find time to analyze different stores.

But fear not, we’ve done it for you.

Dr. Axe sells a range of different products on the store, and we’re going to analyze their different approaches and examine the effectiveness of them.

Disclaimer: This post is produced independently of Dr. Axe. As a result, we don’t have access to their sales data.

Our predictions and conclusions in this article are based on our own data and understanding of the market, as well as e-commerce pricing best practices.

So let’s jump right in.

Creating valuable content to help boost sales

We get it.

You have an e-commerce store, the aim is to generate sales.

But in order to do this, you don’t have to only list your products.

The art of storytelling is a great way to generate sales. Let’s look into that further.

On the Dr. Axe website, there are a number of different recipes.

These recipes are complete with great photography that makes people want to try the dish.

But what Dr. Axe does in this situation is to include their own products in the recipes.

This is effective for a number of reasons.

First, they’re providing great content. Whether you buy the product or not, you’ve still gained access to a great recipe.

Second, there’s no hard sell. They simply talk about the recipe, describe it in as much detail as possible and if you want to buy the product, the option is there – but you’re not forced to.

Third, for those who already have the product, these recipes stand as great content beyond the sale.

Perhaps you’ve just purchased the bone broth protein smores and are bored of simply just drinking it.

You want to know exciting ways you can consume the item, this recipe comes at the perfect time.

Think about it.

If you want to build a brand – a place where people come back to you time and time again, you need to more than just sell your items, you need to sell a lifestyle.

You need to show your customers you understand their need for your products, but you also understand how your products fit into their everyday lives.

Reviews

People trust other people more than they trust you. That’s why highlighting your reviews on your website is so important.

This is especially the case for stores where people are often skeptical of what you’re selling.

Not everyone is keen on taking supplements or even see the benefits of taking them. Coming onto the Dr. Axe store and seeing all these reviews is a great way to help convince those who are on the fence about whether or not the products actually work.

For the super fans, these reviews work well by helping them decide what products to buy next. With so many products on the store, it can often become overwhelming.

When you’re presented with so much choice, often people default to not making a choice at all.

That’s why reviews are so helpful. They help people shortlist the products they’re interested in and then actually make a purchase.

If you haven’t yet added reviews to your products, check out review software or plugins and add these to your store.

To generate reviews, when you make a sale, send your customers an email to ask if they can leave an honest review.

You ideally want honest reviews because the likelihood is they won’t all be 5*. A site where all the products all have top rated reviews seem dubious.

It’s unlikely that every single person is perfectly happy with every single product, so don’t worry if you do get some lower-ranked reviews too.

Together they all balance out to show that you’re a real, trustworthy company with lots of customers.

Bestseller highlights

We’ve already mentioned that Dr. Axe has a wide range of products on their store. What’s more, given the nature of the store itself, customers are likely to want to buy everything and anything. After all, who doesn’t like good health?

So when faced with that scenario, what Dr. Axe does is highlight their best sellers.

They use a little orange triangle on the bottom left-hand side of the product image (as seen below).

Naturally, you’re drawn to this image and with 914 reviews to go alongside it, there’s no reason why you wouldn’t at least check it out.

If you have a range of products on your site with some obvious products that sell better than others, why not find a way to let customers know what the most popular items are.

This is also something that Amazon does.

Amazon even has its own page that describes best sellers for each product category. This works because as people, we’re naturally drawn to what other people like and want.

You’ll know all about fear of missing out (FOMO), the same holds true for e-commerce.

When a customer lands on your site and sees that everyone is buying one specific item, even if they don’t buy that specific thing, they’re still intrigued to find out more.

Look at your past sales data and see what products you’re able to sell quickly and easily.

Building trust

If you’re a new e-commerce store, you need to think carefully about building trust.

There are a range of different ways you can build trust with your customers, but the thing to note is that if you don’t build trust, you’re going to turn away potentials business.

Dr. Axe uses three different strategies to build trust with their customers and encourage that all-important sale.

First, they offer 15% savings when a customer buys a subscription.

Subscriptions are a great way to increase ongoing revenue as usually, a customer will purchase the same amount of products each month, week or year.

What’s more, to encourage a customer starting a subscription for their health products, they offer a discount.

Second, they offer free shipping for any orders over $99.

How many times have you filled your basket with $100’s worth of products only to cancel the entire thing when you see shipping $14 at the checkout?

The good thing about their free shipping threshold is it encourages people to add one more item to their basket.

Naturally, Dr. Axe’s products are expensive, given the high quality of the goods. So when you’re just a few dollars off free shipping, the likelihood is that you’ll make a purchase.

We’ve saved the best for last. Dr. Axe is so confident about their products and the quality of their products that they give their customers a 60-day money back guarantee.

This makes any purchase seem like a no-brainer. Simply buy anything and everything that interests you and if you don’t believe it works as it should do, you get your money back.

Rewards program

Finally, to encourage repeat sales, alongside subscription offers and money back guarantee, Dr. Axe has built a loyalty program.

Their loyalty program offers free products when you earn a certain amount of points and make a purchase.

What’s more, they don’t limit their customers to gain points simply by making purchases.

As you’ll see in the screenshot above, I’ve gained 350 points without making a purchase.

Completing tasks like liking their Facebook page, sharing tweets etc. all help to gain points.

Now, when I decide to make a purchase, I’m entitled to a free product thanks to the points I’ve already earnt.

Then when I do make the purchase, I’ll gain more points.

This strategy works super well in keeping customers shopping with you and not your competitors.

Takeaways

In this post, we’ve looked at how Dr. Axe has used a range of different strategies to entice their readers to buy.

Alongside a really nice site with great functionality and excellent UX, they’ve employed a range of different tactics to attract all types of buyers.

Think about your own e-commerce store and consider whether you, too, could use some of these to improve the number of sales you make each day/week/year.