9 Tips to Quickly Increase your Ecommerce Conversion Rate
For ecommerce businesses, whether you’re just starting out of you have a well-established online presence, conversion rate is the most important metric of all. If you can increase your conversion rate by even a percentage point, that will equal huge gains in your revenue. But according to GrowCode’s 2021 conversion rate study, the average conversion rate across industries is a mere 2.87 percent.
What would it do for your company if you could increase that number, even if only slightly? Keep reading for some of our favorite high-level approaches to optimizing your ecommerce website—and enhancing your conversion rate.
First Things First: Why Shoppers Don’t Convert
The truth is that there are any number of reasons why someone may not convert on your site, or any site they’re shopping on, for that matter. It makes sense that not every person who visits your site is ready to make a purchase—in fact, the majority won’t be ready and will need more time and/or nurturing. Visitors could leave without purchasing for any of these reasons:
- Bad first impression
- Selling to the wrong people
- Your site isn’t optimized
- Your site isn’t mobile friendly
- Your products don’t have fans
- People don’t understand what it’s for
- Bad product images
- No clear call to action
- People don’t want to pay for shipping
- Check out is complicated or lengthy
- You don’t leverage remarketing or retargeting
As you can see, there’s a huge range of factors that go into every successful conversion. You can’t solve all of these issues for every potential customer, but most of the problems can be prevented, reduced, or eliminated. Every small step you take to eliminate the factors working against your conversion rate will bend that percentage in your company’s favor.
Tactics for Increasing Your Conversion Rate
1. Implement persuasive design and content on your website and app.
“Persuasive design” is the concept of designing your site in a way that keeps visitors on the page and moving forward to the next action. Your site needs to be visually appealing and visually persuasive, pulling visitors’ eyes to the parts of the page that lead to a purchase. Keep in mind that visitors are most likely drawn to the main image, inlaid text, and a CTA below the inlaid text. Regardless of your site’s design, however, each page should make it crystal clear what the next step is to buy a product.
2. Keep navigation simple.
If you walk into a sloppy, confusing mess of a brick-and-mortar store, chances are you’ll walk right back out again—and an online store is no different. Visitors want to find what they’re looking for within seconds, which means the more products you have, the more important streamlined navigation is. The navigation menu at the top of the website is the best place to sort your products into categories. Furthermore, a robust search function is critical, especially when the people most likely to use it are the customers who already know they’re interested in one of your products.
3. Personalize when possible.
Customized content is more likely to lead to conversions. Personalization can include dynamic content or providing more pathways for your visitors to take. There are tools for creating and delivering dynamic content with such things as offers and product recommendations tailored to individual users based on factors like demographics, user behavior, and their history with your brand.
4. Enable shopping on social media platforms.
Advertising on social media isn’t new, but the latest trends involve a more “shoppable” experience, such as the shoppable tags that made a big splash on Instagram last year. This is an especially effective tactic if the products you sell are aligned with content normally shared on social media. That means clothing, fashion, culinary and home décor products can do well, particularly if you can create customers so loyal (or your products so desirable!) that they’ll tag products themselves.
5. Offer discount options.
Customers love discounts, so one of the most frustrating things for them is to add items to their cart and then apply a coupon code that won’t work for their purchase. When possible, it can be beneficial to give visitors more control over when and how they use a specific discount offer. This adds personalization, but can also incentivize people to experiment with different codes and see what kind of deal they can get, or “clip” virtual coupons to apply later to offer multiple discounts at once.
6. Highlight social proof.
According to a study done by Nielson, 84% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know over any other type of advertising or marketing. Consumers consistently look up reviews before they make a purchase, and shoppers have gotten more savvy about seeing what other people think of a product or service before committing to buy. Positive proof of your product’s quality on social media can lead to higher average order value and customer retention. Product reviews, customer testimonials, or influencer endorsements are all forms of social proof, so implement a review or rating tool to allow your visitors to see star ratings as soon as they search.
7. Have a “guest checkout” option.
Having to register for an account is a big reason people don’t convert. While it’s important to collect first-party data—and you hope that every first-time purchaser will be back—setting up an account is often viewed as a hindrance or annoyance to customers. It’s in your best interest to allow those who want to simply check out as a guest to do so as quickly and simply as possible. That doesn’t mean you can’t give them more opportunities to register, however. The checkout process usually includes several great times to let them choose to create an account or sign up for a mailing list by simply ticking a form box.
8. Include multiple payment and delivery options (when possible).
The only time you want to actually add more steps to the checkout process is when you’re providing more options to the end user. For example, you’d be surprised how many people abandon a purchase when they realize that it won’t be delivered as quickly as they’d hoped, or when they can’t use their preferred payment method. This naturally depends on your product, but in general, you should offer at least a few options, including expedited shipping whenever possible. Working with an experienced fulfillment partner can ensure you have the best delivery options available to your customers.
9. Have an abandoned cart strategy.
Even if you implement all of these tips, there will be people who put something into their cart and then leave the website for whatever reason. At this point you need to focus on re-engaging the customer. Develop an intentional strategy for how you will reach these people again, offering incentives such as exit-intent pop-up discounts, special email offers, and remarketing campaigns. Make sure your messaging reinforces the value of your products, and don’t be afraid of offering discounts.
Every ecommerce business is different—and so are its customers. You’ll need to perform research using your own website analytics and user behavior to determine why people may not be converting in your online store, and then make a point of addressing those hurdles. Start by working through the list yourself while constantly seeking out new ways to optimize the ecommerce user experience.
Ready to go even further? Turn to the ecommerce experts at Rocket Shippers. Contact us today to learn how we can partner with you to provide customized solutions for your company’s needs.