Whether you’re just starting an eCommerce business or you’re already an established online seller, the higher your conversion rates, the better off your business will likely be.
In a perfect world, your process of generating business from new and long-time customers alike would run like clockwork:
- They visit your site
- Then, they find products they like and add them to their cart
- Finally, they follow through with their purchase without hesitation
It sounds like a dream, doesn’t it?
In this article, we’re going to discuss a number of high-level approaches to optimizing your eCommerce website.
Therefore, it’s more likely your visitors will end up converting into paying customers. As we go through each tactic, we’ll also provide a variety of examples of brands “doing it right,” as well.
However, before we dive into a discussion of these strategies and tips, we need to understand the reasons. Like why an individual might decide to leave your eCommerce site empty-handed in the first place.
Ways to increase your eCommerce conversion rate
1. Apply persuasive design and content on your website/app
First of all, We want to begin by discussing the more overarching topic of site design in general.
Persuasive design
There is a principle:
If your site isn’t designed in a manner that keeps your visitors on the page — and moving forward with their transaction — none of the other tactics we’re about to discuss are going to make much of a difference.
That said, firstly, your site needs to be:
- Visually appealing
- Visually persuasive
The “appealing” part is pretty straightforward. Needless to say, the modern consumer is more likely to engage further with fancy websites/apps, such as:
While we could certainly take a deeper dive into why the first example is just that much more appealing, let’s just say it has a certain je ne sais quoi that the latter clearly does not.
Visual persuasiveness, on the other hand, is a little more nuanced. Essentially, the goal is to pull your visitors’ eyes to a certain part of the page — typically the part which will allow them to move a step closer toward converting.
Typically, the visitor’s attention will be drawn to the following elements almost immediately — in the following order:
- The main image
- The inlaid text
- The call-to-action button below the inlaid text
While this homepage does provide a number of clickable options, it’s crystal clear what new visitors are “supposed” to do right from the get-go. Now that’s persuasive design.
Persuasive copy/content
The goal of persuasive copy is quite similar: “Keep your visitors engaged and moving forward with a transaction.”
Now, when we say “persuasive,” here, we don’t mean that your copy needs to be too salesy or anything like that. Rather, it all comes down to ensuring your brand’s “voice” shines through every single word on your website.
There’s no doubt about it: The copy on this product page was written by a fan of pets, for a pet lover. It basically screams, “Hey! We’re just like you, and we love this product — so we know you will too!”
2. Make a simple and easy navigation
If you walked into a brick-and-mortar retail store that had its products strewn about haphazardly, you almost certainly would turn right around and walk out.
If your visitors aren’t able to find what they’re looking for quite literally at the click of a button, they’re going to navigate away to a competitor’s site almost immediately.
While there are a number of factors to consider when optimizing your site’s search functionality, your main concern is, of course, in ensuring your visitors are presented with the most relevant products relating to their search term.
As we’ll discuss in a bit, this is why your product pages need to be well-put together, complete with vital information presented in a way that matches your customers’ search queries.
3. Personalize
That said, there are two overarching ways to personalize your visitor’s experience:
- Providing dynamic content
- Providing pathways for your visitors to take
Essentially, tools for creating and delivering dynamic content allow you to present tailored content, offers, and product recommendations to your visitors. It based on factors such as their demographic and geographic data, their on-site behavior, and their history with your brand.
We recently talked about the best tool (AI and machine learning) to create a personalized experience for customers, so check out that post for a much deeper discussion on the topic of using AI and machine learning in eCommerce.
In terms of providing pathways for your visitor to choose from, you’ll want to consider the “types” of consumers you typically attract. Essentially, you’ll be pointing them to “collections” of products that relate to each other — but aren’t necessarily in the same product category.
4. Allow shopping via social media platforms
Your brand almost certainly has at least some type of presence on the various social media platforms out there, right?
Simply advertising and/or creating an organic presence on channels such as Facebook and Instagram aren’t exactly anything new. But more and more eCommerce companies are turning to these channels to actually sell their products directly to their followers.
This is an especially lucrative venture if the products you offer fall in line with the type of content that’s typically shared on Instagram.
Therefore, if you’re in the clothing, fashion, or culinary industries — or really any industry that relies heavily on visual presentation — you should be looking to make your Instagram profile shoppable.
5. Provide multiple discount options
Perhaps the only better than a discount, in the eyes of the consumer, is the ability to customize the discount they’re about to receive.
On the other hand, it’s quite disappointing for a consumer when they receive a coupon or offer in their email, load up their virtual shopping cart…and then realize the offer doesn’t apply to their purchases.
That said, it can be beneficial to provide your customers with at least a bit of control over when and how they use a specific discount offer.
Not only does this add a bit of personalization to their experience (as we discussed earlier), but it also incentivizes them to “experiment” — potentially leading them to make additional purchases they hadn’t originally anticipated.
Target provides a prime example of this on the company’s main site:
Here, Target provides five different ways for its customers to save. The most intriguing, for our purposes, are the sections on REDcard exclusives and Cartwheel deals; in these sections, the loyal Target customer is presented with deals that only those with a membership are privy to.
Not only does this put the customer in the driver’s seat in terms of discovering the optimal combination of coupon usage, but it also adds transparency to the process: through its Coupon Clipboard, Quill makes it very easy to tell which coupons can be applied at a given time, so that customers are never caught off-guard and left disappointed.
6. Showcase social proof
In terms of increasing conversion rates, social proof is huge.
According to a study conducted by Nielsen, 84% of consumers trust recommendations from friends, family members, and peers over any other type of marketing or advertising content.
Case in point, Consumerist found that 70% of online shoppers check out product reviews before making a purchase. Looking at this from a different perspective, of all the people who go on to make a purchase, 70% of them are impacted by product reviews in some way or another.
It’s also worth mentioning that positive social proof typically leads to an increase not just in conversion rate, but also average order value and retention as well.
7. Offer free shipping
Online shoppers expect a certain standard that they have grown accustomed to on Amazon. In today’s market, free shipping is an absolute must. If your store does not offer free shipping, customers are likely to look elsewhere.
An alternative option to free shipping is to increase product prices to cover the shipping costs. However, shoppers are savvy — if your prices are exorbitant, they will quickly move elsewhere.
8. Provide limited-time coupon codes
Create coupon or discount codes that customers can use at checkout for a limited time to get a specific amount off or a percentage of the purchase.
When your coupon code expires, this will drive a sense of urgency, and shoppers can make their purchase decisions without distractions.
9. Be competitively priced
If you are selling brand-name items that many other stores offer, you will likely need to price your products at or below the average price to compete. Be sure to adjust your prices frequently to see what resonates.
The quality of your marketing and imagery will also heavily influence the price someone is willing to pay. Market your brand to the right audience with the right messaging and imagery, and the revenue will come in.
10. Tweak and test your ecommerce checkout process
If your store checkout process is too long, complicated or unconventional, you may lose a lot of customers right as they are ready to buy.
This crucial step in the funnel is where many of your A/B tests and personalization strategies should take place. There are industry standards for most hosted ecommerce sites, but you may still need to tweak the process based on your customers.
11. Use shopping cart abandonment software
If you consistently deal with abandoned carts, then abandoned cart software can help increase your store conversion rates. Some ecommerce platforms offer this type of software free as part of the store functionality — BigCommerce among them.
The success of this software is different for every business, but there is no doubt that it can help ecommerce stores that use it.
12. Use live chat software and chatbots
Using live chat support software and chatbots to interact with customers can help your customers get answers to their questions quickly and without long wait times over the phone.
The two are often viewed as alternative options to each other, with chatbots often replacing the human element of live chats. However, companies that can leverage the usage of both — with chatbots interacting with customers in off-hours — will likely find the greatest success.
13. Make your checkout form easy to understand
Ensure that everything on your checkout form is completely understood, such as CVV and input formats.
If possible, limit what can be typed into specific form fields to make the process streamlined for users.
- When a user types a credit card number, format it for them as they go along to make it easier to read and harder to mess up.
- In a date field, don’t let the user type but have a date picker or dropdown.
It is critical to ensure that you don’t give users any reason to feel uncomfortable or make it difficult for them to check out — especially since users are often reluctant to enter their personal credit/debit card info.
Digital wallets are payment processors and apps like PayPal Express, Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, etc. These systems allow users to sign in with their account information and then pre-populate everything. It is faster and more secure for everyone.
14. Allow customer reviews and provide product testimonials
Why do so many people buy from Amazon? It is due in no small part to the presence of their product reviews.
In the digital shopping world, customer reviews are a must-have. The presence of customer reviews acts as a signal to shoppers and potential customers about the validity and success of your business.
Driving positive reviews can make or break your business. To help, you can offer customers a coupon code or other types of incentives next time they purchase as a reward for providing a review.
Similarly, product testimonials are a fantastic attribute for service-based businesses. By having customers describe why they chose your business and the benefits they’ve received, you’re establishing your organization as one that can be trusted to provide a valuable product.
15. Have a great product return policy
Around two out of every three customers will read the return policy before buying. Don’t over-promise here, but make it as painless and as easy as possible for customers to return products.
This may not sound like conversion optimization, but it is another example of basic business practices acting as CRO. By gaining trust from your customers with an easy-to-use return policy, you can drive sales and increase your conversation rates.
16. Measure your ecommerce conversion rate optimization success
There are a couple of great ways to make sure your tweaks and changes are working. The obvious one is to verify that your conversion rates are increasing.
BigCommerce tracks your store’s conversion rates day-over-day, week-over-week, month-over-month, quarter-over-quarter, year-over-year and in any customizable way you want to see it. You can view this easily on your dashboard or the Analytics Dashboard.
There is more than just increasing conversions, though, as you want to make sure your value per customer or bottom line is growing. It’s more important to know what you will do with the traffic you receive than to just try and always get more traffic.
Make the most of what you already have, and then push for more traffic.
Side notes
As online shopping becomes more and more of a driving force within retail and ecommerce businesses, having a successfully implemented website is critical to both short and long term success.
Boosting ecommerce conversion rates should be the number one priority for businesses because they encourage customers to do what is most important, buy your products.
