When you choose to venture into the eCommerce platform, it is important to keep your customers in mind. The entire store has to be designed with your potential customers, as the primary area of focus. Boosting traffic to generate sales is one method. Meanwhile, you need to focus on methods that can translate online visitors to potential customers.
Through each stage in your client’s journey, you have ways of improving their experience. Indeed, the final outcome strongly depends on how you pull together the eCommerce website. The process of improving your website, and pushing more online visitors into making a purchase represents eCommerce conversion rate optimization (CRO).
Conversion is an interesting experience. This is the moment all your efforts prove to be useful. This is when a client decides to buy from your eCommerce website. Indeed, this is the moment you make revenue. CRO is essential for any business owner.
Whether you are big or small, this is an important concept for you. For many businesses, the process of testing CRO is a big challenge. That is because they don’t have adequate traffic. Without proper traffic, you cannot judge the actual performance of your website. Hence, the fundamentals of web development need to fall in place for CRO to be effective in your business.
Table of Contents
Understanding eCommerce conversion rates
What is eCommerce conversion?
For you to engage in CRO, it is important to understand what conversion really means in your world. Not all businesses have similar conversion metrics. The actual rate of conversion depends on what your business is, and what your goals are. Based on your target goals, CRO will differ.
1. Online sales
In terms of an eCommerce website, the conversion rate is nothing but the number of online visitors who end up making a purchase. But, this is not the online metric utilized in CRO. You have so many other measures.
2. The user adds a product to cart
Apart from online sales, it could be a customer who chooses to add a product from your website into their cart. This is a win-win situation for many businesses that are keen in drawing the attention of customers.
3. User adds the product to wishlist
Many times, businesses pull together strategies and test it on customers. When a potential customer responds to these strategies, by adding a product into their wishlist – the business and fellow marketers feel successful.
4. Email signups
When a customer decides to stay aligned with your business, they will sign up for emails. This helps you understand how many existing customers choose to be loyal ones.
5. Social media shares
If a customer decides to share news about your business with the rest of the world, you are certainly in the right place.
This is a simple list that identifies potential conversion metrics for businesses. With respect to your company, any KPI that you value can be considered in evaluating CRO.
How to calculate the conversion rate for an eCommerce website?
Calculating the conversion rate is not rocket science. It is a simple procedure you can follow. Let’s understand it with a simple example.
Imagine your eCommerce website enjoys traffic of 10,000 customers every month. And, 100 of these customers choose to make a purchase. Your conversion rate is 1%. This is very simple math. You divide the number of successful customers from the total number.
When you engage in the process of calculating your conversion rates, it is important to have benchmarks. What do you consider as a success rate of conversion? This benchmark differs from one eCommerce website to another. Yet, it is important to define this benchmark, if you want to excel in this platform.
What is a good ecommerce conversion rate?
Now that you have understood how to calculate the conversion rate; it is crucial to decide if the value is acceptable or not. Indeed, there is always plenty of scope for growth. But, you need to determine if your CRO efforts are worthy or not.
On average, the average conversion rate is from 1 to 2 percent. This is the average rate worldwide. Hence, you should be aware of how complicated and difficult gaining traffic is! Even if your business has invested millions in online marketing and conversion, you cannot expect anything more than 2%.
According to experts, it is very hard to reach this 2% mark! You need to engage in multiple steps and execute a variety of strategies to increase your conversion rate to 2%. As an eCommerce website owner, you need to aim for a conversion rate that is more than 2%.
And, if you are able to achieve this, your business is definitely edging above in the industry. Conversion rate tactics are broken into two: the basics and the advanced. Once you cover the basic steps, you can venture into the more advanced methods. Once again, remember that your goal should be to go beyond the rate of 2%.
Strategies to boost your ecommerce conversion rates
Home page
The homepage has to be tested like your storefront. This would be the landing page for any customer. It has to be filled with elements that can draw the attention of your customers. The elements in your storefront must be visually appealing and composed.
It should focus on common goals, which is reflected throughout your website. End of the day, online visitors should be encouraged and delighted to make a purchase from your store.
Simplify the experience
When it comes to designing a perfect landing page for your eCommerce website, you need to focus on simplicity. In a matter of a few seconds, customers will build an impression about the site. So keep the design simple, and avoid noisy elements.
Woodworkers Guild of America did this perfectly here.
This page hits the nail on the head for several reasons. The page itself is simple and uncluttered, letting the prize take the spotlight. A clear graphic of the entire tool bundle and its hefty $1,120 USD value leave nothing up to interpretation, while the large Ultra-Shear logo communicates their alliance with a quality brand. All of this information is located above the fold, along with a simple form to enter. If visitors want more, they’ll find it below with a description of each tool included in the prize, its features and benefits, and a link to find more product details.
Show off coupons and real-time purchases
Coupons and codes can drive customers towards products. These items should be shown at the beginning of your website. Pop-ups, welcome bars and real-time purchases can mean so much in your shopping website. Almost all applications like Notify, Yo and Privy make use of these features.
Add testimonies to build trust
Going forward, your business page will need the support of testimonies. Are your products and services used by renowned personalities? If yes, including badges, Google customer reviews, and testimonies can mean so much. All of these testimonies should be included beneath your content for project credibility and trust.
Product discovery
The moment a customer lands on your homepage, it is important for them to search through and find what they are looking for. They should have the freedom to discover new products without any issues.
User intelligent search
When customers aim to buy a specific product from your website, the chances of them knowing where it is present is less. Always engage in your very own CRO analysis. Customers who are able to find where products are located will turn into potential buyers. And, a good search box can help with this.
Organize your categories
All categories of products and services offered by your business should be organized carefully. The most famous categories should be shown in the front. Don’t create too many categories. Instead, stick between 4 and 6 categories. And, include subcategories to become more specific.
Use 404 pages
Do your 404 pages end abruptly? Well, you can always convert 404 pages into great links. These links can redirect customers to other parts of your eCommerce site. The 404 page has to be customized with feature links to promotions, products, and collections. Shopify Expert has many interesting concepts on how to edit the 404 pages.
Shoppable Instagram feed
Instagram is definitely a great tool for building a good reputation around your eCommerce website. You can introduce stunning shoppable feeds into your eCommerce page. These will inspire your existing customers to make more buys. In fact, Instagram feed plays a big role in driving millennials towards websites.
Product pages
Just like the home page, you need to be extra careful about your product pages. These pages should tell a clear story to your customers. It must be designed to communicate the actual value of your products with everyone interested in buying.
Use high-quality product images
No one likes to view images made of poor quality. Almost two-thirds of customers look for products described with high-quality images. The image should represent the look and feel of the actual product. Sometimes, you need to think beyond and include videos too!
Be upfront about price, delivery, and stock
The most terrible thing in any eCommerce website would be information that misleads. More than 30% of customers abandon websites that are misleading. If you have charged extra for shipping, and not mentioned about it – you are going to lose a customer. So, don’t think twice to disclose the complete picture on price, delivery, and stock status.
Showcase product reviews
Product reviews help customers proceed towards the “Add to cart” action. When shoppers are doubtful about whether they need to buy or not, reviews prove to be useful. It can convince a hesitant shopper to make a positive decision.
Curated Instagram feed
Curated Instagram feeds are quite similar to product reviews. These turn into stunning pieces of social proof. When customers search for products and services, more than 60% of them look for content with actual Instagram photographs. If you are into apparel and cosmetic products, the feeds will be very useful in giving customers a better view of your style and feel!
Checkout Experience
One of the last few stages in any customer’s purchase process from an eCommerce website would be checkout. And, this process has to be both flawless and frictionless. After all, you don’t want your customer to abandon the cart!
Prefill customer information
If a customer has to refill their details for shipping and billing, it would be wiser to refill the content on their behalf. When customers need to enter information, they will be excited. With the autofill facilities, your conversion rate will increase by 189%.
Send abandoned cart emails
When a customer chooses to abandon the cart, you need to notify them. Many customers choose to leave websites without any idea of returning. In such situations, the abandoned cart emails will be useful. This shows how much you value their presence.
Optimize your thank you emails
Order confirmation emails have to be customized to suit your customers. For instance, you can include the customer’s name, or quote details about the products bought. And, don’t forget to encourage them to visit your newsletter or blog. As a token of appreciation, you can give them a coupon code too!
Shipping and returns
Once the checkout process has come to an end, you need to remember that the purchase is still not over. This is where shipping and returns come to the picture. You need to have a clear view of how these aspects will be tackled.
Offer free shipping
Quoting a shipping fee for products can be daunting. In fact, the shopping experience gets destroyed when you quote a big shipping fee. High shipping charges can stop a customer from completing the purchase. So, think twice about it! With free shipping conversion rates increase by 50%.
Have a clear refund policy
Don’t take by surprise when a customer chooses to return the product. Clothing and shoes can be very unpredictable. This is why your business needs to have a clear return policy. If the customer is unhappy with the product, they should be able to return. Fear not! When your eCommerce page has good return policies, the customers are likely to return!
Additional Information
Even when you choose to optimize the basic elements of your website, it is important for you to push clients through the conversion channel. These need focus on other page elements too!
Tell a story about your page
You need to include a page on the story of your store. Customers should receive a message about your brand’s mission, and the reason behind the products. Even as you draft this page, focus on talking and building a lifestyle for your customers.
Create a comprehensive contact page
Customers may want to get in touch with you. This could be for any reason. So, ensure that the contact page features the following: A contact form, your email address, retail store hours, links to social media profiles, a physical address of your store with direction and map, and the contact details of your support team.
Website speed and performance
There is a strong bond between the success of businesses and the website. If a site takes more than 3 seconds to load, you have a high chance of your customers leaving. This amounts to 40% of your customers. And, this is a big number.
Make sure your site is responsive
Most customers choose to shop using their mobile devices. This is why you need to build a mobile responsive eCommerce site.
Optimize the website loading time
There are many ecommerce tools to check if your website is loading fast. In fact, Google has Pagespeed Insight Tools for giving details on how long your page took to load. Also, it will help you with facts on any issues in the process. Optimizing the performance of your store can be complicated. But it can be achieved. Simple tricks like compressing images, and improving content will do the trick.
Conclusion
Conversion rate can mean so much to your business. It decides how many online visitors to your website turn into potential customers. In fact, this is a direct measure of how successful your online eCommerce website can be. The above improvements will have a prominent influence on your conversion rate. It can boost your site’s performance, and ensure a good number of people start buying from your page.
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