Improving eCommerce Sales / Conversions

Why Conversion?

As an entrepreneur, obviously your goal with an online website is to increase sales. Building a website and gaining traffic is one thing, but visitors to your website actually buying your products is another. Earning the sales, getting a visitor to sign up for an email list, social media sharing, or whatever transactions your company finds valuable is called conversion–and there are simple ways you can optimize your eCommerce conversion and build a profitable business online.

Conversion rate optimization is achieved through changes to your website that makes it easier, faster, simpler, and more engaging for your customers. Here are some easy ways to boost your conversion rate on your website.

Optimize Your Mobile Website

Studies have shown that more and more people are making purchases online through their mobile devices. Mobile eCommerce is the future of running a profitable website, and arguably, the present–more than half of internet traffic manifests through mobile devices. That’s why it’s more important than ever to make sure that your mobile website, or app, is responsive and simple to use for your potential customers.

Mobile shoppers are picky and will not linger on websites that are slow, frustrating to use, or are prone to crashing. In a competitive online market, customers will easily switch to your competitor if your website isn’t well designed. How many times have you been to a slow website, hoping to buy something, and get impatient when the site takes forever to load?

In fact, according to Mobile 1st,

“Slow pages are the number one issue that irate mobile users complain about — ranking even higher than site crashes.”

With this in mind, make sure your website is updated and fast. You can make your website loading speeds faster by compressing large image files and making them more internet-friendly, cutting down on external Java, HTML, and CSS scripts, or using a content delivery network, which delivers web content to users in closer proximity to their geographical location.

Use Quality Images to Attract Customers

Good web design will help you catch the attention of customers and fosters good web conversion rates.

In retail eCommerce, using low quality images of your product will turn a potential customer off from buying your product. In online shopping, consumers cannot see your product in person, so a high quality image of it is vital to giving them a good idea of what the product looks like. Using vibrant, lively, and high quality pictures on your website helps you advertise your product, and image is essential to selling items online, as consumers cannot touch the product, or try it on.

Displaying multiple angles of your product, as well adding a zoom feature will encourage your potential customer to buy your product, as he or she has a better idea of what you’re selling. Accompanying high-quality photos with detailed product descriptions is a surefire way to increase optimization rates. Make sure you include a catchy, concise description that first sparks their interest, and a longer description that answers any possible question the consumer would have about your product.

Short and Easy Payment Forms

Confusing, long forms when a customer is ready to buy your product and checkout can cause you to lose conversion rates. Typically, once a consumer has placed the product in their cart, they’re ready to check out immediately, and quickly.

If you prompt your buyer with seemingly endless forms where they need to create sign-in accounts and punch in long credit card numbers and shipping addresses, especially onto mobile screens, can be a frustrating process that some simply aren’t willing to go through to make the purchase. You should try and make the process as quick and simple to use as possible to promote high conversion rates.

Adapt your checkout page to use shortcuts that make the process easier, such as boxes that fill out forms for your customer like “shipping address same as billing address” or indicate the consumer is making progress with call-to-action buttons that say “review order” and “checkout” instead of “continue” and “next.” Customers want to know they are making quick progress with checking out, and should have to fill out as short forms as possible to make sales.

Simple Design

Nothing is more discouraging than a cluttered, outdated website when you’re trying to buy a product online. I can recount many instances when I’ve been interested in buying clothes or other products online, but the poor design of the website prompted me to look somewhere else to buy what I was looking for.

You should design your website to call attention to the product you’re selling. Don’t be bothered with cluttering your website with social media buttons, sign-up forms, or extra, messy links that distract from your product. A simple, easy to use website is key to good conversion rates in eCommerce.

Extra links that direct them to social media or other pages will distract your potential customer from buying your product. Additionally, messy or outdated design can also confuse your customer and turn them away from your website.

Adding Review Pages

According to a study by Econsultancy, “61% of customers read online reviews before making a purchase decision, and they are now essential for e-commerce sites.” Potential buyers will read reviews to see if your product truly is worth purchasing, and including reviews on your website makes you appear more trustworthy and transparent about your business to customers.

By including a review page for your products, you can actually increase sales and conversion rates. A study by Reevoo found that adding reviews led to an 18% increase in sales on eCommerce websites. By placing a positive review by a customer next to your product, you will encourage other customers to buy it as well, especially if you include the name of the customer, which facilitates consumer trust.

Free or Reduced Shipping

A low price tag on a product may initially excite a customer to purchase your product, but if it comes with an unexpected hefty shipping fee, many online shoppers will decide it isn’t worth it to buy.

Studies have shown that offering free shipping or reduced shipping produces high conversion rates in eCommerce. Free shipping can also boost average order value–when you require a $25 or $50 order minimum, shoppers will place more items in their cart to get the free shipping, and drive more sales.

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