Maximizing your store’s conversion rate is crucial to your success as a dropshipper. If people aren’t buying from your site, it doesn’t matter how well optimized it is.
Fortunately, there are many tried-and-true methods for increasing your online store’s conversion rate and selling more products to new customers. This is especially true for businesses that operate online and rely on dropshipping from other companies.
Here is a list of 17 simple strategies to boost the sales of your dropshipping business. You can quickly increase sales and orders by implementing even a few of these strategies.
Use high-quality images
It is essential for a dropshipping business to have high-quality images of their products in order to attract customers and increase sales. Having high-quality images of your products taken professionally can help them stand out from the crowd, which in turn will bring in more customers and more sales.
Never settle for anything less than the highest quality images offered by your supplier. Images could benefit from having your company’s watermark or logo superimposed on them. Watermarkly and Img2Go are just two examples of the many free tools available for this purpose.
You can either hire an ecommerce photography service, or take your own pictures of the products. When dropshipping, it’s worth the extra time and effort to create your own original images.
Write unique descriptions
There are two reasons why it is critical to have distinctive product descriptions. They aid the buyer by providing a clearer picture of the product. Second, they aid SEO because they contain keywords that search engines can crawl and index.
When describing your product, be sure to highlight its features, benefits, and technical details. The description would benefit from using relevant long-tail keywords throughout. Wordtracker and the Google Keyword Planner are two free resources that can help you find frequently used keywords.
Use of the descriptions provided by your dropshipping supplier can be tempting, but writing your own keyword-optimized descriptions will significantly increase conversions. In addition, no other vendors will be able to use your listings as a model because you will own the content.
Offer free shipping
Providing free shipping is a great way to boost traffic and sales at your dropshipping store. Customers are more likely to buy from you rather than a competitor if you offer free shipping, which is effectively a discount.
Plus, free shipping can also increase your average order value, leading to more revenue and profits. In the event that your dropshipping provider does not offer free shipping, you can easily factor the cost of shipping into your retail price.
Offering free shipping is a great way to stand out from the competition. Due to its no-cost shipping policy, Amazon has surpassed eBay to become the largest online retailer in the world.
Highlight returns policy
If a customer receives a product and is dissatisfied, they must know they can return the item. It helps them feel safe and establishes credibility with the client. Guarantee that your return policy is easily accessible on your website.
Make sure it’s easy to understand so there are no miscommunications. To further simplify the return process, you could even provide customers with a free return label.
Even if your supplier doesn’t permit returns, a 30-day return policy is a good idea when dropshipping. Your role as a retailer requires you to handle customer returns. Some countries even make it illegal to not do so. Remember that only a tiny fraction of customers actually end up returning their purchases.
Improve website speed
Your online store’s conversion rate is tremendously influenced by how quickly it loads. Indeed, the highest conversion rates in e-commerce occur on sites that take less than two seconds to load. Therefore, the faster your website is able to load, the more business you will receive. Here are five essential pointers for optimizing your dropshipping store’s speed so that pages load in a flash.
Choose a good hosting provider
Selecting a reliable hosting provider is the most important step you can take toward ensuring a quick-loading dropshipping store. In fact, it is recommended that you seek out a host that provides e-commerce-specific features and tools. Several web hosting providers offer optimized servers for use with popular content management systems like WordPress.
Use a speed optimisation plugin or app
No matter what e-commerce platform you use, such as Shopify or WooCommerce, you can quickly increase your site’s speed with a variety of free apps and plugins. This plethora of features includes resources for caching your site, reducing the size of your image files, and enabling the use of a content delivery network.
Reduce the total number of plugins or apps
Dropshipping stores that use too many third-party apps or plugins often experience performance issues. That’s why it’s important to use only the absolutely necessary plugins for your shop. For the sake of your site’s safety, speed, and search engine optimization, you should use no more than three or four plugins at most.
Remove unnecessary widgets
Too many widgets in the sidebar can slow down your site’s loading time. Get rid of any widgets (like ads, images, and videos) that aren’t necessary. Minimize the amount of information in your sidebar by only including a list of categories and links to pivotal pages like your shipping policy.
Display less advertisements
Banner ads and Google AdSense may slow down your dropshipping store’s page load time. As a result, you should prioritize displaying a select few advertisements in highly visible areas of your website. When it comes to advertisements on online marketplaces, less is most certainly more.
Add customer reviews
Having customers leave feedback in the form of ratings and reviews is a great way to increase sales in your dropshipping business. They prove to potential buyers that your goods are of high quality, which should result in an increase in sales. More than ninety percent of consumers report reading reviews prior to making a purchase.
Make sure to invite buyers to share their opinions by adding ratings and reviews to product pages. In order to encourage customers to write reviews, you can offer them discounts, specials, or other rewards. The ball can be quickly set in motion with this.
Depending on the type of storefront platform you’re using, the steps required to enable review functionality will be different. However, most e-commerce platform builders already include review functionality, or you can easily add it on. If you run a Shopify store, you can choose from dozens of apps, and WooCommerce also has a large number of review plugins that you can set up for free.
Use multiple payment options
Providing a variety of payment options is a great way to boost your dropshipping store’s conversion rate. In addition to accepting credit cards, you should accept payments via a variety of other methods, such as PayPal, Amazon Pay, Google Pay, Stripe, and others.
A customer is more likely to make a purchase if they can use their preferred payment method at checkout. Keep in mind that most e-commerce platforms, WooCommerce included, allow you to easily configure multiple payment gateways with minimal effort.
As an e-commerce leader, eBay is a great example of how adding more payment options can increase conversions and sales. Over the course of many years, eBay accepted only payments via PayPal. Eventually, however, they began accepting Apple Pay, Google Wallet, and wire transfers from customers’ bank accounts.
Enable guest checkout
To avoid having to create an account, guest checkout is preferred by the majority of customers. By allowing customers to check out as guests, you can streamline the shopping process and attract more customers. Conversion rates will increase as a result.
In addition, letting visitors pay for their own purchases is a great way to bring in new customers. Because new visitors won’t instantly feel safe providing their information to your brand. Offering a “guest checkout” option where customers can submit their information once and then have it deleted is a great way to put their minds at ease.
Create a simple design
One of the leading causes of a low conversion rate is a website that is overly complicated and difficult to use. Because online shoppers typically want to quickly locate products and complete their purchases, this is especially problematic for e-commerce platforms.
Your dropshipping store’s layout should be easy on the eyes while still looking polished. Lighter, more welcoming colors and clean, legible fonts are key. Your menu should be easy to navigate with clear headings and subheadings.
Put a search box in your online shop if you sell a large number of items. Customers will be able to find what they need without having to sift through pages and pages of search results. If you sell a wide variety of product sizes and styles, filters become even more important.
Simplify checkout process
The Baymard Institute estimates that roughly 70% of online shopping carts are never completed. That means the vast majority of visitors to a website will abandon it before making a purchase.
Many factors can contribute to this, but a lengthy or difficult checkout process is usually to blame. Customers are less likely to abandon their purchases if the checkout process is streamlined and easy to navigate.
Find out what works best for your store by comparing single-page and multi-page checkout processes. Converting a multi-page checkout to a single-page checkout has been shown to increase conversions in numerous studies.
As an additional security measure, an SSL-enabled checkout will reassure your customers that their information is safe. Customer information, such as billing and credit card numbers, is safe when SSL certificates are in place.
Run sales and promotions
To quickly boost conversion rate and revenue, sales and promotions are another tried and true method. Sales are a staple of any thriving dropshipping business. What follows is a discussion of some of the most common types of in-store promotions that can be held.
Flash Sales
Flash sales are temporary price reductions advertised on social media. You can either have a flash sale on the whole site where everyone who shops gets a discount, or you can have a flash sale on specific items. The trick is to offer deep discounts for a limited time, say a few days.
Multi-buy offers
In the marketing world, “multi-buy offers” refer to specials where customers save money if they buy multiple items at once. You can promote bulk purchases of any and all products. They’ve blown up in popularity on online auction sites like eBay.
Free gifts
To boost sales, try throwing in a freebie with each purchase. In fact, offering a free bonus item after a predetermined purchase threshold is met is another way to increase your average order value. Dropshipping makes it easy to send free or low-cost extras to customers along with their orders.
Display trust badges
In order to be successful at dropshipping, you need to earn the trust of your potential customers. Including a variety of trust badges on your site’s front page and/or checkout pages is a great way to build credibility and assurance in the minds of your customers.
Trust badges are a common addition to the stores of dropshippers. TrustPilot and other similar review sites’ ratings, as well as badges highlighting security checks, payment options, free shipping, money-back guarantees, or third-party endorsements, all fall under this category.
If you run an online store, one of the most valuable badges you can earn is from TrustedSite. The McAfee Security Mark was formerly used. Putting the badge on your site will demonstrate to customers that you run a legitimate business with a safe shopping cart.
Reduce your prices
If you want to increase your conversion rate and sales quickly, lowering your prices is the way to do it. Despite appearances, lowering prices can actually increase sales, revenue, and profits.
With dropshipping, you can lower your prices without worrying about the high overhead of stocking, transporting, and staffing. Remember that you can always lower prices initially to draw in new customers and then raise them later.
Any price reduction, no matter how slight, can increase sales. You can use this to your advantage when competing with other dropshippers who may be offering lower prices.
Add videos to descriptions
Your dropshipping shop’s conversion rate can be increased dramatically by adding videos. There are many advantages to including videos with product descriptions. Potential buyers will be able to get a clearer picture of the product and an understanding of its benefits thanks to this.
Numerous services exist at low costs for buying dropshipping video ads that can be used in product descriptions. Numerous establishments offer a full service, from idea to finished product, including scriptwriting, editing, and production. Sometimes they have a recorded voiceover by an expert.
There’s also the option of making your own videos with the help of editing software. The majority of today’s video editing software is designed with newcomers in mind. In addition, leading video editing platforms like Animoto and FlexClip provide users with access to pre-made, commercial-quality templates designed with e-commerce in mind.
Try live chat software
Adding live chat software to your shop is one of the quickest ways to increase conversions. It’ll let you interact with site visitors in real time and respond to their inquiries as they come up. This is a great chance to promote sales and allay any customer concerns they may have about your products or business.
Put a big button or link to the chat box on your website. It needs to be prominently displayed to new visitors right away. The best way to start a conversation is with a floating widget. You should make yourself as approachable as possible to guests.
The two most well-known live chat programs are Freshdesk and Zendesk. There are many different kinds of software out there, so it’s important to shop around for the one that works best for you.
Use exit popups
When a user clicks the “X” to leave a website, an overlay called a “exit popup” appears. By providing special discounts to customers who are about to leave, they can significantly boost your dropshipping store’s conversion rate.
Exit popups aren’t annoying like regular popup ads, and they don’t distract customers either. As a matter of fact, they have been shown to do more than just boost conversions; they can also help lower your website’s bounce rate.
WooCommerce and Shopify, two popular e-commerce platforms, do not include tools for making an exit popup. This functionality is not native to dropshipping stores, but there are many free third-party apps and plugins that can be easily integrated into your store to provide it.
Add live sales notifications
Real-time alerts on product sales are a cutting-edge tactic for increasing your dropshipping shop’s profitability. In essence, real-time purchase alerts inform site visitors whenever an order is placed on their store. A website’s pop-up notification or scroll bar is typically used for this purpose.
Live sales notifications are especially useful in the e-commerce and drop-shipping industries because they demonstrate the popularity of your products and inspire confidence in your brand among visitors. In addition, they create an atmosphere of urgency, which may prompt site visitors to make a quick purchase.
You can integrate real-time alerts about product sales into your dropshipping shop with a plugin or app for just about any e-commerce platform. You can often modify the look and feel of them to better fit your company’s image.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is a conversion rate?
A website’s conversion rate is the proportion of visitors who go on to complete an intended action, such as making a purchase or signing up for email updates. To determine the conversion rate, multiply the total number of conversions by the total number of visitors.
A website with a conversion rate of 5% would have 1,000 monthly visitors and produce 50 sales. A higher conversion rate is preferable because it indicates that a greater percentage of site visitors are becoming paying customers or subscribers.
What is a good conversion rate for a dropshipping store?
For dropshipping stores, a conversion rate of 3% or higher is considered excellent. However, a dropshipping store that has been professionally designed and optimized for conversions can see rates of 10% or higher.
However, you should remember that each dropshipping store has its own quirks. Your conversion rate will be affected by a number of variables, such as the prices you set, the market you choose to target, and the specific products you offer. Your conversion rate may be lower in highly competitive industries like electronics than in a more narrowly focused one.
What are some other ways to boost the conversion rate of my dropshipping store?
The conversion rate of your dropshipping store can be improved in countless other ways. You can always find new ways to improve your conversion rate, even if you already have thousands of monthly sales and are an established store. The following is a list of additional tips and techniques to think about:
Build your own “about” page. If you don’t already have a ‘about’ page on your dropshipping store, you should create one as soon as possible. The ‘about’ section of your website is where you can tell your brand’s story and win over customers.
Do your best to guarantee your product. Customers will appreciate it if you offer a warranty for damaged or flawed products in addition to a generous return policy.
Employ a magnification tool for the item in question. Were you aware that adding a zoom feature to your products can significantly increase your sales? That’s because it gives your visitors a better look at the products on offer.
Make it possible to create a wish list. By enabling a wishlist, customers will be able to save and track products on your store for later viewing. Products that have been on a customer’s wishlist for an extended period of time can be highlighted in email alerts.
Require email address. If you want to follow up with your website visitors and encourage them to return, you need to collect their email addresses.
Do I need to optimise the conversion rate of my dropshipping store?
If you want to make the most money possible from your dropshipping business, improving your store’s conversion rate is crucial. Getting people to your store is useless if they don’t end up buying something. If you invest in marketing while your store is not generating sales, you could end up losing a lot of money.
Every significant online retailer continuously optimizes and tests their site for maximum conversion. It’s crucial to the success of any dropshipping enterprise. Successful dropshippers, in other words, have the highest conversion rates possible because they have optimized their stores.
How do I increase my conversion rate on marketplaces?
Using keyword-optimized titles and detailed descriptions can help you increase your conversion rate when dropshipping on marketplaces like eBay and Amazon. You can also experiment with different pricing structures to zero in on the sweet spot that brings in the most money.
Making compelling titles and descriptions is the real key to success on marketplaces. You should emphasize the most salient aspects of the products you describe while keeping your descriptions brief. Make sure to include as many product details as possible, especially when selling on eBay.
Final Word
Maintaining a high conversion rate in your dropshipping store takes time and effort, but it is well worth the investment. When they could be learning how to better convert existing visitors, many dropshippers instead focus on growing their traffic.
This list of suggestions should have given you some easy and quick ways to boost our dropshipping store’s conversion rate.
You should give some of the suggestions in this manual a shot. Changing just a few things in your shop will have a surprisingly immediate impact.
