Opening and running an online store is not an easy task. You can’t just open your store and hope that people will come. To be successful, you need to do what you can to make it happen. Different things affect the success of eCommerce. The rate at which people buy things online is a big factor.
First, let’s answer two essential questions:
What is a conversion rate for an online store?
How do you figure out the conversion rate for eCommerce?
The eCommerce conversion rate is the number of visits divided by the number of sales. This is shown as a percentage.
To put it another way, to figure out your store’s conversion rate for a certain time frame, you need to divide the number of conversions by the total number of visitors to your store during that time frame. Then you need to add 100% to it. Let’s say that 45,450 people came to your store last month and 1,300 of them bought something. 2.8% of what you try to sell ends up being sold.
Now that we’ve talked more about “what is conversion rate and how to figure it out,” we can talk about another important part of eCommerce conversion rate. That is “how to increase the number of sales in your online store”?
These tips will help you increase the number of people who buy from your eCommerce site.
Make an easy online store.
A design that is hard to use is one of the first things that makes people leave an online store right away. In reality, making a very simple online store with just the basics is one of the most important things you can do to boost your conversion rate.
Customers don’t want to look around when they shop online. Instead, they want to quickly find the right product and buy it. Today, you can choose from different eCommerce platforms to make a simple online store that will help you increase your eCommerce conversion rate.
Put fair prices on your products
No matter what your products are or how good they are, you should never raise the prices of them just to make more money. It would be a mistake that couldn’t be fixed. If you try to compete with your competitors and change the prices of your products, you can be sure that your potential customers will go to their online stores.
Customers will trust you more and want to come back to your store if your prices are fair and consistent. Your eCommerce conversion rate will go up if you run your online store in a way that builds trust and is fair.
Offer limited-time coupon codes
In addition to discounts, offering coupon codes is another way to get more customers and increase your conversion rate. These should only be good for a certain amount of time and be used by the customer himself.
Coupon codes are shown to get people to come back to your store and buy something else.
Make sure the checkout goes well.
When your customers have to go through a complicated checkout process with too many steps, it can be very discouraging and cause a lot of carts to be left empty. When planning this part of your online store, make sure to put yourself in the shoes of your customers. You wouldn’t want to go through hundreds of steps you don’t need to get to the end of your checkout, would you?
Instead of doing this, you should focus on giving your customers a pleasant and easy shopping experience. This should involve a quick and easy checkout process that doesn’t cause you to lose potential buyers.
Offer shipping with tracking
When people talk about shipping, they feel more at ease if their package is shipped and delivered quickly and safely. Also, if they have to pay a good amount for shipping, they want to know where their package is at all times. If your shipping service is great, your customers will definitely want to buy from you again.
Tracked shipping isn’t just a good idea for your customers; it’s also a good idea for you. With it, you can not only increase the number of people who buy from your eCommerce site, but you can also save time and energy that you would have spent looking for lost packages.
Give special discounts
It’s always a good idea to offer discounts. No one hurt the reputation of its brand by giving its customers discounts. On the other hand, it has been shown that discounts, especially ones that are tailored to each customer, increase conversion rates. If people tell you their birthday when they sign up, you can give them a special discount before their birthday as a surprise.
Also, your customers will expect discounts and deals on Black Friday, the anniversary of your brand, and other special days. If you don’t do what you say you’re going to do, your customers might be upset and decide to buy from your competitors instead.
Test with A/B
A/B testing is a well-known and common way to improve the rate of sales in eCommerce. Many owners of online stores use A/B testing to find out what kind of design, content, calls to action (CTAs), and other things shoppers like best.
To point out, the practise of A/B testing should be performed regularly. You shouldn’t just do it once and then forget about it. If you want your eCommerce conversion rate to be good over time, you should run A/B tests on different pages of your store often.
Help people decide to buy
Customers often put hundreds or even thousands of dollars worth of items in their shopping carts but don’t finish the transaction. There are many reasons why someone might do this. You can blame it on a slow Internet connection, a power outage, other things going on at work or at home, or anything else.
If there isn’t an option to “add items to wishlist,” people will sometimes just put the things they like in their shopping cart and leave the store. Some of them may come back later to decide what to buy and finish the deal, but most won’t. For the latter, email marketing could be the best way to reach them. Send them emails every so often to get them to come back and look at what they’ve put in their shopping cart.
Improve past experiences
Even if your business gets off to a good start and your conversion rate is good, things can go wrong in a flash. How is this even possible, you might ask? Very easy. If a customer buys something from your online store but never comes back, it’s likely because of something wrong with your products or service. So, how do we find these experiences and make them better?
You can ask your customers to fill out a survey about their experience with your product as soon as they get it. If you let them talk about their experience, you could get a better idea of how they felt about your brand. These kinds of polls can also help you figure out what parts of your services need to be improved. Overall, if you want to improve your eCommerce conversion rate, you need to provide excellent customer service.
Make the store better organised.
Your eCommerce conversion rate can naturally go up if your site is well-organized. If your products and services are easy to find on your website, it’s much more likely that a visitor will become a paying customer.
Spend more time and energy making sure the store is well organised, from how the products are set up to how the checkout process works. In the end, it will be worth it because this step will help you give your customers a smooth and uninterrupted shopping experience.
Let people shop in your online store as “guests”
You have to agree that it’s a huge pain to have to sign up for an account on every single online store you buy things from. Imagine having to remember so many usernames and passwords. Not to mention all the emails you would get every day if you were automatically signed up for the newsletters of all of these stores.
One solution you should think about is letting your customers buy things as “guests” in your store. It is something simple that would make their lives easier. If they like your products and services in the long run, they will sign up for your website on their own. Even if they decide to keep shopping as guests, you have nothing to lose. To be clear, you would still need their name and email address if you wanted to get in touch with them about their order.
It’s not a good idea to hide shipping costs until the end of the buying process. The best thing to do is to show all costs at all times, like in the shopping cart or somewhere else on the screen. In particular, customers don’t like it when unexpected costs pop up at the end of the payment process. If you let this happen, you will end up with a lot of shopping carts that have been left behind.
Make sure that all the costs associated with your services and products are clear from the start of the buying process. This way, your customers can see a complete list of all fees, and you can avoid bad experiences that could lead to a lower conversion rate.
Add evidence from the public
Social proofs are the way to go if you want to boost the credibility of your brand. In other words, reviews and testimonials are a powerful way to bring in new customers. When people go to a new store, they usually look for signs that the goods are good. Think about how your customers see things. Would you buy something you didn’t know much about online?
Shopping online can be risky, so people will always want to know that the products they buy are good quality. If you don’t, you could lose good customers. Make sure you have a place where people can say what they really think about your products. If you sell high-quality items, you will get 5-star reviews and your conversion rate will go up.
Provide multiple payment methods
When it comes to ways to pay, it’s best for everyone if there are more than one option. The whole world is your market, and people from every continent and country could buy from you. Setting up multiple ways to pay is easy and will help your business make money. In other words, it will improve your eCommerce conversion rate for sure.
Usually, each customer uses the payment method that is common in their area. On the other hand, older customers don’t really trust new services like PayPal, Skrill, Payoneer, etc. that are more modern. They prefer to use their own credit cards instead, as long as your website has an SSL certificate. Still, everyone pays the same way online, so make sure that no one is confused and that the steps are clear.
Provide live chat support
Your eCommerce business can fail if you don’t have a helpful live chat. Having live chat support available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week is a great way to boost your conversion rate for one main reason.
When people are in the middle of making a purchase and run into a problem, they would try to get in touch with you right away. Live chat support is the best way to get the problem fixed as soon as possible. If you don’t, they’ll have to stop what they’re doing and send you an email or fill out a form, which takes time. Instead, make sure to provide immediate help so that your customers can finish buying right away.
Make sure your shop is safe.
Building trust through your store is another way to get more people to buy from you. When people come to your store, if they feel like your security isn’t very good, they won’t buy anything right away.
Improving the credibility of your store is a must if you want your eCommerce conversion rate to go up. People who come to your store would feel more comfortable buying your goods if they thought their personal information was safe.
Optimize your product images and descriptions
When people shop online, they get frustrated by the fact that they can’t see pictures or read about the products.
If your product pages aren’t good enough, people might doubt your brand’s reliability and leave your store without buying anything. This could make it much harder for people to buy from you online. The more pictures and information you have about your products in your store, the more likely it is that people will buy them.
A good way to describe a product is to say how big it is, what colour it is, and what it is made of. Images of the product taken from different angles show it perfectly, so shoppers can see the labels, models, and other important details. This is also good for SEO, since customers are more likely to find you if they “Google” the right words.
Provide an easy way to return items
When you shop online, returns are one of the most frustrating things. Unless they are free, you may see a big drop in the number of people who buy from your eCommerce site. A recent study showed that, in fact, return policies can lead to more sales. This should be enough of a sign to change the rules about returns.
If you can’t make the returns free, make it easier for them at least. Make sure to give customers plenty of time to send back the product, because the study above says that they will eventually give up and keep it.
Give out useful information about your products.
Today, the eCommerce business is about more than just selling good products. It’s also important to give people who visit your website useful information about your industry. Your eCommerce conversion rate will go up if you offer this kind of content.
Suppose you have an online store where you sell clothes made from eco-friendly materials. A lot of people don’t know much about what makes clothes sustainable. Because of this, they will find it very helpful if you tell them more about the subject. By sharing this content through different channels, you will not only get people to visit your website, but you will also turn them into customers who buy from you.
Include CTAs on your product pages
CTA, which stands for “call to action,” is a well-known way to get website visitors to do something. CTAs are used a lot in all industries, including eCommerce, to improve conversion rates. When it comes to CTAs in an online store, these are great for a few reasons.
First, adding CTAs like “add to wishlist” or “notify me when it’s in stock” can really help your customers. Sometimes they really want to buy a certain product, and a CTA button that lets them ask to be notified when the product is back in stock is a big help. When they aren’t sure what they want, your CTAs can push them to choose between a dress or pants. Second, CTAs like “add to cart” and “buy now” are a natural part of online shopping, and you can’t do without them.
Optimize your store for mobile
As technology improves, more and more people use their phones and tablets for all kinds of things, like shopping online. People are always on their phones, even when they are doing things like travelling, lying on the beach, or just relaxing at home.
Think about how many people in these situations are looking for something to do, and how most of them choose to buy something on their phones. In other words, you have to make sure that your online store is mobile-friendly. If you don’t do it, your conversion rate will go down.
Add a FAQs page
Yet another crucial element your customers will appreciate to see included in your store. You must create a page dedicated to FAQs, where you will answer the most common customer questions related to orders, billing, shipping, and returns. Not only will it save you time and money, but it will also increase the number of people who buy from you.
If a customer is in the middle of buying something and has a question, the first thing they will do is look for a list of frequently asked questions (FAQs). If your store is lacking this page, it is most likely that your potential customer will leave your store.
Include products recommendations
Giving product suggestions to your visitors is a fun way to increase the number of people who buy from you. What’s going on? Let’s say a customer wants to buy a black maxi dress, but the one she wants is sold out. She will, of course, leave your store. But what if you tell them about other products that are similar? This method could really help you boost your sales and increase the number of people who buy from you online.
But be careful. Your suggestions must match the product that your customer wants. You wouldn’t tell someone to buy a red T-shirt if they wanted a black dress. To put it another way, if you spam your customers with suggestions for products that have nothing to do with each other, they may never come back to your store again.
Use niche keywords to improve your store.
Keyword optimization is another thing that can help you increase your conversion rate. Getting your business to the top of search engine results is possible if you optimise your website for niche keywords. In other words, if you want more people to come to your store, you need to get noticed first.
Start by researching keywords in your niche and deciding which ones you want to rank for. If you do this, your conversion rate will start going up after a while.
Make a customer loyalty programme.
How well you treat your customers is a big part of how well you can run and manage an online store. If you have a low conversion rate and customers don’t come back, you should definitely change your story. Most eCommerce businesses have a loyalty programme for customers who keep coming back.
When you see that a customer comes back to your store once or twice a month, give them a free product or a discount. If you work harder to build strong relationships with your customers, you’ll see that your conversion rate goes up.
Spend money on optimising language
If you want to grow your eCommerce business around the world, you should find more ways to increase your conversion rate. “You should speak your customer’s language” is a common saying. Right away, you need to make sure that your store is set up to work with different target languages.
Say Spain is one of the countries you want to sell to. If your website doesn’t support the Spanish language, people from Spain who might want to buy from you will probably go somewhere else. The same is true for countries where English is not spoken. In the end, it’s better if you optimise your store for as many languages as possible. Over time, you’ll be able to see how your eCommerce conversion rate is getting better.
Social media marketing should be done as soon as your online store is up and running. Some people think that social media doesn’t have much of an impact on conversion rates, but they are wrong. You can get people to come to your store by advertising new products, sales, or other special events on social media.
As soon as you start getting more people to follow you on social media, your conversion rate will start to go up.
Include a product guarantee
More and more fake goods are being sold on the internet today. This is why people are getting pickier when they shop online. You’ll need to show your customers that the products you sell are real if you want them to trust you and, as a result, buy from you.
The best way to show that your products are real is to offer a guarantee. Your customers will be happy to get this guarantee, and they will also trust you more and be sure to shop at your store again.
Spend money on advertising
You shouldn’t just use ways to get people to visit your site naturally if you want to improve your conversion rate. Advertising that is paid for is also an important part of the process. But when you first start with paid advertising, you need to be careful so you don’t waste money.
The most important thing is to come up with a good plan that can lead to a good result. If you want to turn your visitors into paying customers, you might want to think about putting some money into Google ads or ads on social media sites.
Create product videos
What is the most eye-catching way to show off the good things about your products? Videos have an effect on the digital world that can’t be compared to anything else. To explain, if you want to get a visitor to buy something, you shouldn’t overlook the power of making videos.
There are many benefits to adding videos to your product pages. First, you can show people how to use your products with videos. Second, you can get a better look at the patterns, colours, styles, etc. of your products.
Join groups and forums for your industry
Every online store owner should keep up with the latest news and trends in their industry. If you are not already part of communities and forums in your niche, you should know what you are missing out on. First of all, your competitors are definitely already doing these things.
Second, these are places where people who might buy from you online hang out and talk about their online shopping experiences. This can help you figure out what they want and what’s important to them. Understanding what your customers want and need will help you improve your services and, in the end, increase the number of people who buy from your eCommerce site.
Ask your customers to send you pictures of your products.
What people love about something is a real sign of how great it is. When someone raves about a product on social media, a lot of people go to that online store. Use this to your advantage and ask happy customers to tell others about their experiences with your products. This will help you increase the number of people who buy from you online. Or, if someone does it on their own, send them a small gift as a sign of your appreciation.
Talk to niche influencers.
In the eCommerce industry, influencer marketing is becoming the most popular trend. Online store owners are reaching out to people with a lot of followers on social media or forums who can promote their brands and bring in new customers. Adding this to your marketing plan can help you increase the number of people who buy from your eCommerce site.
When it comes to marketing with influencers, it’s important to make sure you choose the right ones. There are now thousands of people with a lot of influence on the internet, but you’ll only want to work with those who fit with your brand and goals. Once you find them, talk to them and build a relationship with them that will help your business grow.
Never stop
The last thing we can tell you to do to improve your eCommerce conversion rate is to keep doing all of the things we’ve already told you. When you reach a point where you are happy with your conversion rate, don’t stop doing the things that helped you get there. To keep your place on the market, it’s most important to do them regularly.
Conclusion
In the end, it’s very important to give your customers the freedom to choose what they want to do. This means letting them look through your products, figure out how much they’ll cost, pay with any method they want, and of course, be fully aware of the costs and fees.
It is easy to get the eCommerce conversion rate you want if you treat your customers with integrity, honesty, and appreciation. No matter what, it’s great to give someone choices.
