When you launch an online business, the first thing anybody expects is a good eCommerce conversion rate. After all, it indicates if the customers who are turning up at your online store are buying something or not.
If your conversion rate is low, you need to sit back and introspect about what is putting your prospective buyers off and what are the different ways of conversion rate optimization.
We work with a multitude of eCommerce businesses and have shaped a lot of successful online businesses across industries. Over the years, our experts have learned a few proven conversion rate optimization techniques that have shown measurable results.
In this blog, we give you a sneak peek into their expertise to help you improve the eCommerce conversion rate of your online store.
Let’s have a quick look at the basics first –
So, what exactly is the eCommerce conversion rate?
Imagine you have a physical store and it has great footfall. But, most of these people take a stroll around the store, check out a few items, and leave without purchasing anything.
This means that your store is attractive enough to attract leads but not “convert” them into happy customers. That is what conversion rate is all about.
To put it in the context of online business, the eCommerce conversion rate is the percentage of eCommerce website visitors who completed a transaction or made a final purchase during a defined period.
If an eCommerce store had 100,000 visitors in August and out of them, 2,000 visitors purchased an item, then the eCommerce conversion rate would be – 2,000/100,000 = 2%.
The lower the conversion rate, the more alarming it is for your eCommerce business. It indicates that there’s something about your online store that puts off buyers who probably found your products interesting but decided against it – usually due to poor user experience.
Thus, it is important to have a plan for eCommerce conversion tracking so that you know when to reinvent your strategy and induce some fresh blood in your online store.
Quick Fact: The average eCommerce conversion rate falls between 1% to 4%. It usually differs based on industry, country, and products; but, anything above 2% is considered good.
5 proven eCommerce conversion rate optimization tips to transform your business
- Let pictures do the talking: The images and videos that you upload are the first impression of your business. They should be high-quality and eye-catching.
In addition to that, they must also give the customer an idea about how a product would look in reality without professional styling.
Thus, try getting them clicked in natural light and against a neutral background so that the details are clear. Having a good quality video along with a clear product description would be a cherry on the top! - Make mobile optimization your priority: By the time 2021 ends, worldwide sales of mobile commerce is likely to reach 72.9% of the total eCommerce market. So, if your eCommerce site is not optimized for mobile, you will lose out on eCommerce conversion and sales.
If you have not launched your online store yet, it would be better to ask your app development team to develop a mobile-responsive solution. If you already have an online store, you can always contact experts to get it optimized.
Pro tip: Migrate to Magento or explore Salesforce Commerce Cloud – these two platforms enable responsiveness and have other powerful features that have a positive impact on eCommerce sales conversion.
- Get to know your eCommerce conversion funnel: An eCommerce conversion funnel shows a user’s journey from first discovering your products to finally making a final purchase.
Today, customer journeys are complex and unpredictable. It is essential to understand them for eCommerce conversion rate optimization. If you know the touchpoints that attract customers and those that they bounce from, you have won half the battle!
Now, you only have to leverage the favorable points in your funnel and optimize the weaker ones!
For example – if you notice that customers reach upto your checkout page and leave the transaction from then on, you have to reassess that page. Maybe the checkout process is too lengthy or complex, or there’re not enough payment options. All you need to do is find out the loopholes and optimize the page for better conversion.
- eCommerce landing page conversion: As we stress time and again, first impressions are important, and hence, landing pages play a vital role in eCommerce conversion optimization.
Before you go “but why do I need a separate landing page when I have proper product description pages?” and roll your eyes, we have an interesting eCommerce conversion rate statistics to share with you.
Those who land on a product page are 72% more likely to bounce than those who stumble upon a landing page. This happens because landing pages have clear CTAs, no additional information or intruding pop-ups, and address a customer’s need in a direct manner.
eCommerce landing pages are especially useful when you have ads or promotional campaigns running for a certain period. Creating a landing page for offers an not only improve but also accelerate conversion rate.
- Simplify your return/exchange policy: We know that product returns do not ring a happy bell in your head but they matter a lot to the customers. Research even concluded that 68% of online shoppers read the return policy before making a purchase.
What this means is that you need a customer-friendly return policy – don’t make big promises here but let them know that if they want to return the product, the process will be hassle-free.
Final Take:
Monitoring conversion rate optimization can do wonders for your eCommerce solution. Just like any other form of business, market trends and customer preferences change over time in eCommerce too. Hence, it is important to keep revisiting your online store and optimizing it so that it remains relevant to visitors and can convert them.
If you are thinking about what type of conversion rate optimization UK can offer, we suggest you check out our digital commerce services.
If you are thinking, how online stores manage conversion rate optimization in the UK, we suggest you connect with our expert.
