The average eCommerce conversion rate for any business is 2-3%. With billions of websites competing for customers’ attention, you need robust conversion rate optimization strategies to stand out and attract customers to your online store.
This blog discusses in detail the tried and tested tips and tricks that you can employ to achieve a conversion rate more than the average. But before that, let’s understand what’s keeping your customers away from converting.
Reasons Why Your eCommerce Conversion Rate is Low?
There could be multiple reasons because of which you are observing low conversion rates. Take a look if your business is engaged in any of the following:
- Your website is not appealing
- Searching for a product takes longer than expected
- Your website is not secured
- You are not promoting or retargeting on other channels
- You have limited products/categories
- You are not offering customer assistance
- Your call-to-action buttons are not clear
- Your website is not mobile-friendly
These could be some of the reasons why you are encountering a low eCommerce conversion rate. If you feel any of these could be a reason for your business’ slow growth, find out how you can optimize the conversion rate of your eCommerce website.
How to Increase your eCommerce Conversion Rate?
The conversion rate is impacted by multiple factors such as slow website loading, unorganized categories, and complicated checkout process. You need to understand your customers’ psychology and provide a holistic satisfactory experience to them in order to achieve the desired outcome.
1. Improve your website’s loading time
Customers want instant gratification. They hate to wait. A slow-loading website can annoy customers and take them away from the website.
Check the speed of your website on a website speed checker like Google PageSpeed Insights. If your website’s loading speed is slow (more than 2 seconds), this might be a reason for a slow conversion rate.
Improving the website loading speed by a few seconds can boost your conversion rates.
2. Permit shopping via social media
Social media advertising is popular and it is here to stay. So if you are not offering products on social media, you might be losing on almost half of your potential customers.
Social media advertising makes even more sense if you have an eCommerce business of jewelry, apparel, or any such product that requires a visual presentation.
Since customers spend a lot of their time on channels like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube etc., you should aggressively use conversion rate optimization strategies on these channels and increase your sales.
Your social media pages should be designed in such a way that it’s easier for our customers to shop. A complicated shopping experience on social media can affect your brand negatively.
3. Provide smooth navigation
Your company’s website reflects your business and your products and services. It is a platform by which people learn about your products and understand them in detail.
Therefore, in order to increase the eCommerce conversion rate of your store, it is important to provide easy and quick navigation to customers. They should be able to find the right products in the minimum time.
One way to facilitate this is to categorize your products in a proper order. For instance, if you own an apparel store, men’s and women’s wear categories should be clear and different. These categories should be further divided into subcategories such as formal wear, summer wear, traditional wear etc.
Your customers will leave your website if it is not self-explanatory and products are hard to find. Keeping a search bar at the top of the website makes the search of the desired products easier for customers.
4. Offer persuasive design and content
First impression is the last impression. Your website’s first look and design is the initial impression your business makes on the customers and significantly influences their purchase decision.
Therefore, one of the best tips for eCommerce conversion rate optimization is to make your website visually appealing and influential. A website with a neat and persuasive design and content can attract and keep the customers engaged.
In a nutshell, the design and content need to reflect the brand value you want to highlight to your customers.
5. Make your eCommerce website secure
The first thing that should come to your mind while you try to answer how to increase your eCommerce conversion rate is website security.
You need to ensure your customers that your website is safe and secure to use. With a number of online hackers and fraudsters, you need to double check the security of your website and ensure there is no data breach.
Keeping your website secure can help boost your revenue and sales. If you haven’t done that yet, migrate from HTTP to HTTPS. Ensure a proper traffic plan and search engine rankings in the security process.
6. Offer multiple payment methods and delivery options
Did you know that more than half of your customers abandon their shopping carts at the last stage of the purchase journey?
Yes, we are talking about the checkout stage. A smooth checkout process with multiple payment options and desired delivery speed is a great way to boost eCommerce conversion rate.
With limited payment options, you might be limiting your profits.
When it comes to shipping, same-day and next-day shipping is now a common practice. So if you have yet not adopted it and are still providing 6-7 days shipping speed, you might be losing on sales.
7. Provide live chat support
Customer support is one of the essential aspects of online shopping. It increases the chances of customers buying the products without any doubts or second-thoughts.
Live customer support can be helpful to retain customers who have doubts about the product, delivery timeline, payment method etc. For instance, if a customer is buying a product and has some queries after adding it to the cart, he can instantly ask questions on the live chat and get answers. This will help increase his trust in the business and create a positive brand experience for him.
Such tips for eCommerce conversion rate are sure shot to boost your business profitability.
8. Offer multiple discounts
Who doesn’t love discounts! Any customer shopping online or offline loves it when he gets offers and discounts on the purchase.
Providing customers with attractive offers and discounts increases the chances of them buying your products. In fact, sometimes customers buy products just for the sake of huge discounts.
Adding conditions such as ‘limited period only,’ or ‘first come, first serve’ to your sale is one of the most successful conversion rate optimization strategies.
9. Be descriptive about your products
It’s not uncommon for you to want your regular and upcoming customers to feel that doing business with you is reliable and comfortable. The solution to this lies in keeping them “in the know” in many regards.
Detailed product descriptions are a must to let people know about your products. Since your recurring customers cannot see your products physically before they purchase them, it’s your responsibility to use your product descriptions to attract them by providing maximum information about the product.
Informative descriptions should include the material used, size, MRP, shipping charges etc. Remember, your product descriptions have huge potential to make or break our sales.
10. Use customer testimonials
Adding genuine reviews about your products helps prospective buyers make the purchase decision. Reviews with images and videos are the best to increase your eCommerce conversion rate.
The reviews testify that your product fulfills what it promises. This generates trust in your brand.
While allowing users to review your product, beware of fake reviews by competitors. This can hamper your conversion rate drastically. On the other hand, negative reviews which are put up by genuine customers should also be included on your website with a proactive response to them. You should provide a quick resolution to such customers in the review revert.
This awares new customers about the professionalism of your business.
What are the Best Tools to Improve eCommerce Conversion Rate?
There are various tools to help improve the eCommerce conversion rate. Some of them are listed below:
- Google Analytics: You can use this for unified sessions/signals, goal, and event tracking.
- Hot Jar: This is used to get the functionality of click, cursor movement, and scroll-depth mapping.
- Wishpond: You can leverage it for increased lead generation and automation.
- SerpStat: Utilize this for SEO and website optimisation research.
- Canva: This is usually used for creating compelling visuals.
- MailChimp: It is used for the creation of impactful emails.
Conclusion
The digital era has increased the number of customers shopping online. It has also increased the number of businesses that compete for these customers’ attention. Various tips and tricks such as listed above help you to increase eCommerce conversion rate.
An increased conversion rate is the way forward for improved sales and revenue.
