You’ve got a great product that people will love, an eCommerce platform to sell it on, and you even have lots of traffic coming to your site.
Now, all you have to do is wait for the purchases to start rolling in. Right?
Not quite.
Having a great product and lots of visitors to your site isn’t enough. You’ve got to follow through by actively converting these visitors into customers.
We all know the importance of having a high conversion rate. But how can you boost yours?
Here are 5 changes you can make right now to boost your eCommerce conversion rate.
1. Add Pictures of Your Products
Online shopping is convenient, but it comes with its fair share of downsides. One of the most obvious is that you can’t hold products or see them up close before buying them.
Consumers want to be familiar with your product. They should have a good idea of what it looks like, whether or not it’s high-quality, etc. If they don’t know exactly what they’re buying, they’ll probably look elsewhere.
So, make sure you have pictures of your products on your site. The pictures shouldn’t just be crystal clear and professional-looking. They should help your customer get to know your product.
Here are some tips:
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- Include multiple images. Be sure to capture your product from all angles.
- Make the images zoomable. Provide a high-definition image that conveys the texture.
- Use models. Showcase pictures of someone using or wearing the product.
Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words. And these thousand words might be enough to get your visitors to click “Buy.”
2. Streamline the Checkout Process
Your checkout process shouldn’t be confusing. The last thing you want is for your customers to get frustrated and bounce before buying.
Some ways you can streamline the checkout process include:
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- Providing one-click buying. Amazon is famous for its one-click buying option. Users can quickly purchase products using the info that they’ve already entered. Luckily, many eCommerce platforms allow you to offer one-click buying to your customers.
- Don’t ask for too much info. Consumers are usually in a hurry. Make the checkout process quicker by limiting the amount of info they have to type. For instance, when you ask for their address, ask for the zip code first. You can program your eCommerce site to autofill the country, state, and city based on the zip code the consumer provides.
- Add a progress bar. A progress bar lets your customer know that they’re almost done, making them more likely to finish the checkout process!
3. Quell Your Customers’ Doubts
Consumers don’t want to give their credit card info to just anyone. Especially if they’re new to your business, they’re bound to have doubts.
If you don’t quell consumers’ doubts, they’ll hesitate to buy from you. Put them at ease through actions such as:
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- Emphasizing your return policy at checkout
- Displaying a security badge from companies like McAfee or GeoTrust
- Installing SSL
- Providing live customer support or answering FAQs
- Displaying customer reviews that hype up your products
4. Make Choices Easier
Many eCommerce stores sell several variations of the same product. It’s good to offer choices, but too many options can overwhelm customers.
Consider offering a little guidance. This will make customers more likely to click buy, and you’ll sell more of the item you want to sell.
At Convertica, we demonstrated this principle through our work with a supplement company. When customers go to buy a probiotic, the supplement company gives them three options: “Buy 1-2,” “Buy 3 or more,” or “Auto-Ship.”
To increase the “Auto-Ship” conversions, we made the “Best Value” banner more obvious and emphasized that there’s always free shipping. This made the auto-ship option much more appealing, so much so that auto-ship subscriptions increased by 41.5%.
5. Include Free Shipping
Imagine this scenario:
A visitor likes what you have to offer. They browse your site and even add a few items to their cart. But when they go to checkout, they notice there’s a $9.99 shipping and handling fee. This charge pushes them over what they thought they were going to spend. They end up abandoning their cart.
While you could get away with charging extra in the past, free shipping is essential today. And, it’s valuable to consumers; 75% of customers expect free shipping. So, if you don’t offer it, they’re bound to find another company that does.
