Every e-commerce business would indeed love to improve their conversion rates. But trying to do so often seems like something well out of reach, or simply at the whim of the consumer. However, it is always possible to optimise for conversions – and it is often the little things you don’t think about that make the biggest difference.
How to increase the conversion rates of an e-commerce
Here we will take a look at some of the small changes that any e-commerce business can make to their website. There can improve conversion rates, increasing the number of sales, and ultimately profit for your business.
Speed up your site
Page loading speed is utterly crucial to your conversion rate, and it can make an incredible difference to your business. Google considers two seconds as a threshold for e-commerce sites – if your site takes longer than this to load, you risk not only falling foul of the search engine but also alienating customers.
After two seconds, bounce rate jumps to nearly 10 per cent – but crucially this has increased to almost 33 per cent by seven seconds. This means that if your page takes seven seconds to fully load, one-third of your visitors will leave your site. And clearly, customers cannot convert if they aren’t on your site.
Ensure key information stays above the fold
You must keep as much of the key information on the page ‘above the fold’ – in other words ensuring that visitors do not need to scroll on your page to see them. This includes things like add to cart buttons, and calls-to-action – as these can be key drivers of conversions.
Women’s fashion boutique Tina Bucknall Fashion is a great example here. ‘We had always used very large images to show off our products in the best possible light,’ said Tina Bucknall, owner of the business ‘but we realised that the size of the images was pushing information down the page, making it more difficult to see. A re-design of the page slightly reduced the image size and improved visibility of important information – it’s worked wonders on our site’.
Offer customers more ways to talk
Sometimes all it takes to make a sale is reassuring a potential customer with information – so it is a really good idea to offer as many contact options as possible for someone visiting your site. Live chat is fast becoming a preferred option for those who don’t want to wait on hold, or for an email reply.
Take a look at how web store building platform Shopify offers a wide range of contact options for customers that need issues dealt with. Live chat is highlighted with the fastest response time, but customers can also opt for email communication, Twitter messages, or over the phone.
Improve your copywriting
It is well known that copying and pasting content from another site and using it on yours is an SEO no-no – so if you are still using manufacturer-supplied text on your product pages then you should change this as a matter of priority. But the truth is that even if you have unique content on your site, it may well be the case that this could do with some improvement.
Your content is your chance to sell the benefits of making the purchase, so it must show your products in the best possible light. It is a great idea to create different versions of the content and then A/B test them so that you can establish which version works most effectively.
Allow guest checkout
Interestingly, research around what causes customers to abandon their shopping cart revealed that 23 per cent of those abandonments were a result of the customer being forced to make an account to purchase.
Yes, it may be important to get the details of customers as a part of your future marketing strategy and encouraging repeat business – but it doesn’t make sense to lose real sales in the pursuit of a later marketing strategy. Make sure that you are giving your customers the option to checkout as a ‘guest’; you can always pursue them to make an account at a later date.
Print on Demand
Here at Printsome, we’ve always supported creative endeavours which is why we’re proud to announce our brand new ‘print on demand’ service.
Thanks to our five years of experience in the apparel-printing industry, we were able to design a platform catered towards the needs of artists and designers who want to start their own T-shirt line. Printsome’s ‘Print on demand’ service has no minimum orders and can print any design with no colour limitations.
From the moment you connect your online shop (like Shopify) with our platform, anyone can buy one of your designs. We deliver all over the UK, Europe and the rest of the world. Drop shipping has never been this easy.
Why worry about inventory or logistics when we can take care of that? We deal with the boring stuff so you have more time to do what you love. To find out more, simply visit our brand new website.
