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Increase Ecommerce Conversions

Once you have been able to generate traffic to your site the focus must turn to getting the most out of that traffic. This is done by paying attention to the details of increasing your conversion rate. The more sales you can get from your traffic the more return on investment you will achieve.

Here are 5 things that can help you on your way to increasing your conversion rate for your ecommerce site.


Make Purchase Decisions Easier
It is important to make the decision process for a customer as quick and easy as possible. Your customers will be more likely to purchase a product or service that others have deemed worthy. This can be accomplished by highlighting customer/client testimonials, awards and recognition, product or service reviews, and case studies/success stories. Every company has a slightly different audience, so it's important to know what type of content is most compelling to your prospects.

You can also help the customer with their decision process by providing a "Best Sellers" or "Recommended Items" list on your web site.



Give a little to Get a Little
Creating and deploying web promotions can easily help you increase your ecommerce conversion rate. Offering free shipping, discounts, rebates and contests can help you close more sales with a wider range of customers. Some customers just need that extra little nudge to hit the check out button.

The discounts and promotions can also help you win out when the customer is comparing products on a number of different sites. By offering specials and added savings you keep the customer coming back and give your site more of a chance to convert.

A recent Market report called "The Perfect Shopping Cart" indicates that a whopping 57% of shoppers stop during the buying phase. Why? "I didn't want to pay the shipping charges." The total cost of the purchase was the second most common reason why users aborted the buying process -- 48% of recipients said this was why they failed to complete a purchase.

Tips:
* If possible put the cost of shipping into your product and offer free shipping.
* Show the shipping charge to the customer in as many places as possible.
* Reveal the shipping charge before a product is added to a shopping cart.



Make Sure the Customer Knows They Are Safe
It can come down to a very small detail on why a customer chooses your site over another or another site over yours. You have to make sure that all your ducks are in a row. The security of a site can be a main priority for many shoppers.

If it comes down to the same price, same features, and same shipping, the customer will always choose the site they think is a safer one to interact with.

Make sure to display all security certificates and any warranties or guarantees you are offering throughout the site. Many shoppers abandon the shopping cart if they feel the product won't get to them and that there may not be any recourse.


Be There to Help Close the Deal
Even though ordering over the internet for everything from coffee to plane tickets is becoming common place, some people still need that little bit of human interaction. You can accomplish this very easily today by adding a Push to Chat feature or by the old standard of the Operator Standing by and a toll free number.

Your customer can still complete the order over the internet but they have had a chance to talk to a person about the purchase and now they are ready buy.



Know Where You Stand
To know what your current conversion rate is will be very important to see if any of the tactics above are helping to improve it. This will come down to good web tracking software. The stats programs that your host is providing should work fine for getting the general conversion rate figure going.

To figure your conversion rate simply divide your number of orders by the amount of unique visitors to your site. This can be done on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. I like to do my tracking based on the monthly figures. It gives me a broader view and it is not subject to small peaks and valleys in my traffic.

Once you have this number you should track it on a chart by the time interval you are using so you can easily see the conversion trends. These numbers will become very valuable when looking back at everything from site changes to new promotions you implemented.