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 be down to a
very small detail on why a customer chooses your site
over another or another over you. You have to make sure
that all your ducks are in a row. The security of a
site can be a main priority for most shoppers.
If it comes down to the same price, same features, 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, 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.
Gives me a broad 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.
Over the long haul these numbers will become very valuable
when looking back at everything from site changes to
new promotions you implemented.
Good luck with increasing your
ecommerce conversion rates and lets us know here at
JJCo if you need any help putting together the perfect
ecommerce solution
for your business.
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