Let’s start with a simple fact – there are nearly 47 billion websites in this world right now.
Yup! You read that right – 47 BILLION!
And although e-commerce websites are just a small portion of it, the world has 24 million e-commerce websites, which is increasing every year. Unfortunately, according to a survey by Marketing Signals, nearly 90% of e-commerce businesses fail within 120 days of their establishment.
A majority of those sites don’t even make $1,000 in their whole lifetime before shutting down.
There are less than 7,00,000 e-commerce sites that actually made more than $1 million in worldwide sales. And the average conversion rate is around 2% – 3%.
So, what’s the number #1 reason for the failure of these e-commerce sites? It’s the lack of sales and poor conversion rates .
Clearly, to succeed in the e-commerce space, your website needs to improve its conversion rate and get more sales. But how would you do that?
Let’s find out!
Optimize Your Website for Mobile Devices
Ever since Google introduced mobile-first indexing, optimizing websites for mobile has become one of the top priorities of many website owners. And that’s even more true for e-commerce websites.
After all, if you do not optimize your online store for mobile devices, the website’s Google rankings will be negatively affected. Plus, mobile users will find it hard to navigate your online store on their smartphones and tablets.
This will result in less traffic in your online store, leading to a sharp drop in its e-commerce conversion rate .
Now, we have one very important question – how can we optimize our websites for mobile devices?
Well, for starters, try using your website on your mobile and check if everything is working fine. You can also use Google’s free mobile testing tool to see if your e-commerce website has been optimized for mobile.
Here, you will get multiple tips to make your site mobile-friendly.
You can also try switching your website’s theme to a mobile-friendly one. Switching your online store to e-commerce platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Wix, and others while using a mobile-friendly e-commerce theme can also do the trick.
You can also hire a developer and mobile optimization expert to make sure the website is mobile-friendly with ease. Your efforts will definitely pay off, and your conversion rate will improve.
Use High-quality Product Images and Description
People who buy products online are unable to engage with the merchandise or consult a sales representative about the product specifications. So, how else are they going to know what they’re getting?
The solution is actually quite simple: high-quality product photos, videos, and detailed product descriptions.
Because customers cannot physically see or touch the product, high-quality product photos and well-written product descriptions assist them in making final purchase decisions.
Do you have a clothing store? Include the sizes, dimensions, texture, and material information. If you offer skincare products, don’t forget to include a list of the ingredients and usage instructions for your buyers. Selling watches? Give clear details about their strap material, type of dials, and other inner workings.
Clearly written and concise product descriptions and clear product photographs can assist your customers in learning more about your product.
This will improve your website’s conversion rate by a huge margin.
Offer Multiple Payment Options
Some people just don’t trust online stores enough to pay for their purchases using their credit or debit card. This is especially true in countries like India, where people prefer UPI or cash-on-delivery options more than entering their credit or debit card details. And that’s true even for first-world countries like the US, where many people use credit cards to purchase things online.
In fact, according to a survey, 44% of US online shoppers admitted that they would prefer to pay using PayPal instead of a credit card online.
That’s because PayPal provides multiple fraud-prevention measures, which are several times better than credit cards.
Even in India, the majority of people prefer to pay via the cash-on-delivery option. Others settle for UPI, payment wallets, or other options. Heck, you can even try cryptocurrency.
So, if you want to increase the conversion rate of your digital marketing campaigns, make sure you offer multiple payment options. Don’t just stick to the cards. You must offer enough payment methods to accommodate the majority of online shoppers.
Streamline the Checkout Process
Before we start offering any solution, let us tell you one thing – offer an option for guest checkout in your online store.
Sure, getting more registered customers is a good thing, and you should strive to get more people registered. However, as more and more people are looking for a quick and hassle-free purchase over their phones, forcing them to register can backfire instead.
After all, sometimes, they just want to buy that cool $25 t-shirt from your site real quick.
In fact, over 33% of online shoppers abandoned their carts because there was no guest checkout option or the checkout process had other complications.
The lesson – you must not force customers to register to buy something from your online store.
Make sure your e-commerce store offers a smooth checkout process that doesn’t require visitors to register in order to make a purchase. Take out all the unnecessary steps from the checkout process to increase the e-commerce conversion rate.
Provide Customer Reviews
If people buy and enjoy your products, you must do your best to let others know about them. Why? That’s because people are more likely to buy products that others are already using, enjoying, and benefitting from.
Most online shoppers look for user reviews and testimonials. And they trust them. In fact, nearly 92% of online shoppers admitted that they read online reviews to make their purchase decisions.
And what’s more, nearly 88% of all online shoppers even trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
So, if you want to get more sales and increase your online store’s conversion rate, don’t forget to show customers reviews for your products.
Offer Special Promotions That Uses Scarcity and Value
Special promotions that use scarcity and value are pretty effective in getting more people to purchase your products. These kinds of promotions create a sense of urgency in the prospective customers and urge them to close the deal as soon as possible.
For example, one online store has done A/B testing to figure out which promotion works best for its website.
On landing page #1, they just clearly mentioned their product and its features and added a huge discount.
On landing page #2, they added the same product, features, and the same amount of discount with a little extra twist. On this page, they added a live countdown timer to show how long the discount is valid. Plus, they also told the customers how many products they had left in their inventory and how many they had sold already.
The winner?
Obviously, the landing page #2. And that too by a large margin.
They created a promotion based on value and urgency, which skyrocketed their sales. And you can do it too. You can add promotions like time-bound shipping, limited-period deals, or anything else to create a sense of urgency in the prospects.
Use these special promotions in moderation, and they will help you improve your eCommerce conversion rate .
Improve Website Speed
How to increase the e-commerce conversion rate the easy way? Simple. Just improve your website’s loading speed. According to a recent study, around 40% of all website visitors leave the sites if they take more than 3 seconds to fully load.
But that’s not all. In mobile, the conversions of an e-commerce website drop by 7% for every one-second delay in loading the pages. So, if you see your online store’s conversion rate drop, try checking your website’s loading speed. If the mobile pages take more than 3 seconds to load, you have a problem in your hand to fix.
Consult an expert to improve your website’s loading speed as soon as possible to increase the conversion rate.
Test and Optimize
Sometimes, we already know what’s wrong with our e-commerce shop and can fix the problem decisively and with ease. But that’s not always the case.
How would you know if the recent changes made to your website are working well? What if finding out the effects of the recent changes is not easy? In these cases, you need to perform A/B tests.
Start experimenting with different headlines, CTAs, colours, layouts, and more to find the most optimum combination that drives more sales.
Constantly test and optimize different aspects of your website and offer to ultimately increase the e-commerce conversion rate.
Wrapping It Up
As you can see, there are many things that can help you increase your e-commerce site’s conversion rate. So many that it can be difficult to determine where to begin with.
But that’s alright.
Start with the easiest things you can do right now, like streamlining your checkout process, adding customer reviews, and offering multiple payment options. And slowly implement other tips mentioned here on your website.
This way, you will improve your website, your prospects will be happy, and your website’s conversion rate will reach new heights.
