This is probably the most popular question asked in e-commerce: ‘how can I increase sales or conversion rates on my website?’ And why wouldn’t it be? Company growth is a direct product of sales, and it keeps the (online) doors open.
So here are a few simple ways to increase sales on your site.
2 seconds. That’s how long you have to load your website and captivate your audience. It only takes 4 seconds for 25% of users to lose interest in your website due to load time, and that number increases with each additional second of wait time. We want everything and we want it now!
Most users, especially mobile users, are much more concerned with how quickly your site loads than its aesthetic appeal. That doesn’t mean you can get away with a boring website, but keep the focus on making it load quickly.
It’s a popular commodity and is appreciated by customers. Shipping costs are the cause of approximately 36% of cart abandonments in eCommerce! If implemented correctly, free shipping doesn’t have to hurt your bottom line. There are different ways you can make sure that free shipping will be profitable for you:
a. Spending Threshold – You can create a spending threshold. If a customer meets or exceeds a specific dollar amount, they qualify for free shipping. With a higher threshold, you’ll have a higher profit margin and will be able to offset the shipping costs. You will also sell more products.
b. Compare Conversion Rates – Compare your conversion rates before and after offering free shipping for a specified period of time. Take a look at your margins. Can you offer free shipping to your customers without taking a hit to your bottom line? Is it increasing your conversion rate?
c. Add Value – If you include something in your product that adds perceived value, you can increase the price to offset those value-adds. Some examples of services that add value are white glove service, free returns, or complimentary accessories.
For more ideas to offer free shipping to your customers without breaking the bank, check out this post.
62% of the 125 million smartphone users in the U.S. have used their phones to make a purchase in the last six months. Being unaccommodating mobile users is comparable to Blockbuster being unaccommodating consumers that wanted to rent mail-in DVDs back in 2000 (oops!). Your site MUST be mobile-friendly to accommodate this trend toward mobile commerce. The optimization and marketing that goes into a mobile site are a little different from your typical website.
a.The screen is smaller. For mobile optimization, the size of any webpage should be less than 3 megabytes (so it loads quickly).
b. Make it as easy as possible to shop by allowing users to ‘Add to cart’ without having to click into a product page and then make navigation to their cart simple. In the checkout process, make it one section per page. Meaning one page for their name, one page for their shipping address, one page for their payment info, etc.
c. Utilize white space. The screen is small, so use the space you have.
d. Use a hamburger menu for easy, simple navigation throughout the website instead of a small-text navigation bar across the top. This is much easier to use on a phone.
e. Make your website responsive to multiple screen sizes.
People decide where to eat and what phone to buy based primarily on online reviews. Star ratings and customer comments increase trust in your company and product and raise conversion rates. 88% of customers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations nowadays and 72% of consumers will only purchase from a company after reading a positive review. Check out the infographic here to see more statistics about the importance of reviews.
Even when in a physical store, customers are pulling reviews up on their phones before making a purchase. A recent study indicated that shoppers who looked up reviews on products while in a store spent up to 150% more than shoppers that didn’t. That’s a lot of missed revenue if you aren’t collecting reviews.
Fingers are tapping constantly as we scroll through content on our phones. Product images and descriptions should both be clickable to take users to the product page for fast, easy access to more information. “Make it all click!”. Any pictures and calls-to-action should click through to something on your website.
By following these tips, you will stay ahead of the curve and give your visitors the incentives and tools they need to stay on your website and buy from you.
