E-commerce: 5 tips to increase your conversion rate
For an e-business owner, increasing the conversion rate of his site is of paramount importance. One of the best practices in e-commerce is to monitor the factors that influence it, and to master the techniques that can be used to improve it.
Attracting a large number of visitors every day is already the first step towards selling on the Internet. But the number of visits is not enough to guarantee a high volume of sales and an increase in your turnover.
Rather than trying to increase the number of visitors, let's take a look at how to boost their purchases and turn as many visitors as possible into buyers.
What is the conversion rate?
The conversion rate, or transformation rate, measures the ratio of people who have carried out a specific action to the total number of people targeted.
In a marketing context, the conversion rate is the benchmark KPI (key performance indicator) for evaluating and assessing the success of a campaign. The actions sought must be measurable or trackable, and most often concern :
- purchasing a product/service in-store or online,
- filling in a contact form (requesting a quote or making an appointment),
- subscribing to a newsletter,
- visiting a web page,
- registering for an event,
- etc.
In e-commerce, as in physical sales outlets, the main objective is, of course, to sell! The conversion rate therefore refers to the percentage of visitors who have made a purchase in relation to the total number of visitors, in other words the ability of the online sales site to transform its visitors into buyers.
What is a good conversion rate?
It's difficult to define what level of conversion is good or bad for a company, since it will depend and evolve mainly on 3 factors:
- the type of offer: the sector of activity concerned and the level of competition,
- traffic, both quantitative and qualitative,
- the effectiveness of content and pages visited.
Internally, monitoring and comparing your conversion rate will enable you to identify the factors influencing it, and determine the actions you need to take to improve it.
Why improve your e-commerce site's conversion rate?
Most e-tailers still think that the more visitors they get to their site, the greater the volume of orders they'll receive... However, focusing solely on traffic acquisition to increase sales and turnover can waste time and money.
Improving the conversion rate of your e-commerce site means above all trying to avoid the "leakage" of your visitors, who may fall back on your competitors and not necessarily return to your site. It's all about generating more revenue with the same amount of traffic, by ensuring that visitors buy (almost) every time!
How do you go about it?
More simple than increasing the number of visits, it's often enough to optimize your online sales site. The aim is to reduce the disincentives that can prevent visitors from taking action and completing their purchase.
To achieve this, it's important to identify in advance the elements that will influence the purchasing decision , and to define the objectives to be improved:
- click rate on "buy",
- average basket size,
- purchase abandonment rate,
- bounce rate,
- time spent on site, etc.
5 tips to optimize your e-commerce site's conversion rate
1- Take care with the presentation of your product sheets and your site in general
For more than 9 out of 10 people, a site's design and visuals are the main factors in their purchasing decision.
The quality and number of photos, the variety of angles from which they can be viewed, the ability to zoom in on the product... these are all criteria that will make people want to buy and reassure them of the seriousness of your website and the reality of the product. The use of a video format can also be an important complement, increasing the time spent on the site.
To reinforce the visitor's sense of trust and security, the product description should be as complete as possible. Don't be afraid to highlight the benefits and advantages, rather than simply listing the features!
Finally, it's always worth remembering that these days a responsive site is essential to offer comfortable consultation whatever the medium used (computer, tablet, mobile).
2- Offer efficient customer service
The ever-demanding needs and expectations of customers make customer relations a growing challenge for most companies. This is all the more true in e-commerce, where the trend is to think and adopt a "traditional commerce" approach to improve and enrich interactions.
To this end, more and more sites are using online chat solutions (click-to-chat, livechat...) to humanize their customer relationships. Thanks to these marketing tools, e-tailers can instantly get in touch with their visitors and advise them during their browsing.
The benefits are clear for both web users and e-retailers:
- Saves time and money (compared to telephone customer services),
- Real-time assistance,
- Improved customer experience and corporate image,
- Increased engagement... and conversion rates!
3- Analyze your visitors' behavior
Identify the buttons that generate the most interactions, the product sheets that convert best or, on the contrary, those that don't trigger a purchase, measure the time spent on each page... Generally speaking, this will enable you to observe the elements that work (or don't work) and define areas for improvement and optimization of the e-commerce site, without losing sight of the need to improve the conversion rate.
Numerous tracking and marketing automation tools make it possible to track the activity of web users through their clicks, and to plan webmarketing actions or campaigns accordingly. Retargeting, or remarketing, for example, is a practice that enables you to target people who visit a website but don't complete their order.
Other solutions integrate such tracking functionalities with the aim of predicting needs and anticipating problems that visitors may encounter before placing an order. This is the case with the iAdvize conversational commerce platform, which, thanks to behavioral targeting and keyword filtering, enables e-tailers to inform their visitors at the right moment, unlike other intrusive chat tools that are systematically triggered on every page of a site.
4- Highlight customer reviews and testimonials
One of the best e-commerce practices for boosting conversion rates is the integration of ratings, comments and "like" and "share" buttons on social networks. These elements of reassurance enable visitors to refer to the experiences of consumers and thus make an informed choice.
Product evaluations and customer reviews are increasingly important in the purchasing process , since they are consulted by 88% of Internet users before buying, and for 85% of them, negative consumer reviews are likely to dissuade them from buying (IFOP / Reputation VIP survey, 2015).
A potential buyer is more likely to take a consumer's opinion into account than a seller's description. iAdvize has understood this, since the platform calls on customer ambassadors, members of a community of experts, to answer e-buyers' questions. A user-friendly experience, authentic, reliable advice and optimal responsiveness all contribute to improving satisfaction levels and boosting the conversion rate of e-commerce sites that use iAdvize.
5- Optimize your e-commerce site's conversion tunnel
Optimizing the overall visitor path, or conversion funnel, is the most effective way to reduce shopping cart abandonment and increase conversion rates.
The shorter the online payment stage, the more likely it is that visitors will complete their order. In this respect, shortening the purchasing tunnel, and in particular the customer path (the number of clicks required to reach the shopping cart), is just as important a lever for improvement as site design, product catalog or marketing strategy.
The aim is to simplify and streamline the purchasing process, making it as intuitive and reassuring as possible.
Several elements will contribute to this:
- Transparency when it comes to delivery costs: be explicit and don't wait until the order summary to display them.
- Simplification of the account creation procedure: for some customers, opening an account is a barrier to entry! Let them choose, but don't force them to create an account to finalize their purchases. Offer them the option of logging in via the social networks Facebook, Twitter or Google, for example.
- Simplify the contact form: it's all too often long and tedious, so only ask for the information essential for billing and delivery.
- Diversity of payment methods: try to accept as many payment methods as possible, so as not to discourage purchases, and don't forget to clearly display their logo to inspire confidence and security in your visitors.
Conclusion
Article translated from French