You don’t have to be a techie to work out that the higher your Conversion rates for your online shop, the better off your business will be. But turning leads and interest into sales can be a perplexing task. You can try and try, and yet sometimes those stubborn rates just don’t increase.

However, it doesn’t have to be that difficult. There are a number of tried and tested tactics for boosting your Conversion Rate that you can put in place. And most of them are relatively pain-free. So, if you’re looking to get your online shop to work harder for your business, building revenue and putting the company in a healthier place all around, keep reading to find out how it’s done.

The key is in understanding why shoppers don’t convert. Of course, there are millions of reasons why people don’t make purchases. From lack of funds to kids needing to be picked up from school. You can’t possibly accommodate for all of them. But what you can do is understand the general groups of people who fail to convert from interested in making a purchase.

There are essentially two types of non-conversion. First, those who browse but then leave the site without going any further. Then there are the cart abandoners, who almost go all the way only to leave without making that final click that commits to buying. Browsers might leave because they didn’t find what they are looking for, didn’t like the site or were put off by pricing. It’s going to be hard to please all these people and maybe they’re just not buying what you’re selling.

Cart abandoners, on the other hand, have found what they want, liked the price and clicked through to the final stage. It’s here that you can have the biggest impact on conversion. If you can just convince these customers to click the buy button, you’ll see a dramatic rise in conversion for your site. Here are some ways of doing it.

Free Shipping

In today’s market, it’s essential that you offer free shipping. Customers like the cost of your product but don’t like the extra for getting it sent. In fact, almost half of cart abandoners do so because free shipping is not part of the deal. And because big hitters like Amazon offer it, it is more or less expected.

Discount Codes

A nice little surprise discount code at the shopping cart stage can also be the sweetener that seals the deal. And if you add an expiration date, this adds a little sense of urgency that gives the extra impetus to buy.

You can build these into the overall price so that you don’t eat too much into your profit margins. And you should also try and make any discount offers very clear, on the product page and elsewhere around your site. This kind of marketing has proved to be very successful.

Price Matching

Buyers online are usually convinced they can get a better deal elsewhere and so they set off in the search. Offer them a best price match guarantee and it allays fears they could be missing out. If you promise the best prices on the market, why would they go elsewhere to see if they can find better value?

Chase Them up

People leave carts abandoned for all sorts of reasons and some simply forget to come back. So, send them an email to remind them that their purchase is still only a click away.

Live Chat

People have questions about purchases and your aim should be to answer these queries as quick as possible. A live chat is the best way to do this, giving immediate answers that email simply can’t match.

Protection

When making any purchase online, people need to know that they’re doing so in a secure and safe way. So, you absolutely must have SSL protection in place. The protection offered by accepting major credit cards and PayPal is also essential for boosting conversion.

User Experience

You need to make sure that the user experience is as smooth as possible. That means there should be no questions or issues with the customer journey. The buttons and calls to action must be easy to find, and you should try not to bombard the customer with too much information, busy designs, and too much text. You need to try and avoid distracting them from the matter at hand – making the sale.

Details Matter

The main drawback about buying online is that you can’t physically touch or handle the object in question. So, you need to provide as many details about the product as possible. Give its dimensions, a full description and colour photos with zoom and 360-degree options. Give pictures of variants and different colours, and add reviews and comments from other users about an expected size and more.

Try to avoid having all this detail on the page itself, and instead tuck it away in menus where it can be accessed and viewed if required. That way you can avoid creating too many distractions or too much content on the sales page.

Reviews

These are very important to increase your conversion rate. Before they buy, customers like to know what they’re getting. Apart from all the sales and marketing information, people trust reviews from other consumers. So, it’s very important that you utilise the power of reviews. Try to keep these genuine and while you can respond to bad reviews (they do and will happen), if you try too hard to sanitise the tone then people will see through it. Honesty goes a long way towards making a sale.

Responsive Design

More than half of all online purchases are done on mobile devices, with the move away from the desk and laptop browsing continuing. As such, you need to make sure that your website and ecommerce platform work across all devices. If you don’t, you could be missing out on a huge market share.

Ensure that your checkout is working well on mobile devices and that any glitches are ironed out. Remember that your aim is to try and prevent anything from getting in the way of your customer and the sale.

Boosting your conversion rate doesn’t just happen from nothing. And there are plenty of things people try to boost rates that don’t succeed. The principle is simple. Rather than making any large-scale changes or sweeping redesigns, make a number of smaller options that can be just as effective.

Think about your own experience of making purchases, and what has worked well for you and what gets in the way. Then try and apply these principles to your own checkout. Your site is not going to appeal to everyone and neither are your products, but you need to try and maximise the conversion of those in your market.

Keep shops simple and clutter free, avoid distractions and make it easy for people to quickly, safely and knowledgably make a purchase and you will start to see your conversion rates climb. This builds profits and benefits the business.

If you would like to know more about boosting your conversions, then get in touch with a member of the Perception System’s ecommerce development team.