18 Effective Tactics to Increase E-Commerce Conversion Rates
Why Are Your Visitors Not Converting?
It’s essentially a no-brainer:
Whether you’re just starting an e-commerce business or you’re already an established online seller, the higher your conversion rates, the better off your business will likely be.
In a perfect world, your process of generating business from new and long-time customers alike would run like clockwork:
- They visit your site.
- Then, they find products they like and add them to their cart
- Finally, they follow through with their purchase without hesitation
It sounds like a dream.
However, most of your site’s visitors will leave without doing so. According to Oberlo, as of August 2022, average conversion rates across e-commerce businesses were at 1.62 percent, falling 0.3 percentage points from the previous month and 0.06 percentage points from a year ago.
This article will discuss several high-level approaches to optimizing your e-commerce website and show you how to increase e-commerce conversion rates. Therefore, it’s more likely your visitors will convert into paying customers.
However, before we discuss these strategies and tips, we need to understand the reasons. Like why an individual might decide to leave your e-commerce site empty-handed in the first place.
Why E-Commerce Shoppers Don’t Convert
Realistically speaking, there are many reasons why consumers choose not to purchase at a given point in time. For example:
- Your Site Makes a Bad First Impression
- You Require Buyers to Create an Account
- You Don’t Know Who You’re Selling To
- Your Site Isn’t Optimized
- You’re Ignoring Mobile Users
- Nobody Loves (or Understands) Your Product
- Product Images Are Poor
- Your Copy Isn’t Persuasive
- The Page Is Distracting
- The Call to Action Is Unclear
- Shoppers Don’t Trust You
- People Have to Pay for Shipping
- Check out Is Difficult
- You’re Not Using Exit Intent
- There’s No Re-marketing or Re-targeting Strategy
Not only does having this understanding allow you to anticipate and avoid making these same mistakes. It also proves that making these mistakes doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve failed. On the contrary, your business will improve if you understand why you made a mistake and how to fix it.
How to Increase E-Commerce Conversion Rates
Today, we’ll provide some actionable tips and advice regarding what to do to start generating more conversions — even without increasing your visitor numbers.
Let’s dive in right away!
1. Simplify Your Design
Simplicity converts.
Eliminate clutter from your website. Take advantage of whitespace and use visuals sparingly on your homepage. Optimize your site structure and make it easy for visitors to navigate.
If your e-commerce site has too many flashing lights, bells, and whistles, it’s easy for a visitor to get distracted. Simplifying the design allows the customer to focus on your products, value proposition, and other elements that convince them to buy.
Simple designs also load faster, which relates to another tip—improve page loading speed.
If you walked into a brick-and-mortar retail store with its products strewn about haphazardly, you almost certainly would turn around and walk out.
Well, the same goes for your e-commerce store:
If your visitors can’t find what they’re looking for at the click of a button, they will immediately navigate away to a competitor’s site.
Now, this is all well and good for those browsing your site for products they may like. However, you need to provide a robust search solution for those who know what they’re looking for.
While there are many factors to consider when optimizing your site’s search functionality, your primary concern is ensuring you present your visitors with the most relevant products relating to their search terms.
As we’ll discuss in a bit, this is why your product pages need to be well-put together, complete with vital information presented in a way that matches your customers’ search queries.
3. Personalize the Shopping Experience
There are two overarching ways to personalize your visitor’s experience:
- Providing dynamic content
- Providing pathways for your visitors to take
Tools for creating and delivering dynamic content allow you to present tailored content, offers, and product recommendations to your visitors based on demographic and geographic data, on-site behavior, and their history with your brand.
In terms of providing pathways for your visitor to choose from, you’ll want to consider the “types” of consumers you typically attract. Essentially, you’ll be pointing them to “collections” of products that relate to each other — but aren’t necessarily in the same product category.
Setup user personalization
You can personalize the user experience using robust user tracking and communication software. This data will allow you to keep your message and desired action as the user’s main focus across platforms. For example, once you send the customer the email with coupon codes, they should be applied automatically.
Make sure the customer does not have to fend for themselves. In the emails button, have a pop-up code in the URL, and have the coupon easily accessible on the website. You have made it easy for your customers to use. They will remember your offer and return to make more purchases.
Send creative email receipts
These days, the regular and expected practice is to send the customer the invoice through email. It would help if you were innovative here by including recommendations of your other products or services based on the previous purchase. 80% of customers like the guidance and return to your site to check other products/services. They may also make more purchases based on the recommendations.
4. Provide Live Chat Customer Service
Customers get confused with multiple products and services and have questions they want to be answered instantly. Therefore, they look for accurate and prompt responses.
Introduce live chat support on your e-commerce website. It will make your visitors happy and enhance your brand image and trust. Customers prefer to buy from sites that offer this feature. It’s one of the best ways to increase your conversion rate.
5. Be Persuasive
First, we want to discuss the overarching topic of persuasive site design in general.
Persuasive Design
There is a principle:
If your site isn’t designed to keep your visitors on the page — and to move forward with their transaction — none of the other tactics we will discuss will make much of a difference.
That said, firstly, your site needs to be:
- Visually appealing
- Visually persuasive
The “appealing” part is pretty straightforward. The modern consumer is likelier to engage further with fancy websites/apps.
Visual persuasiveness, on the other hand, is a little more nuanced. Essentially, the goal is to pull your visitors’ eyes to a specific part of the page — typically, the step allowing them to move closer toward converting.
Persuasive Content
The goal of persuasive copy is quite similar: “Keep your visitors engaged and moving forward with a transaction.”
When we say “persuasive,” we don’t mean that your copy needs to be too salesy. Instead, it all comes down to ensuring your brand’s “voice” shines through every word on your website.
6. Use High-Quality Product Photos and Videos
When customers shop on your website and cannot touch and feel the product or even try it on, they rely on your product photography. It helps visualize the products better, leading to increased conversion rates.
Show products from all angles
You need to bridge the divide between the physical and digital worlds with your product images. This strategy means adding features that improve their viewing experience. Features like zooming and a 360-degree view of your product will help visitors take a closer look at the product from all angles.
This process also means using high-quality pictures that allow viewers to zoom in without the image looking grainy or pixelated.
Show products in the context
Lifestyle photos help your customers envision themselves using your products, and they can boost your conversion rate.
Add videos
Video is also becoming increasingly popular for eCommerce businesses and helps show your product in action. If your products are better understood when demonstrated, upload a video to answer questions a shopper may have about its use. They’ll likely click away if they can’t immediately understand a product’s value. It also provides a more dynamic way of showcasing your product.
7. Provide Detailed Product Descriptions
Various online shopping websites do not provide any product information at all. Customers can’t touch the product nor ask questions, as they are not in a brick-and-mortar store.
Therefore, you need to make sure you describe the products in detail. It should contain interesting and informative content that will make your customers interested in your product and will go ahead in making the purchase. Add a product video or demonstration for more impact. All these will prevent returns and increase conversion rates.
It would help if you also focused on SEO for your website. High website traffic is significant in boosting e-commerce conversion rates. Therefore, SEO will enhance your website’s traffic and build your SEO ranking.
8. Build Trust with Customer Reviews
The most important thing is to build trust among your customers. Unfortunately, trust is difficult to build and very easy to destroy. There are specific reasons people won’t buy from you: Not in a hurry, no immediate need, lack of money, or lack of trust. You can’t do anything about the first three, but you can do something about the fourth.
Make it a point to add customer reviews of your products on the website. According to a study, around 61% of customers read the reviews before making a purchase. In addition, there is an 18% increase in online sales when showcasing customer reviews on the website.
It would be best if you allowed your visitors to leave their reviews. You can also put their photos along with the review. This feature boosts conversion and builds trust in the customer.
9. Showcase Social Proof
In terms of increasing conversion rates, social proof is massive.
According to Business2Community, 92% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know directly, and anonymous reviewers have a 70% trust rate when they post online about a brand.
Not only that, but product reviews improve customer trust and loyalty. Having product reviews on your online store shows what sets your products apart from similar brands and can strengthen your credibility. In addition, product reviews encourage your past customers to interact with your brand.
It’s also worth mentioning that positive social proof typically leads to an increase in conversion rate, average order value, and retention.
You also don’t want to ignore the propensity of individuals to “go with the herd,” either. Simply showcasing your best-selling or hot-ticket items can also act as social proof. It’s like showing the fact that other people are buying it.
10. Boost Your Page Loading Speed
How fast does your website load? Take the Google PageSpeed Insights, GTMetrix, or Pingdom Website Speed tests.
If your website is too slow, it’s causing your traffic to bounce at different stages of the buying process. Improving your page-load speed can significantly boost your conversion rate.
It would help if you made your website faster. For example, you may need to upgrade your website hosting to accommodate more traffic. Or analyze your plugins for slow performance with advanced performance monitoring tools.
11. Optimize for Mobile Consumers
Mobile commerce is on the rise. As of October 2022, 79% of smartphone users have purchased online using their mobile devices in the last 6 months.
A mobile-friendly e-commerce site has a 67% greater chance of converting. But websites that aren’t mobile-friendly have a 61% higher chance that visitors will leave and buy from a different website.
Optimizing for mobile is a must in 2022 and beyond.
It’s also worth noting that mobile shoppers spend twice as much money as customers on other platforms. So not only will your conversion rates increase, but so will your average order value.
12. Allow Social Media Shopping
Your brand almost certainly has at least some type of presence on the various social media platforms out there, right?
Simply advertising or creating an organic presence on channels such as Facebook and Instagram isn’t exactly anything new. But more and more e-commerce companies are turning to these channels to sell their products directly to their followers.
Social selling is incredibly lucrative if your products align with the content usually shared on Instagram. Therefore, if you’re in the clothing, fashion, or culinary industries — or any industry that relies heavily on visual presentation — you should be looking to make your Instagram profile shoppable.
13. Provide Multiple Discount Options
Perhaps the only better than a discount, in the eyes of the consumer, is the ability to customize the deal they’re about to receive.
On the other hand, it isn’t very reassuring for a consumer when they receive a coupon or offer in their email, and load up their virtual shopping cart, only to realize the discount offer doesn’t apply to their purchases.
That said, providing your customers with at least a bit of control over when and how they use a specific discount offer can be beneficial. Not only does this add a bit of personalization to their experience (as discussed earlier), but it also incentivizes them to “experiment,” — potentially leading them to make additional purchases they hadn’t originally anticipated.
14. Allow for Guest Checkout
Scroll back up for a moment and review that list once more.
Back? Did you notice the number two reason consumers abandon their carts?
You guessed it: The site in question required that they register an account with the company.
While, ideally, every individual who purchases from your site will want to continue doing business with your company in the future, it will not happen.
Some might want to make a single purchase and be on their way; others may be purchasing a gift for their friend and have no interest in your products themselves; still, others won’t want to receive yet another newsletter in their inbox weekly.
Whatever the case, it’s in your best interest to allow those who wish to check out as guests to do so.
However, you certainly can — and should — provide multiple chances for them to register with your company before and after they’ve made a purchase. When providing these chances, ensure you’re clear about what’s in it for them.
15. Offer Multiple Payment and Delivery Options
As we mentioned in the previous section, you only want to add steps to the checkout process when you provide options your customers will appreciate.
As you know, there are many ways the modern consumer can make an online payment. From PayPal to Apple Pay – and many others – credit cards are no longer the guaranteed mode of payment by today’s standards. That said, you’ll want to look into which payment methods your target audience typically prefers and be confident that you can cater to these needs.
You’ll also want to provide several delivery options to your customers.
Typically, your options should offer a trade-off between price and convenience; that is, you’ll want your customers to be able to pay more for rush delivery or receive cheap (or free) shipping in exchange for a more extended delivery period.
The important thing to remember is that you’ve sealed the deal with your new customer by this point in the process. You don’t want to lose them because they logistically can’t pay for or receive their order.
16. Re-Engage Cart Abandoners
Unfortunately, you’re still going to face instances where a potential customer fills up their virtual shopping cart, then suddenly navigates away from your site without finalizing their purchase.
When this happens, you have two options:
- Say, “oh well,” and move on
- Do everything you can to re-engage your potential customer
(Obviously, you know which side of the fence we’re on.)
As we mentioned earlier in this article, there are several reasons for a consumer to bounce from your page without making a purchase. How to get these individuals back on track toward converting could be an article in and of itself.
From a high-level perspective, though, re-engaging cart abandoners involves:
- Understanding why they left in the first place – and working to mitigate the issue
- Providing incentives via exit-intent pop-ups, re-marketing campaigns, and email content
- Reinforcing the value of your products to your customers via the above methods
A lost customer is only lost if you let them slip away. But, with the right offer, a one-time cart abandoner could become a loyal brand fanatic. And the easiest way to re-engage shoppers is to send them an email.
17. Send Abandoned Cart Emails
The latest shopping cart abandonment rates show that in Q2 2022, 80 percent of all online shopping carts failed to make it to the checkout stage. In other words, eight out of every ten online shopping baskets are ditched without completing the purchase process.
There are various reasons why customers abandon their carts, including unexpected costs, better prices on another site, asking for compulsory sign-up, complicated checkout process, expensive shipping, lack of payment options, lack of return policy, and security concerns.
The solution for this issue is to send shopping cart recovery emails to the customers. Emails sent within 3 hours of cart abandonment will get a 40% open rate and 20% click-through rate—at least 10.7% of customers who receive the email return to make a purchase.
It would be best to implement different personalized strategies while sending these emails. However, it will improve conversions and sales.
18. Test Different Options
Optimizing your e-commerce website is always an ongoing process. Therefore, you can never settle and assume that your design and layout are optimized for conversions.
What happens if you change the wording of your CTA button? Will one image on your homepage convert better over another? How are users behaving on your site?
Split testing is one of the best ways to increase the e-commerce conversion rate. It is straightforward: suppose you have two headlines for your online page and are unsure which one to use.
You can go for A/B split testing. It will help you find out which one is preferred. So now you need to make two versions of your site page, and the software will send half the traffic to page A and the other half to page B. you can use A or B according to the results. The process is easy and will save time to increase your conversion rate.
Find Your Conversion Killers, and Eliminate Them!
It’s essential to recognize that every e-commerce business is different — as are its customers.
That said, there are many reasons that your conversion rate might not be as high as you’d like — or as it could be.
While the tips discussed throughout this article should be enough to get you moving in the right direction, you should always look for ways to improve your site and backend processes.
To do so, you’ll want to stay in constant contact with your team and your customers — those who are happy with your services and those who aren’t quite as satisfied.
Once you’ve pinpointed an issue causing a drop in conversions, take the time to fix it — while leaving everything else as is. Then, once you’ve resolved the case, you can move on to the next area of improvement — and keep on going until you’ve created a well-oiled, conversion-generating machine. We are here to help!
Do You Need to Increase E-Commerce Conversions?
Are you interested in converting more website visitors into consumers? Our professional e-commerce designers will be happy to help you with this. But first, look at our portfolio and read our case studies.
Then, if you believe we are a good fit for your eCommerce web design needs, reach out to us! We offer a full range of consulting and design solutions for businesses and product brands.
And if you are unsure how to increase e-commerce conversions, let’s talk! We will listen to you, answer your questions, and determine the best eCommerce solutions for your company or product brand!
Are You Selling Online?
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For more content relevant to your business or product brand – check out the range of articles on our web design blog. (This one, on emerging eCommerce trends for 2023, is an excellent place to start!)
Thank you! We appreciate your help ending bad business websites, one pixel at a time!
By Gregor Saita
Co-Founder / CXO
@gregorsaita
