Growing & Scaling Your eCommerce site to another level? Thinking of how to Increase Your E-commerce Conversion Rate?
Here you go.
Increasing the conversion rate of your business means making more money and scaling your business. You do not need to reach more people to sell more products. Instead, you may optimize your current sales process, and increase the conversion rate & average cart value so you can achieve the same goals.
Now, these are some methods our team used to increase our eCommerce conversion rates that you can too implement in your business.
BUT…
Here’s a disclaimer. Not all of them will help all of the time. Every business is different. Every funnel is different. And what works well for one might not work well for another.
So, It’s important to test it out for yourself to determine which methods work best for your business. Don’t assume it will work, always test it out. The market will have the say.
Below, we’ll share 11 proven ways to increase your eCommerce conversion rate!
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1. Focus on the Sales Funnels/Process
Most eCommerce stores are having websites only to sell their products. It’s just like their physical store, but it’s now online.
They create a website through Shopify, WordPress, Squarespace (or some other platform)… and they send people there… hoping that their target market will pull out their wallets and buy their products.
This is like opening a shop, getting people in, but without a salesperson to ask and explain to the customer what to buy. Most will end up walking around, checking out the product, and leaving. Or if you are lucky, some might buy a few items.
Obviously, the conversion would be very low for this. It isn’t that simple.
The website is dead, and there are so many out there. Anyone can create one and start selling. Making it so many spammy and scammy websites out there. People don’t just visit websites and buy products because you ask nicely.
They need trust and convincing.
This is exactly why websites are being replaced by sales funnels in many cases.
We’re not telling you to get rid of your website altogether. A website is still good to demonstrate your business and brand visions as well as serve as your product catalogue pages.
It’s still a valuable place to direct people in general when they just want to learn a bit more about your brand. Just that, it might not be that useful when coming to initial sales.
How Website Works
A website is simply like a digital brochure where visitors can browse and peruse however they may like…
…a sales funnel is a very specific experience that’s built to persuade someone to take action.
It’s just too many things on the page of a website, and people can easily get lost browsing your website. Some end up wasting all their time, and not making any purchases.
Here’s why, you need to lead and guide your potential customers step by step on what to do now, what’s next, and where to fill in their contact details and make payment.
As an example, we will show you a type of sales funnel called a “Tripwire Funnel”. This is a commonly used sales funnel where it helps business owners to increase conversions in just 3 pages.
How Tripwire Sales Funnel Works
Here’s what the entire funnel looks like…
Here’s how it works :
Two-Step Sales Page
First, the visitors arrive at the sales page. This page is designed where it offers an irresistible no-brainer deal that anyone will just take without having the need to decide.
Normally, we will be offering something called a lead magnet. It can be something low ticket high-value deals where he can take it and it does not take much effort or cost for you to create it. But the key here is to get their contact details, shipping, and payment information before going to the next page.
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The key to this page is to build and create trust between you and the customers so it will be easier for them to make the next purchase on the next page.
OTO Page
Next, we will be sending them to the One-Time Offer Page. This page offers the thing that you’re actually trying to sell. It’s a bit more expensive than the thing you offered on the first page but heavily discounted and with some strong FOMO since it’s a one-time offer. The key here is to make them feel like they need to get it now. Else they are losing it.
Just like how Starbucks is selling Evian water instead of other water. The key is to show that their coffee is not that expensive. Just a few bucks more than the mineral water, you can now get a coffee. This makes absolute sense for them to buy the coffee.
Now, we had already collected their shipping and payment information on the previous page, they will just need to click “YES” here in order to complete the purchase. Making it very easy to buy and hence, the conversion rate for the OTO page is usually very high.
Offer Wall Page
I always call this a thank you page instead of an offer wall page.
Why?
On this page, there are 2 main functions. To thank them for their order and tell them what to expect. And then, show them other available products or coupons so those hyper buyers can continue buying.
Now you can see, why the sales funnel often converts better than a traditional website.
Every single page and section in the sales funnel is designed to sell. It’s targeted and specific in what it’s selling. A sales funnel starts by offering an irresistible offer and only upsells once the person has entered their shipping and payment information.
It’s super effective.
If you want to try it for yourself, get a free tripwire template over here.
2. Social Proof
One of the most important elements of an eCommerce business — particularly, the ones that are promoting your products — is social proof.
Social proof is the psychological principle that people are more likely to do something if they see that others are doing it too. This is because people are fearful of missing out on the trend.
If potential customers see that other people have bought your product and are happy with it, they’ll be more likely to buy it as well. That’s why it’s important to showcase social proof on your eCommerce pages.
There are a few different ways you can do this:
Customer Reviews/Testimonials
Customer reviews and testimonials are one of the best ways to show social proof. Create an automated email follow-up that asks customers for a review of the product they purchased when they receive it.
User-Generated Photos
These are another great way to show social proof. What speaks louder than a happy customer? If you have customers who are willing to take photos of your product and share them on social media, ask them to do so. And make sure to showcase those pictures on your eCommerce pages as well!
You can also credit them with some special vouchers if they do that. This works extremely well.
Notifications
You’ve probably noticed these little notifications on some eCommerce websites become more popular over the last few years — they notify you that people are visiting or buying the product they are looking at.
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3. Email Marketing
Now you have collected the email of the customers on the tripwire funnel page, this is the list of contacts that you own. Let’s take a step back, and look at the traffic type.
You didn’t come here to learn about why you should be emailing your list consistently.
BUT…
Are those two things really so separate?
The more you email your list with great content, the more trust you’ll build. The more trust you build, the higher your conversion rates will be… without making any changes to your funnel or sales pages.
We basically separate the traffic group by cold, warm, and hot traffic. Those in your email list are basically warm and hot leads who already know you or even make a purchase from your business.
Just send an email updating them with the latest product or offers available, which will help to retain your customers and keep them coming back to buy more.
But…
How often should you email? And what should you talk about in your emails?
Some unofficial rules claim that every subscriber in your email list shall make you $1 per month. Hence, start building your email list today.
4. Create Urgency
Another way to increase your eCommerce conversion rate is by creating a sense of urgency.
An urgency is a time-based form of social proof and it works in a similar way. People will make decisions easier if they see that others are buying your product and that there’s a limited-time offer or limited quantity available.
It’s a psychological principle called the “fear of missing out” or “FOMO.”
Here’s how you can create urgency for your eCommerce site.
The simplest way is to add a countdown timer that tells people how much time they have left to buy before the product is gone or the offer expires.
Another way to do it is by showing live inventory counts. This is a great way to increase conversions on product pages because it lets visitors know exactly how many units are left in stock. If they see that there’s only one left, they’ll be more likely to buy it before someone else does.
5. Upsells, Downsells.
Upsells, downsells, and order bumps are all great ways to increase your eCommerce conversion rate.
An upsell is when you offer a customer an upgraded version of the product they’re interested in — ideally after they’ve already agreed to purchase the front-end product and entered their payment and shipping information.
A downsell is when you offer a customer a cheaper alternative to the product they’re interested in — this can happen after the upsell or even after they rejected the upsell.
All of these techniques can be extremely effective in increasing your conversion rate (and average order value) because they make it easy for customers to say “yes” to buying more from you.
6. Make Checkout Easy
Making more money makes it easy for them to pay you. The goal here is to take fewer steps to checkout and complete payment as possible.
You’d be surprised how many eCommerce websites make it difficult for people to checkout.
Typically, it takes 7 to 8 steps or 3-4 pages for someone that decides to make a purchase till they can complete the sales. All these will only make it harder for your customers to make a purchase. Some even have to stop halfway and go for other things.
So making checkout easy is crucial if you want to increase conversions on your eCommerce website.
How?
The first thing you need to do is offer a guest checkout option. This will allow people to checkout without having to create an account.
The second is to optimize your sales process so that people can check out easily without having those additional unnecessary steps.
7. Follow-Up
One of the things people easily missed out on is following up. It can be followed up with your past customers or your potential customers.
For your past customer, send them a regular email so that they know you exist and build a relationship with your business.
Another thing would be retrieving the abandoned cart.
The potential customers had already input all the details in the order form but had not checked out. Something must have gone wrong in the process.
It can be them rushing for other things, your order form not working, shipping options not available, or even the offer is not right.
Always check with them about the reason why they did not complete the purchase. Use the follow-up funnels to follow up with them.
A follow-up funnel is an autoresponder funnel that is triggered when someone abandoned the cart. When someone left their cart halfway, a process is triggered to remind them of the things they left in the cart.
Cart abandonment emails or, as we like to call them here at ClickFunnels, follow-up funnels.
These are pretty simple — they’re just a triggered email sequence that sends when someone abandons their cart.
Just sending an email like that can make a big difference in conversion. So add them to your email marketing strategy and get them sent today!
8. Decrease Load Time
This is important for all websites, not only eCommerce sites. Every second wasted loading your page will make people leave it.
In fact, anything more than 3 seconds to load is bad. people will just get impatient and leave. And it only takes a 1-second delay in page response to decrease customer satisfaction by 16%.
Slow-loading pages can also impact your SEO. Google uses site speed as a ranking factor, so if your pages are slow to load, you’re likely to get penalized in the search engine results.
There are a few things you can do…
- Optimize your images by compressing them and using the correct file format.
- Use a content delivery network (CDN) to deliver your content faster.
- Minimize HTTP requests by reducing the number of elements on each page.
9. Ad Retargeting
Ad retargeting is a very powerful creation and should be adopted by every business owner to increase the eCommerce conversion rate.
The Ad retargeting feature will track and show ads to people that visited your website. As long as the person browses your website, with or without making any purchase, they can be shown the targeted ads on the platforms that you advertise.
For example, Facebook ads, if someone visited your site, but without doing any purchase. You can track the action and show them ads on Facebook/Instagram or other platforms telling them that they visited your site but have not made any purchases. You can clear their doubt or offer them some credits in the ads.
This is a great way to remind them of your products and increase the chances that they’ll come back to your site and make a purchase.
To retarget properly, you need to decide a few things.
- Which page do you want to target?
- Where do you want to land the people to form your ad
- Which action do you want to target and what is the ad to show to different groups of customers?
Having a clear goal in mind, you can then design the ad campaign to achieve the goal.
10. Limited Time Deals
People love a good deal. That’s push them to take action and make a purchase. So, by running some special deals or campaigns periodically, it can help to boost traffic and sales during the period.
A special event like 7.7 or 11.1 deals will boost the traffic to your site and hence, more chances to convert better.
Other deals like free shipping, Buy X get X or spend $XX to get X% discount, etc.
All these do work to push for sales. Just be reminded that you need to know your target customer and what works well for them. If you don’t, then test it out.
You also want to make sure you have a clear expiration date for the deal so that people feel a sense of urgency and are more likely to take advantage of your offer instantly.
In fact, you can make them take instant action by telling them this will be the last time you see this special deal. You won’t be getting the offer again after this.
With all the deals created, now, send out email sequences throughout the campaign period to remind them of the deals and to grab them.
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11. Test it out
If you want to increase your eCommerce conversion rate, you need to consistently run a split test on different elements of your website.
Test one element at one time, this should include the theme, colour, headline, button, images, copywriting, and so on. Run multiple tests and decide the winner, then move on to another element until you get the best combinations that work.
There is no shortcut in this, and no one can tell absolutely which will work best. The only way to know what works and what doesn’t is to test different versions and see how people respond.
In ClickFunnels, you can create a copy of the page and split-test your sales funnel easily with the split-testing function built-in.
Final Thoughts – 11 Ways To Increase Your Ecommerce Conversion Rate
Those are just a few of the many ways that we use to increase our eCommerce conversion rate. It may work well for you as well to increase the conversion rate.
If you want to see more conversions, start by implementing some of the tips and tricks mentioned above.
And click below if you’re ready to build your first high-converting sales funnel… side-by-side with us 😎