November 17, 2022
There are many places a conversion can take place on a website and moving a visitor further down the sales funnel is always a positive. A user landing on a blog and then clicking through to the product page is an early conversion and, of course, the all-important ‘add to cart’ is a significant step, but what every Shopify seller really wants is for visitors to complete their transaction and become buyers.
The first port of call for any successful eCommerce site should be making sure your user enjoys their experience and your website meets their needs. It’s not enough to sell the right products, your website needs to be conversion worthy. Check out things like site speed, as a slow site can put visitors off, and ensure your navigation menus are simple and defined. Having an intelligent search function means customers can find exactly what they are looking for and, if they can’t, installing a live chat function will enable them to source help straightaway. Essentially, you should be designing and organising your Shopify store as strategically and clearly as you would a physical store; making the entire process easier for your customer sets you apart from competitors so visitors have less inclination to look elsewhere.
You might think that once a customer has made it to the checkout, there’s little left to do. As mentioned at the beginning, the vast majority of potential buyers will abandon their basket and click off a site completely. Evaluate your current checkout process to make sure it is doing everything it can to push conversions. Progress bars show customers how far along they are in the checkout process, so they don’t get frustrated by the time it takes.
Similarly, having an auto-fill function frees up valuable time spent filling in forms. Although in an ideal world, all customers would set up an account, having a guest checkout option will encourage conversions. Visitors can be put off by having to sign up to websites and if you’re selling items with a long lifespan, customers might not come back for a while and don’t necessarily need an account. Activate guest checkout and then analyse your sales data to see if it makes a difference.
Much like the checkout process, delivery and returns can be an afterthought. Yet for customers, it’s one of the driving factors, with 66% of consumers choosing one retailer over another based on their delivery options. Set out your delivery costs and terms straight away; no one likes to go through to the cart only to find that they aren’t happy with the delivery charges or times. If possible, offer free delivery and provide several choices such as home delivery, click and collect or parcel shop drop-off. With services like Amazon Prime now considered the norm, offering cost-effective next-day delivery is also a great way to increase conversions.
Unfortunately, returns are also part and parcel of running a Shopify store. Have a customer-friendly returns policy in place and make this clear on your website. Handling returns efficiently and for free is a big bonus for every consumer regardless of your product or demographic, so make your approach clear right from the start.
If you’re just setting out with your online store, you may not have a huge marketing budget. Even so, investing time into converting undecided customers is just as valuable and there are inexpensive ways to do it. Look at A/B testing your landing pages to see which one motivates shoppers more and include reviews and testimonials on your site to instil trust. Social proof is another simple way to show your site’s trustworthiness, so link to social media accounts and any online features.
For those times when the dreaded ‘abandon cart’ does crop up, it’s worth setting up remarketing ads to target engaged users, or initiating automatic follow-up emails, either with a discount or simply as a reminder. Look at typical dwell times and if users are spending a while on a page, you could integrate some upselling or cross-selling apps to increase the basket value too. There’s more information on Shopify marketing apps in our guide to Shopify integrations.
Any eCommerce owner will know that the devil is in the detail and taking time to thoroughly analyse your site’s metrics will help to identify conversion opportunities. Calculate your conversion rate to see how it stands up against the market and then deep dive into the good, the bad and the abandoned. Look at where traffic drops off the most and optimise these pages to improve the user experience. If it’s at a product level, perhaps you need to enhance your product listings. If it’s at the checkout, maybe your delivery options aren’t up to scratch.
Also consider where your conversions are coming from. Do you make more sales from paid shopping ads, or does your site have generous organic traffic? Whichever area is doing well, continue to direct resources that way but also focus your efforts on the channels that require improvement. For example, some Shopify stores have seen a huge spike after initiating social selling so maybe it’s time to consider a TikTok Shop, or maybe your blog posts don’t have enough calls to action and need enhancing. There are many ways to generate sales, so just make sure you are regularly enhancing every available avenue and optimising for conversions.
Securing conversions is not a straight line. What works one month might not work the next. As markets grow and evolve, and as customers get more switched on, it’s vital to keep finding innovative ways to enhance the user experience, which will lead to those crucial conversions. Keep testing, keep analysing and stay on top of the latest eCommerce trends so that your Shopify store is ahead of the curve and the conversions keep coming at the highest possible rate.
Explore our blog hub for more useful tips and tricks on increasing your Shopify conversion rates and winning those all-important repeat customers.
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