16 Awesome E-Commerce Conversion Rate Optimization Strategies

This article introduces 16 optimization strategies to improve e-commerce conversion rates, including: AI intelligent site search, showing checkout progress to visitors, visitor orders, filling in as brief order information as possible, not emptying the customer's shopping cart, simple navigation, providing a variety of payment options, persuasive product copywriting, high-quality return policies, allowing customer reviews, letting visitors know that your website is safe, displaying contact information, free shipping, appropriate promotions, allowing orders on social media, and high-quality product videos and pictures.

This article shares strategies on how independent e-commerce sites can stimulate users to place orders.

Under the epidemic, the rise of the global e-commerce industry has become inevitable.

Although it is an established fact that the product capabilities of foreign e-commerce cannot catch up with those of domestic Taobao and JD.com, I still hope that there will be more vertical or single-brand e-commerce products in the domestic e-commerce industry.

After all, a game dominated by only one company is not fun. If you want to build an independent e-commerce site, this article is worth reading. If you are just thinking about optimizing your own platform store, some of the thoughts in this article are also very useful.

From increasing site traffic to growing profits, optimizing e-commerce conversion rates is a very important thing.

But if your optimization strategy doesn’t work, be prepared for decreased user satisfaction and sales.

A lower conversion rate means that the e-commerce site’s bottom line will be hurt. To be clear, conversion rate refers to any action a visitor takes after visiting your site. Our goal is high conversion rate. A high conversion rate means that your site is successful in persuading visitors to become customers .

What is a high conversion rate?

WordStream’s conversion rate analysis gives a conversion rate of 2.35% — an average across industries. If your store conversion rate is lower than this, you may need to optimize it.

What is a good eCommerce conversion rate optimization (CRO) strategy?

E-commerce conversion rate optimization (CRO) is very diverse and involves web development, UI design, and marketing. A good CRO strategy aims at one universal goal: improving site performance and thereby increasing site sales. Here are the specific strategies, all you need to do is execute them correctly.

1. Web Development and UI Design

The interface and functional layout of an e-commerce site are critical to optimizing conversion rates. You can focus on the following areas:

1. AI intelligent site search

On-site search directly affects store success. However, according to an analysis by the Baymard Institute, 70% of PC-based e-commerce searches fail to provide search results for synonyms of product types.

This will create obstacles for customers to place orders and ultimately reduce conversion rates. For example, if a customer wants a specific product but doesn’t know how the item is named in your store, he may search for words that don’t exactly match the product name. Can the search engine in your store match the correct product to him?

AI intelligent site search can solve such problems. Innovative NLP (automatic language processing) can solve the problem of fuzzy search. Even if users do not search for products using the exact product name, they can still get the search results they want.

Take a look at the example of Zimmermann (below). When a user searches for "ankle shoe," the search displays search results for different types of ankle boots, but their actual product names do not exactly match these two words.

2. Show visitors the checkout progress

This strategy allows customers to understand the payment process. You know, people are always easily distracted when surfing the Internet, and they may be attracted by B while browsing A.

One piece of data is: the average time people stay on an independent website is 2 minutes and 17 seconds. When designing the process, let customers know the checkout progress, which can avoid customers leaving the site midway to a certain extent.

MADE designed a three-step progress bar in the checkout process

3. Visitors place orders

Visitors placing orders is also a strategy to reduce the loss of purchase conversions. After all, not everyone who visits your website needs to be a registered user. Requiring users to register an account before placing an order will make those who do not want to register want to leave. On the contrary, giving visitors the option to place an order can attract non-registered users.

Different order paths for registered users and non-registered users

4. Fill in the order information as briefly as possible

Similarly, when filling out the order information, keep the form as short as possible. This is also a basic optimization. Just make sure that the information that customers fill in when placing an order is the most necessary.

5. Don’t empty your customers’ carts

Keeping customers’ shopping carts active will help them convert more easily by returning to your store. When a person leaves your online store, he may go out and search for similar products, but he will still come back.

For example, when a customer is waiting for a doctor at the door of a clinic, he swipes your store with his mobile phone. If the doctor tells him that he can come in at this time, he will hang up the phone. However, when the consultation is over, he will return to the store. If the shopping cart is always active, he will be more likely to complete the order.

6. Easy Navigation

In online stores, one of the customer's demands is that products are easy to find. If your site navigation is too complicated, customers are likely to bounce out with one click. Easy navigation means that customers should not be blocked by a large number of pictures and content. As a store owner, you would not want your customers to be disturbed by a lot of irrelevant information, right? The more intuitive the online store navigation design is, the better.

Also pay attention to the mobile experience. Half of the people use mobile devices to access the Internet (Translator's note: this is overseas data). When designing your site, take into account both mobile and desktop browsing experiences.

7. Provide various payment options

Research which payment methods your target audience prefers. Some customers prefer to use credit cards, others prefer PayPal or Apple Pay. If customers don’t have their preferred payment method available, they may not proceed with their order.

Optimizing web development and UI design is important, but efficient brand marketing is also essential. The following are marketing optimization strategies:

8. Persuasive product copywriting

Product details are critical, so stop using the copy provided by the product supplier. Product copywriting needs to be persuasive, here are some examples.

Talk about benefits, not selling points.

Thinking about the difference between selling points and benefit points will help you write product copy with high conversion rates. Stuff that only talks about selling points is boring and doesn’t explain what the product means to potential customers.

The benefit points are the reasons why customers place orders. Specifically: Don’t tell customers that this product is a “super good product” and describe what benefits it can bring.

Nike's online store slogan describes sneakers as comfortable as pillows

For example, if you sell a kitchen tool, it can allow customers to quickly complete some basic cooking steps. You could say this product helps customers save time.

Use some sensory words. Sensory words can increase sales because they stimulate the brain to process decisions. When readers read this type of copy, they will have a sense of experiencing the product.

Vague terms like "terrific" or "amazing" don't allow customers to clearly imagine why a product is blissful and valuable. Sensory words help products come closer to the reader's imagination.

Food copywriters are very good at using sensory vocabulary, which is worth learning from.

Let’s learn how some businesses use sensory vocabulary to optimize product descriptions when marketing food! For example, in the description of an ice cream product, you should not only emphasize "delicious", but also describe it as "silky" and "the taste of spring." It is easier for customers to imagine its texture and taste.

9. A good return policy

Create a return policy that gives customers peace of mind. When customers receive the goods they buy online, there is a high chance that they will be dissatisfied with it. Maybe the goods were damaged during transportation, or maybe the goods simply did not meet expectations.

Of course, customers will consider returning the product to the online store. But if the return policy is very strict, they will not place the order in the first place, because before they place the order, they will imagine how to return the product if it is not suitable.

At a minimum, the return policy should provide free returns and exchanges within 30 days, and even better if it can be extended to 60 days. It is also important to clearly describe the return process on your website. Customers not only need to know the safe return window, but also want to know whether the process is simple enough if they return the product.

10. Allow customer reviews

Customers like to read other buyers' reviews before placing an order. Customers can be encouraged to leave reviews, for example, customers who successfully leave a positive review can receive a coupon. Or when a user completes an order, automatically send them an email or text message to encourage them to leave a review.

Don't underestimate the potential value here. Surveys show that 84% of customers trust buyer reviews more than recommendations from friends. If your product has more reviews, people will be more willing to buy it.

11. Let visitors know your site is secure

Install SSL and display a secure website badge on your web page, such as McAfee or GeoTrust. Customers need to know that once they place an order with a credit card, the online environment is secure.

Website security labeling is also part of marketing

Don’t be the only one who knows how secure your website is; your customers need to know too. Especially on the checkout page, when customers are considering whether to place an order, you have to give them confidence. Effective marketing is not just about promoting your product or brand, it's also about telling people how you're going to protect consumers.

12. Display contact information

Show that you are trustworthy when you display your contact information. Let your consumers know that they are not putting themselves at any financial risk by placing an order here.

If customers find that your e-commerce store doesn’t quite match your brand image, they may feel like they’re paying to a scam company. If you can show contact information to consumers, they will know how to contact the seller if anything goes wrong after placing an order.

13. Free shipping

Customers like free shipping and don’t mind if the goods arrive at their home a little late. In fact, 95% of customers believe that free shipping is a very important factor influencing their purchasing decisions.

14. Appropriate promotion

Marketing emails can help you find more potential customers and may also stimulate repeat purchases. But how to get people to subscribe to your email in the first place is a problem.

You can organize some activities, such as customers can get a small gift if they subscribe to emails. There are also discounts for email subscribers. Of course, don’t forget to include the brand visually; the content and style of the email should also be consistent with the brand image.

15. Allowing orders to be placed on social media

Not all customers have to place orders in a specific online store; they may prefer to complete their purchases in other online scenarios.

Therefore, you need to, for example, manage your brand’s Instagram profile page well and make the experience smooth enough for customers to place orders on social media. This will naturally lead to more online sales.

In order to increase sales on social media channels, you need to increase your social media followers, such as posting regularly. Constantly test what types of articles are more effective in motivating fans to complete order conversions. Once you understand the key points here, sales growth will be just around the corner.

16. High-quality product videos and photos

People want to see what they are buying. Prepare pictures from different angles so that the product can be viewed from different perspectives and can be enlarged individually.

Please ask someone good to shoot professional and high-quality videos. Using a good video to showcase the product can make up for the lack of simple copywriting. If a product comes in multiple colors, use high-resolution images to show each color separately. Sometimes customers have no idea what a specific color looks like. Give customers a photo and they will understand it very well.

II. Conclusion

Make sure you implement these CRO strategies correctly to achieve better results. Monitor the results carefully during the process. Also, the strategy that suits one e-commerce company may not be suitable for you, so don’t copy it. You’ll see sales go up!

Author: Michelle Deery

Source: Growth Hacker Training Notes