Boost eCommerce Conversions
Grocery shopping - a natural high image: personalnewtrition.com
Ecommerce is the future (and perhaps already the present?) of shopping. As we spend more time in front of the screens, smart businesses bring their products to their customers through the internet. Can’t beat convenience.
So if you want to get in on the ecommerce rage, you need to be smart about it. Simply having great products is just not enough these days, you need a unique selling point, effective marketing and a website that converts prospects into customers.
Imagine this scenario, you spends thousands of dollars advertising your ecommerce site in the hopes of selling your new line of combination sofa-clocks. You drive hundreds of targeted prospects to your site but only manage to convert a handful. Whats wrong? Maybe your targeting the wrong keywords. Maybe your product isn’t any good. Maybe your site blows.
The smart thing to do is change one variable at a time and see the results produced but this costs money and time. The alternative is to find proven tactics that work over many sites and will most likely work for you.
Just got this in my e-mailbox from Marketing Sherpa.
New Ecommerce Research – Website Tactics that Boost Conversion
Perfect. Read the article then come back here.
stats don't lie
Perpetual shopping cart
Here is one you wouldn’t think would be number one. As a shopper, you would not expect that showing items in your cart on every page would increase your likelihood to purchase. Yet the world’s largest ecommerce seller has the most enhanced version of the cart (item, description, price, etc.) and it seems to be working out pretty well for them. The more advanced the information on the cart (images + description + price vs. just price), the better. So join the 38% of ecommerce sites that make more money than everyone else.
Optimizing/Customizing Internal Search Results
Just read and follow the points listed on the site. Most of these features are built into ecommerce scripts. If not, it may be a worthy investment to hire a coder to make the necessary adjustments. Pay special attention to the last tip there, “most likely to generate associated sales”. If you have product A and comparable but more expensive product B, you’re first instinct may be to push product B harder. But if product A leads to sales of product X, Y, and Z more often, it’s more effective to push the ‘cheaper’ model.
Enhanced Display
Not only does this allow the viewer to get a better view of the object they may buy, but it also increases the quality of the company. If you have a professional looking website, you put the prospects into the frame of “We do what we can to help you make the best decision and we take our work very seriously”. Cha ching.
Live Chat
Read Tim Ferris’s Four Hour Work Week and get a firm understanding about virtual assistants (VA) and outsourcing. Or, you can hire a pre-built online live chat assistance company. This is the most expensive change you can make to a website so save it for last. In fact, only install live chat after you’ve implemented the other changes and had them running and tracking statistics for a few months. That way, you can successfully track your ROI.
Targeted cross -sell/up-sell
I think Amazon nailed this perfectly with their “People who bought A also purchased B”. I find myself browsing those suggestions more than anything else.
Product Comparison Grids
Who doesn’t like these? A easy-to-follow, side-by-side comparison between two products you want to choose between. Once they’ve established which product is better, they are basically committed to buying it. All you need to do is convince them to buy from you as opposed to anywhere else.
So, like with all other aspects of business (and many things in life), do your research before jumping in. If you spend your time and money wisely, you can put your business and website ahead of the rest.