Statista predicts that e-commerce sales will grow from $4.2 trillion in 2020 to $6.3 trillion in 2024, which is a lot. A lot of this growth is because eCommerce websites are paying more attention to their conversion rates and how their users feel when they use them. Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a process that aims to maximize conversions by improving the user experience and design of websites based on data gathered from user research and testing of your eCommerce business. There are a lot of CRO strategies you can use. In this article, we'll look more closely at how you can use them to increase sales, customer satisfaction, and conversions.  

What is the eCommerce conversion rate?

Conversion is how many people who visit an online store actually buy something. The average conversion rate in the e-commerce industry is between 1% and 2%. If you can improve your online sales by just 1%, you can double your sales. To figure out your conversion rate, you can use the following formula: If you get 1,000 visitors and 15 of them buy something, your conversion rate is 1.5%.     If you use the ideas in this article, you should be able to increase conversion rates. These methods are right in line with the most recent articles I've written about micro and macro conversions, landing page optimization, and one of my main topics: Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO).  

How do I figure out conversion rate for an eCommerce business?

eCommerce retailers use the eCommerce conversion rate as a measure of how well they do compared to others, and most eCommerce retailers track conversion rates to find ways to make their online shoppers' experiences better. Most of the time, conversion rates are found by dividing the number of orders by the number of unique visitors to the site.     Online store owners often use tools that let them track ecommerce conversion rates in real time and dig into parts of the data to find out where the highest conversion rates come from and what they can do to plan a good strategy for conversion rate optimization.   eCommerce Conversion Rate = Total Transactions / Unique Visitors  

What is the average conversion rate for eCommerce?

The rate of conversion for eCommerce can vary a lot depending on the industry, country, and audience. Statista says that the average conversion rate for e-commerce stores in the US in the third quarter of 2020 is 2.06 percent. CRO and UX are big fields, and it can be hard to know where to begin.  

Find and fix your conversion killer, and your conversion rate will go through the roof!

Every eCommerce business and its customers are different. Because of this, it is important to do research to find the killer conversion for your eCommerce site. You can't always count on web tips and tricks. Test, test, test! This is the keyword you need to find your online business's conversion killer. Start by using heat maps and session recordings to see what potential customers do on your website. Then, try out ideas that you think will help improve the shopping experience and boost sales. You can also look at what your competitors are doing better than you are to see what you can do to improve your conversion rate. Use the following strategies to get more people to buy online: I've listed some important and general points that I think you should study and think about as a starting point for improving the conversion rate of eCommerce. This is by no means everything you can do. These are just some ways to get you and your business going. Quick fixes for improving conversion rates:

• Offer free shipping. Bake the shipping cost into the price of the product and offer free shipping. This way, new customers won't be surprised when the shipping cost is added at checkout.
• Focus on your product pages. If you sell physical goods, your product pages are probably the most important pages on your website. Here is where you should put most of your conversion rate optimization efforts and money to make the user experience better. If you have a shop with a lot of products, you should find a template that can be used for all of the product pages without too many changes.
• Start collecting data right away. Data is your best friend when it comes to making the best experience for online shoppers and new customers. Tools like Google Analytics, Segment, Heap, and Hotjar can be used for this.
• Make a good search system. If you have a lot of products on your e-commerce site, it may be hard for a customer to find new products or what he is looking for. Because of this, you need to put money into your site's search function. Tools like Algolia offer a great search experience right out of the box. Let's make the search experience fit your customers' needs. You could, for example, put your customers' search terms on the front page of your website to make it more interesting and increase the number of people who buy from you.

 

Make your CTA stand out and be clear

The CTA, or "Call to Action," is what you want the person who visits your website to do. It could be anything, like buying something online or signing up for your newsletter, that gets them to move forward on your site. In its sales funnel or on every product page, the eCommerce site should have a clear call-to-action that tells customers to take advantage of discounts, buy products right away, etc. But you also need to be careful, because too many CTAs on an eCommerce site can cause confusion. You should carefully choose the call-to-action that makes the most sense for each page and only offer one action per page to keep the user experience from getting worse.     It's also important for eCommerce businesses to use a clear CTA button color so that visitors know what they should do next. You also need to make sure that the CTA button on the eCommerce site is always above the fold. This means that it doesn't have to be scrolled down on mobile devices or pages that are longer.  

Check on carts that were left behind

Online stores have a hard time figuring out what to do about carts that are left empty. These are online shopping carts that were left empty for one reason or another. It is important to keep an eye on these abandoned cars if you want to make money and give customers a good experience. How do you get in touch with these people who shop online? There are many ways to do this, but most e-commerce websites have e-capture forms built into the checkout process so that customers can give their e-mail addresses and be contacted later about a possible purchase. You can also give online shoppers a reason to come back by giving them a discount code that they can use when they come back to finish their purchase.     According to the Baymard Institute, 70% of shopping carts are left behind on average. This means you've lost a lot of customers and money that you can easily get back with some simple changes. If we look at it in terms of money, we're throwing away $18 billion a year.     I'll talk more about what you can do to avoid getting to this point, but when it does (and it will), here are some ways to get your customers back:

• Make sure that your checkout saves the customer's email address as soon as they fill it out. This way, if they abandon their cart, you can send them an email and offer them a discount to get them to pick up their items.
• Use targeted ads on social media and Google to advertise the items they have in their cart with a discount or other incentive.
• With the right segmentation and message, you can get up to 1,300% ROI from personalized remarketing ads.

 

Make your products look good!

The quality of the product page is one of the most important parts of eCommerce. Customers are more likely to buy something from you if they can see a beautiful picture of it. Make sure the pictures are good and think of creative ways to show off your products. People can be excited about the product they're looking for by using special effects or even embedding videos. Did you know that for about 65% of people, the best way to learn is through visual presentations like photos and videos? Visually showing how your products work and how they can be used can make a big difference in how many people buy from you. Another interesting and relevant fact I learned is that when businesses use more interesting pictures in their marketing materials, they get up to 94% more eyes on their marketing content than their competitors.     Putting your product in a good light is more important than it might seem. If you want someone to trust you, you need to make a good first impression. The first step is to get them to notice your brand and product photos. As soon as they see something that looks cool or useful, an image or video will help them keep going by showing them what kinds of products you sell on your eCommerce site. So go ahead and try to look awesome (or at least like someone worth getting to know)!  

Make sure you reach the level of trust

Trust is the most obvious reason why visitors don't buy. Why should someone trust a random online store that shows up in their Instagram news feed? You need to make sure that visitors feel safe and secure so that they can convert knowing that their personal information is safe. This starts with making sure your brand is known as a leader in your field. Make sure your eCommerce site has logos and other design elements that make people feel like they can trust it. I think it's easy to tell the difference between a brand made by a beginner and one made by a professional.     Customers start to trust your brand and message as soon as they land on your eCommerce site and start to read or interact with your brand and message. A good e-commerce store also has high-quality pictures of the products and copies that tell customers everything they want to know about them, from what they are made of to how they are shipped. It's also important that the site loads quickly. People are becoming more interested in how well a website works, and if your customer's website is slower than Amazon, it will hurt its reputation. In my article about optimizing landing pages, I talked about how to speed up your site. You have to show your customers that you know what's important, and you can't let anyone take advantage of that. One great way is to put third-party reviews from sites like TrustPilot or Google Reviews on the product page. This makes people feel safer about buying from your eCommerce site. Also, using security seals can go a long way. These logos are a sign of official approval, so people don't think twice about buying things online if they don't have to pay extra to return them. This is in contrast to other websites where they might have to pay even more money just to return the item. Later in the article, I'll talk a bit more about how to use social proof.  

Show how you handle returns or guarantees

Customers choose where to buy things for many different reasons, including whether or not the store has a good return policy. Studies show that generous policies don't lead to higher profits, but they do lead to more sales and customers who come back again and again. Web Retailer says that if at least 40% of your customers come back to your e-commerce site, you are likely to make 50% more sales than sites where only 10% of customers come back. As you can see, if you want your eCommerce conversion rate to go up, you need to work on building trust and getting customers to come back.  

Increase your eCommerce conversion rate and the quality of your copy at the same time!

Websites don't always pay enough attention to copywriting and product descriptions, which can be costly. Product page copies are important for conversion rates because they give customers more information about your products, which can help them decide whether or not to buy from your online store. It could also give them an edge over competitors who don't work as hard on their web content strategy by making it easier. Since customer reviews are such a big part of how search engines like Google rank websites, it is more important than ever to give your customers great writing and useful content. According to a study done by Unbounce in 2020, the best copy for eCommerce websites is easy to read and gets the point across. In fact, they say that your content should be written for people in middle school. To get your point across, try to make every sentence as simple and short as possible.  

Make it easier for people to buy things on your eCommerce site

Conversion Rate Experts say that some of the most common checkout optimization techniques can increase conversion rates by 35.62 percent. Even though it's not easy to get to this number, it is possible with a few small changes to the check-out page. According to the Baymard Institute, 34% of respondents said that having to create an account was one of the main reasons they didn't finish shopping or check out. With the help of guest checkout, we already have a simple way for you to increase the number of people who buy from your eCommerce site. If you don't need the user to make an account, don't ask them to. Or, if they want to make it, you can make a checkbox for them. The best thing to do would be to make it easy for people to check out as guests so that more people can do so without having to sign up for an account. The need to fill out endless forms on the checkout page is the second biggest reason why people don't finish their purchases. This is why 26% of the people who took part in the Baymard Institute study said they wouldn't become one of your loyal customers. The Baymard Institute says that, on average, e-commerce sites have 23.48 form components and 14.88 form fields for new customers who don't have an account. This is too many fields for a check-out process, and it makes things harder and more frustrating. The Baymard Institute study says, "During testing, we see over and over again that users feel overwhelmed and scared when there are a lot of form fields and choices." The bar graph below shows how UX performance and conversion rate go down as the number of form fields goes up.     Some of the best ways to check something often have half as many fields as other ones. This is done by getting rid of fields that aren't needed, combining fields like first and last names into one, and using services like the Google Maps API to search for addresses in real-time.  

Accept multiple payment options

Accepting more than one type of payment is helpful for eCommerce businesses because it lets them serve customers who may not have one type of credit card. It can also help increase conversion rates in places you wouldn't think of. If your customers don't have enough ways to pay, they will abandon their carts and go to a competitor instead. Adding more payment options is one of the best ways to keep people from leaving their carts and increase conversions. It can also be a good idea to offer your customers a way to pay for your products over time with services like AfterPay, Klarna, or PayPal credit. You can also add payment checkouts from Stripe or PayPal to a service to let people pay in many different ways.  

Provide social proof

There is a thin line in eCommerce between getting people interested and scaring them away. To increase the number of people who buy from your eCommerce site, you need to find the right mix of social proof from existing customers. Social proof can come in many forms, like reviews, testimonials, endorsements, ratings, and more. People are more likely to buy from an online store when they know that their friends and family have already done so. Social proof is an important part of conversion optimization because of this. A study found that 27% of customers use reviews and social proof to choose which business to support. In contrast, only 24% of customers never look at an online review of a company before buying from them. Customers have a lot of choices these days, and reviews can be a great way to help them choose and increase the number of people who buy from your store. Social proof can be a powerful tool for both businesses and customers, but it's important to remember that there are two sides. If people post bad things about your product or service on Facebook or Twitter, you may be a victim of this phenomenon, which makes people less likely to try out the products or services you sell. The problem gets worse when online reviews are posted on social media, where everyone has a stronger voice because they can tell companies about their problems directly and in public. This means that you have to respond quickly to complaints about goods, or it might look like you don't care about complaints. Companies can benefit from social proof that is good. If you get a great review on TrustPilot or another site, you might want to put it on your own site, maybe on a page for reviews or a page about a specific product. You could also use it to show your customers and improve your reputation on social media.  

Move forward with improving your eCommerce conversion rates

Conversion rates in e-commerce are important, but it can be hard to figure out how to improve them. Conversions in eCommerce are important, and they are also hard to improve. Most eCommerce stores are happy with conversion rates between 2% and 3%. This means that most of your marketing efforts are wasted. I hope that this article has given you some tips for optimizing conversion rates in eCommerce that you can use to make your eCommerce store more successful. If not, don't be shy about getting in touch with me for more tips on how to improve your eCommerce sales and marketing. This article is meant to be a starting point for your optimization efforts. It is not a final plan, as there is too much information to cover in one article.