A post covering every way to increase traffic and sales for an online store could be very long. Here we’ll focus on conversion.
Put simply and without jargon: if 100 users visit your eCommerce site and one buys, your conversion rate is 1%.
Traffic acquisition costs are rising due to fierce competition, so it’s vital to improve this rate and work on customer loyalty.
The other day I was comparing 2011 and 2012 sales with one of our clients. Traffic had dropped 10%, but conversion had risen by 0.3 points. That meant a 53% increase in total revenue compared with 2011.
How do you do it?
Easy to explain, hard to achieve.
Taking care of your traffic sources
Generating quality traffic, with users interested in our type of product. Analyzing the return on each action taken, the investment and the results.
Online store design and usability
A pleasant environment (tailored to our buyers’ profile) that’s fast, easy and has a barrier-free checkout. Don’t ask for too much information during checkout—customers may back out.
Shipping costs
Whatever they are (free or not), state the estimate clearly before registration.
Search
It should handle spelling mistakes, proactively suggest searches and be placed prominently.
Recommendations
Let’s make life easy for our potential buyers: show them recently viewed products, recommended products and, if possible, personalized recommendations based on each user’s shopping and browsing habits.
Does your online store tick all the boxes?
