eCommerce conversions

What is an eCommerce conversion?

An eCommerce conversion is the completion of a desired action on your online store by a shopper. A conversion is most commonly assumed as a sale, but that may not always be the case. A conversion is also referred to as the completion of a pre-defined goal.

A conversion can simply mean a customer signing up for your newsletter, creating an account on your eCommerce portal, downloading an ebook, and much more. It is not always limited to making a purchase. An eCommerce conversion also has a direct impact on the revenue generation of an online store.

What are some important conversion metrics?

The performance and growth of your online business can be measured with the help of the following conversion metrics

• Conversion Rate - The percentage of visitors or users on your website that complete a desired action.
• Average Order Value (AOV) - The average money spent by a consumer in a single transaction.
• Return on Investment (ROI) - This is a measure of the profitability of the  online marketing operations.
• Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) - This is the average cost incurred, to bring in a new lead.
• Click-Through Rate (CTR) - It is the percentage of people who have clicked on your page, out of the total impressions.
• Cart Abandonment Rate - It is the percentage of shoppers, who abandon their carts without making a purchase.

How to calculate eCommerce conversion rate ?

An eCommerce conversion rate is the number or percentage of visitors on your eCommerce site or portal that complete a desired action, defined by your business. It is necessary for a business to calculate their conversion rate and analyse it from time to time. The following formula can be used in order to calculate the percentage of your conversion rate-

Divide the total number of conversions on your eCommerce website, by the Total number of visitors on your website or portal users (for that specific type of conversion, during that specific time frame) and then multiply that value with 100.

While measuring the conversion rate for your website, your primary focus should be the conversions on your product page(s) or on your checkout process. Along with that, it is necessary to crack other types of conversions on your eCommerce store.

It is essential to understand your conversion rate, in order to determine what is right for your eCommerce store and what isn’t, which would substantially allow you to take the right steps to improve your conversion rate.

How to increase eCommerce conversion ?

Here are some tips to increase eCommerce Conversions -

Make site navigation easier

An easy to access website can contribute towards the success of your eCommerce store. Therefore, you should aim to create a proper flow for your website, through which your visitors can easily browse through your products.

Help your visitors find all the site elements in the place where they expect it to be. To improve your site navigation, you can also enhance the speed of your site. 

According to Google, you can lose the interest of 53% of your visitors if your website takes more than 2 seconds to load. You can now check your site’s speed using Google’s PageSpeed Insights, to understand what you need to improve. You can also see if you get a better site hosting plan. 

By helping users to quickly find what they are looking for, you can convert your visitors into customers. 

Optimize CTA

A call-to-action is a clear and precise statement that directs your shoppers to take a specific action like make a purchase, search for your product, sign up for your newsletter, etc. The right call to action helps grab the attention of your customer, towards the exact action you want them to complete. In order to grab their attention, it is necessary to use the right keywords and make the text large and visible to users. Along with that it is necessary to keep your calls-to-action short but concise, by making it more conversational towards the user. And lastly, try to describe your call to action as a form of urgency, so that shoppers are convinced to complete the action as soon as possible. For example: Sale ends today, Shop now!

Design creative visuals

In an eCommerce store, the user is unable to touch or feel the product before purchasing. Thus, in order to overcome this limitation, it is necessary to provide your users with high-quality images  of the products. 

Another common limitation is the credibility of the product. And in order to resolve this you can provide images & reviews of customers, who have already tried the products. . In addition, you can also use lifestyle shots or videos of your products, (if that is possible) so that your shoppers can picture themselves using the products

A/B Testing

A/B Testing also known as split testing is one of the most common ways to compare the different variations of the same thing. Through this method you can compare two or more versions of your webpage and determine which one is working better. These different versions can be displayed to different users, randomly in the same time period.

It will help understand which one is working best for you and simultaneously you can start applying that selected version. Under this method, other than different versions of your website you can also compare different elements of your website like your CTA, visuals, headings, etc. This will help improve the performance of your website. 

Write detailed content 

Through eCommerce stores, it is difficult for a shopper to understand what the contents of the product are without actually seeing it. You can fix this, help your shoppers understand your product better by writing valuable content that complements the product. Along with providing a basic understanding of the product to the shoppers, your website should also aim . to catch their attention, make them relate to your brand, drive action (and conversions), and even build long term relationships.

In order to create valuable content & product descriptions, you need to consider the way in which your customers and shoppers would read it. In most cases, they don’t actually read the description, but instead they scan through it. And eye-tracking studies have shown that the scanning is generally done in an ‘F’ shape, so make sure to format your content in a way that it is  engaging even when your shoppers scan through it.

User friendly eCommerce Website 

Your customers can only view your store virtually, so it is highly essential to provide them with the best user experience through your website. This is possible by creating a visually pleasing design for your eCommerce store, and ensuring that your website is user friendly and responsive across different devices.  

Build a minimal effort  user experience by reducing  your customers efforts to resize, scroll, or pan on your website

Conversion funnel

A conversion funnel is the path that is followed by the customers, right from getting to know your brand to finally making a purchase. 

A conversion funnel has 4 different stages and in order to increase your conversion rate, it is essential to understand these stages and build on it. It begins with awareness of the brand, that builds an interest in the brand, which turns into a desire for the products and finally leading to the purchase of the product. 

One approach to enhance your conversion funnel at the first stage would be to make your eCommerce website easier to navigate, by adding appealing visuals to your website. 

The other approach to enhance the interest in your brand would be to make your website more user friendly, by providing quick assistance to your potential customers. 

And ultimately to develop a desire for your product that converts into a purchase, you can incorporate social proof elements, promotions and limited time discounts that can tempt the potential customers.

Social Proofing

A consumer tends to believe the review or testimony of other consumers and peers who have already tried the products, rather than the claims made by the Company. In order to fix this, it is more effective to add  reviews and testimonials on your homepage and your product pages. And make the whole experience  feel more real by mentioning your customers’ names and (with consent) adding a headshot photo (since as users, we tend to trust faces). 

Use conversion triggers

If you have a Shopify store, you could use the Engati app to deploy a chatbot which would shoot out a call-out message to your customers, along with a promo code to tempt your customers into making a purchase whenever they land on a page, scroll through it, spend a certain amount of time on it, or even add a product to their cart or remove it.

Include a chat option

Along with building your eCommerce website, it is also necessary to solve your customers queries and problems. In order to do that, you can add a chat feature where customers can directly reach out to you with their query and resolve it on the spot. This helps build a better shopping experience and keeps your customers satisfied. 

It is not possible to answer everyone’s queries at all times, here is where Engati can help. With our automated chatbots, you can resolve all your customer’s queries 24x7. And not just that, you can even send out personalised messages to them, provide suggestions, and build a relationship with your customers. 

Reduce Cart Abandonment

A shopping cart abandonment is when a shopper adds products to their carts, up until the checkout page but leaves before making the purchase. Cart abandonment is one of the biggest  problems in the world of eCommerce. 

This is mainly because some users tend to have a browsing habit, where they only browse through products and at the final step, abandon their carts. To increase your conversions, you should reach out to   those customers, and get them to complete the purchase.

You can use WhatsApp messages that have an engagement rate of 70%, and carry out cart recovery campaigns by sending personalised messages. In order to send multiple messages to a wide customer range, you can create a WhatsApp Chatbot for the same.

If your online store runs on Shopify, you could even use an Engati WhatsApp chatbot to automate your abandoned cart recovery campaign. In addition to that, you can optimise and improve the user experience in order to reduce cart abandonment issues.

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