I wanted to start this thread to see if anyone is willing to share things they have done to improve conversion rates. One of my sites is now using V3 and I was really hoping to see an improved conversion rate. Our pages per visit are over 4, average visit duration is around 4 minutes, bounce rate is less than 55%.
We get people adding things to their cart but do not finish checking out. Some even fill out their name, address, etc. but still do not cross the finish line. I’m not seeing any unsecure warnings so I thought I’d ask to see what, if anything, you have done to improve your conversion rate.
The only thing that has helped us really is to have more specific Google Ads and landing pages. For example, if selling cars; having a “we sell cars ad” will have high bounce rates. But an ad for something like; “2012 Honda Civic with leather and bluetooth” has better success.
[quote][color=#282828][font=arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif]We get people adding things to their cart but do not finish checking out. Some even fill out their name, address, etc. but still do not cross the finish line.[/font][/color][/quote]
Considering this, I would make sure your available shipping options & costs are competitive within your industry. A slow site especially during checkout may be having an effect on your customers dropping off considering they actually did put the effort into adding items to their cart.
Spent several hundred on testing the new site with Adwords and the results were dismal. Good click through rate and they went through lots of pages. Could be more specific with the ads though and landing pages.
We have real time rates with USPS and UPS with nothing extra added. The heavier it is, the more it costs to ship. Free shipping for anything over $75.00. Could try lowering the threshold for free shipping or a flat rate no matter what and see what that does.
Site is optimized and scores well in GTmetrix so I don't think that's it.
Hello everyone!
I would like to give you an example of an improved conversion rate from our company.
Before purchasing a product people like to read the reviews and if there are some reviews on your website, it is always good.
What we did is developed a module allowing to send an after-purchase auto e-mail with a review form in it. It really works like a magic. It is a comfortable way for clients to leave reviews and a great source for us because our products are now rated and reviewed. And as a result we got more clients who buy our product, we think it is because products with reviews look more appealing.
So, my advise is to stimulate your clients to leave reviews, It really works.
If interested, you can read about our product review modification here http://www.alt-team…dification.html
Best regards, Alt-team
Definitely people trust buying a product that has peer reviews. They work really well for us too. There is a University of Nebraska study that showed sales for online sellers went up by 26% after introducing the review feature for a product on their website.
Cheers,
Scott.
what feedback did you get when you contacted those customers who bailed out on checkout by telephone or email with a sincere attitude to understand and improve your business versus getting them to complete the sale. Nothing beats talking to your customers. They will tell you things you will never see.
Suggest where possible to take the Costco approach. Giving fewer options and choices leads to more purchases.
Alt-Team, I'll be getting that add-on for sure. Am waiting till my other site gets upgraded to V3. It's in progress right now and will order once it's finished.
I’ve been selling online for about 13 years and worked for some popular sites. I don’t think the is a one fits all answer to getting more conversions. The are basic rules, I see if I can recall some here;
- Make sure when advertising your looking in the right places. It’s pointless using a shotgun if you only want the fat birds
- Know your target customer, know what they want now and may need in the future and beat them to the new trends.
- This goes back to the very basics of your business, build in your discountability. If you buy and item for 50 and want to make 50 then make your standard price more then that say 70 and then discount down. This also helps with sales and means you can reduce by 50% or more and still reclaim your costs on the items.
- Make time a factor, when you discount don’t discount everything all the time. For example if you want to have a sale for a week don’t just say everything is 30% off. This is no real point to doing that if the customer is already at your site. split the site up into ten parts and reduce each part one at a time.
5.Find a hook ! whats an that ? simple it’s a small item you can sell cheap or give away with a more expensive item. “Buy this pen and get this pencil free”. Remember point 4 “Today only !”
[quote name='Scott_C' timestamp='1366071236' post='160004']
The only thing that has helped us really is to have more specific Google Ads and landing pages. For example, if selling cars; having a “we sell cars ad” will have high bounce rates. But an ad for something like; “2012 Honda Civic with leather and bluetooth” has better success.
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@Scott_C … I never thought about this. I have a two main 'general' Adwords ads which just give the basic 'We have video game parts' ad instead of focusing on more specific items. And these ads also have hi bounce rates too. Thanks for the tip!
No worries Tim. It's really the cornerstone of Google Ads. In fact Google will penalise you for generic ads, non-specific landing pages etc! Check out this link in regard to the Google QS; About Quality Score - Google Ads Help
Here's another good article; What Is Quality Score & How Does it Affect Google Ads | WordStream
Its worth noting too, that ads with a low QS i.e; non-specific content, keywords and landing pages, will actually cost you more.
I took some time to browse your website and wrote down some things. If you fix these issues I promise you conversion will go up plenty.
- Dump the red on blue in the menu. This is not a good combination. For some people this is really hard to read (also known to cause headaches) and it's next to impossible to read on tablets or laptops on which light shines.
- Remove your site from your signature here. Loads of people will come to your site just seeing what it looks like because they are interested in or using cs-cart. These are not customers and will only play around. This will also mess up statistics if you don't have them configured correctly.
- Well this is funny: I added something to my cart and got free shipping. This message STAYS at the top all the time covering the cart and checkout button until I click the little cross in the top corner to remove it. I wonder what that will do for your conversion but my guess is 25% of your visitors doesn't understand where the checkout button is anymore. Get rid of that thing by changint time it shows to 5 seconds, at most!
- During checkout, step 2 I have to fill in my name again? I just did that… I know this is a cs-cart thing but it's very easy to fix and take over the name from step 1 to step 2. This really confuses and annoys people after which they'll think… f-that… i don't even need this stuff and go away.
- I'd remove your Sale info on checkout pages.
- I kinda like how this “old-fashioned” multipage checkout works. I think this might work even better then the multipage checkout especially if you have lots of older customers. It makes it much easier to go back and forth a step.
Hope this helps!!
F
[quote name='Flow' timestamp='1369461873' post='162387']
4) During checkout, step 2 I have to fill in my name again? I just did that… I know this is a cs-cart thing but it's very easy to fix and take over the name from step 1 to step 2. This really confuses and annoys people after which they'll think… f-that… i don't even need this stuff and go away.[/quote]
Flow, do you mind sharing how to do this?
[quote name='Flow' timestamp='1369461873' post='162387']
3) Well this is funny: I added something to my cart and got free shipping. This message STAYS at the top all the time covering the cart and checkout button until I click the little cross in the top corner to remove it. I wonder what that will do for your conversion but my guess is 25% of your visitors doesn't understand where the checkout button is anymore. Get rid of that thing by changint time it shows to 5 seconds, at most!
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Under Settings, Appearance, at bottom under Common Settings, there is a place for number of seconds. However, that only affects the Added to Cart pop-up. It does not affect the Promotion message you are referring to where I have a free shipping promotion. Is there a separate setting for that?
Guess what I found on my V3 site? Yep - an unsecure warning popup when you get to the checkout page. I've checked this before on different computers of mine and never seen it. Today, on a totally separate computer, using IE, I got that warning. Man! Looking into it now to figure out what's causing it.
Just a follow up for this thread and a warning to all. Check on different computers to see if the secure warning comes up.
Most likely an addon has provided an image path (or you've modified the template) to use a FQDN path versus a relative path. If the path is relative, cs-cart will handle the switch to using https just fine. But if you've used something like 'http://mydomain.com/path/image.jpg or just mydomain.com/path/image.jpg then you'll get a security notice in IE. Note it is always best to use the fn_url template variable modifier to get the correct path/protocol for any image or page reference.
