How to increase eCommerce conversion rates

Conversion rate will always be a hot topic in eCommerce, it’s something every online retailer is striving to improve. They’re often used as a KPI to measure the success of online shopping sites and can be used to benchmark against competitors. Retail conversion rates vary by region, industry and customer base with the average eCommerce conversion rate sitting around 1-2%.

While you might be great at driving traffic to your online store, data shows that the majority of shoppers (81%) will get all the way to the checkout page, only to abandon their carts.

If you could reduce that figure and increase your conversion rate by just a few percent, this could make a massive difference to your bottom line.

Every eCommerce provider wants to know how to increase their conversion rate, and while there’s no magic fix, we’ve rounded up some of the things you can do to help boost those eCommerce conversion rates.

Optimise the mobile shopping experience

Although more than half of online browsing happens on mobile devices, mobile conversion rates continue to lag behind desktop.

According to Monetate, mobile traffic is converting at less than half the rate of that on desktop, at 2.25% compared to 4.81% for desktop, with traffic on tablets converting at 4.06% on average.

There are several reasons why people prefer to buy on a laptop or PC. Smaller screens can make it more difficult to navigate around the site, view images and compare products, so some shoppers may browse on mobile and select products later on.

Mobile conversion rate also slips because of slower page load times, limited payment options and worries about security. In essence, consumers are not satisfied with the mobile checkout experience.

To overcome this, you can improve load times by minimising ads, plugins, and graphics. You can also speed up the checkout process and accept multiple payment options.

A good customer experience also means they’ll spend more, with 86% of shoppers willing to pay more for a great customer experience.

Increase trust and security

The Edelman Trust Barometer showed that 81% of customers said they needed to be able to trust the brand in order to buy from them.

As well as including trust signals such as verified badges (for example Norton Secured or McAfee Secure), and ensuring your SSL certificate is up to date, there’s also a wealth of holistic things you can do to increase trust in your eCommerce site. Including things such as customer service contact details, your returns policy and customer reviews can all help in winning trust and giving consumers confidence in your website.

Using terminology such as “secure checkout” rather than just “checkout” or asking shoppers to “verify” their email rather than “re-enter it” can also make a psychological difference to how customers view your online store.

It’s also worth investing in your brand presence through PR, marketing and advertising to ensure potential customers are well-aware of your name and you are seen as a reputable brand in the market.

Offer and promote “buy now, pay later” as a payment option

Consumers like choice and they want flexibility. They also like to buy the things they want while managing their budgets. By providing multiple payment options and offering flexibility during your checkout process, customers are more likely to complete their purchase.

Offering them an interest free, buy now and pay later (BNPL) option is a great way to deliver this financial flexibility.

Ecommerce retailers that provide BNPL options see increased sales compared to those brands that don’t offer this flexibility. A recent report showed 57% of UK eCommerce retailers using BNPL saw an increase in basket conversion, and 46% saw an increase in average order value.

After implementing our credit solution, award-winning mattress retailer OTTY saw their credit sales conversions jump from 20% to 70%, and their customer satisfaction rates vastly improve. For them, it was a great success.

Once you’ve integrated the best interest free credit solution for your eCommerce store, make sure to promote this through your marketing channels. To benefit from increased sales by offering a BNPL solution, customers need to know this is available on your online store, before they reach the checkout. We’ve got loads of tips and tricks, and examples, on how to use this in your marketing.

Implement a cart abandonment strategy

If you’re getting a lot of abandoned carts, there are several ways to reduce this and increase your eCommerce conversion rate.

Many eCommerce platforms, such as BigCommerce and Shopify include cart abandonment software as standard. By tracking abandoned carts, you can then implement a follow-up email campaign to entice potential customers back to your store.

You can include a discount code or offer free postage as an incentive to complete their order. Alternatively, you can highlight the monthly cost of the item if they were to use a BNPL payment option – spreading the cost of a higher value item, and seeing the smaller monthly instalments, can make it much more appealing to consumers.

If you’d like to know more about DivideBuy and how our interest free Buy Now, Pay Later solution can help increase your conversion rates get in touch with our team today.