Hopefully you already read my last e-commerce blog (start-up tips). You didn’t? Have a read and then pop back over here.

Once you’ve given yourself a head-start with the set up of your online store, it will be a nail-biting wait for your first sale, but when it comes in, boy does it feel good!

And it might be tempting to just sit back and let the cash come flooding in… sadly that doesn’t really happen. Making sales online may look easy but it takes a lot of work. It’s something to plan for and it takes a deep understanding of your costs, capacity, customers and buying channels. It’s important to set some realistic targets, commit some budget and keep testing and improving your strategy (organic discovery, search engine optimisation, customer engagement and ads) until you see things start to take off.

Even once you’ve got people to come to your store, the all important question then is, will they convert?

There’s three places where you can measure the conversion rate in your store:

1. Add to basket rate

2. Checkout rate

3. Basket to order rate

All three hold important information about your store performance. If you’re using a proprietary platform like Shopify then chances are that your checkout experience is already well-optimised. There are tweaks you can make but generally you can trust that once the customer has the product in their basket they will probably get through the next steps without a hitch.

Sidebar - abandoned carts

An abandoned cart is where they reach checkout with an item in the basket and then they just, poof, disappear. Maybe the phone rang, maybe they needed a cuppa and forgot what they were doing. Whatever stopped them, you should try to get them back if you can. If they have got as far as adding their email address, you can try to recover through an abandoned cart email or remarketing. But make sure you do something.

Sometimes people put things in their basket to check delivery costs and then abandon. If this is happening to you, make sure your delivery details are available up-front and easy to find on the product page and elsewhere.

So let’s focus on number 1 - getting them to put the product in their basket. Here are my top tips:

1. Show the product benefits. Ensure the description explains how the product will benefit the customer. In other words: don’t say “shampoo with a creamy, rich lather”, do say: “creamy, rich lathering shampoo that will leave your hair feeling fresh and clean from root to tip”.

2. Personalise. What can you do to personalise your product? If you can segment your products to appeal to a particular group of customers, do that. Even if you only have a few products, think about the people buying them - they likely have more than one purpose so focus on that. Create segmented versions of landing pages - either product or category pages - designed to appeal to the customer’s needs and interests. For example: a category page for all products great for curly-haired people focused on the needs of people with curly hair.

3. Cross-sell and up-sell. Is there a complementary product you can offer? “If you buy this rich lathering shampoo which is perfect for curly hair, why not add this extra-creamy conditioner for bouncy curls with shine?” Subscription services are really popular at the moment so if your product is a repeat purchase, consider offering a subscription as a way of increasing your customer lifetime value.

4. Focus on content. Do you have enough non-product content to reassure the customer that you are the right vendor for them? Do you look trustworthy and legitimate? Ensure you have an about us page, FAQs page, terms and conditions, privacy policy and so on. If appropriate, take time to create articles relevant to your product based on your own industry knowledge.

5. Remarketing. If you are getting traffic but low conversions at stage 1 then you may need to put some of your ads budget into remarketing to people that visited your site. You will need to build up quite a bit of data for this to work (and bear in mind there are some limitations especially on Facebook) but it’s worth considering if you’re really struggling.

6. Avoid price shock. If you’re in e-commerce there’s really no reason to avoid mentioning the price. If the price isn’t obvious then people will be very wary of adding anything to the basket. And this is where, if they have to add to basket to discover the price, they will likely abandon.

7. Give offers. Even if you think your price is fair, people are more likely to take action if they perceive they are getting a good deal. Run discounts for volume purchases; add bundle discounts and do special offers. Giving offers to subscribers is a really good way of maintaining engagement and loyalty and getting repeat purchases (always much easier to achieve than new) and recommendations.

8. Offer live chat. All my stores have live chat enabled through Shopify Inbox linked with Facebook Messenger and other messaging apps. You might think you can’t service this because you are not at your desk 24/7 but, as long as you manage expectations, customers love to be able to ask a question while they browse and you can come back to them as soon as you are able (add inbox to your phone and you will be able to keep on top of them fairly easily).

9. Create trust. Ensure you display payment options, policies, social links prominently; include contact methods and an about us page; display reviews very prominently on the landing pages and product pages; use SSL (all ecommerce sites should begin https:// - the s stands for secure).

10. Ensure a logical structure. Make it an easy and obvious experience to navigate through your site. Critically appraise your site to make sure customers can’t get lost. Ensure related products are easy to find. Make sure action buttons (add to cart) are really really obvious, big and bold and placed close to the product title (not buried below the description).

11. Give great images. Your product images are absolutely key to making a sale. People want to see the product nice and clearly but they also want to see it in use, they might even want to see how it’s made. Invest in studio photography. Try to get customers to submit their own photos. There’s nothing like showing a snap of a person’s beautifully curly hair after using your product for encouraging buying action.

12. Use waiting lists. If you have products that are popular but sometimes go out of stock. Avoid losing customers by adding an app to allow them to be notified when it’s back in stock. They already said they wanted it so they’re halfway to buying, a friendly notification will push them the rest of the way.

13. Use site search. People who search your site for something are showing their intent. They are prepared to take a little time to see if you have what they want. Give them this option and then help them find it with predictive search, ‘other people looked for’ and product suggestions related to their search.

Are you looking for help to optimise your store? I am a Shopify Partner* and Squarespace Developer*. Contact me to discuss how I can help.