How to Increase eCommerce Conversion Rates

Conversion rates for your eCommerce store will determine just how profitable your business is going to be. 

If you are looking to boost your sales, grow your business, and turn traffic into profits, conversion rates are what you should be focusing on. 

The average conversion rate on eCommerce websites (and most other websites) is 1% to 2%.

You’ll want to do better than the “average” though. For businesses that focus on better conversion rates, north of 20-30% conversion rates are not uncommon. 

While several variables matter when it comes to conversions, we’ll focus on aspects of increasing eCommerce conversions that you can control. 

Here’s how to boost your conversion rates now: 

Product Copy, Product Videos, Images, & Customization  

Nothing impacts your eCommerce store conversion rates as much as the combination of product copy, product images, and the ability to customize product selection. 

Give your customers all the three in good measure, and you’ll already do better than 80% of your competition. 

Product copy should answer potential questions your customers might have. It should help them make informed decisions. Write eCommerce product copy in a way that helps them understand the product benefits (and not the features). 

The product images and videos should do the job equivalent of what customers experience (almost) as if they were to walk into a store and touch the product. 

Product customization helps customers add a layer of individuality to their purchases and gives them options to make the product their own. 

Skimp on any of the above, and you’ll hurt your potential, leave customers confused (or make them leave), or fail to convince them to proceed further. 

Sales, Specials, Bundles, & anything Free 

While we are fervently against “price wars” of any kind, you can think of creative ways to still offer something to your potential customers. Sales offers of any kind, special prices for returning customers or special offers for a particular time, or even the classic “free shipping” -- anything that can entice but still not hurt your own profits. 

Giving away freebies, offers, discounts, coupons, and offering special edition versions of your products are the most effective ways to make people buy. 

Want to read more? Check out our post on How to Improve Conversion rates By using Customer Psychology

Need an example? See what Amazon does, all on a single product page: 

Product Reviews (Get it. Show off) 

Product reviews influence sales. People spend more time reading actual reviews on the page than your own product descriptions.

We already wrote about just how big a conversion rate booster good social proof can be. Social proof -- in a way -- is how we make decisions about buying when we don’t want to think about it much. 

Product reviews under products is one of those direct examples of social proof that literally puts money into the bank (if done right). 

There are two steps to ensure maximizing the power of product reviews (assuming you have a great product in the first place, that you deliver as promised, and that your customer service is top-notch). 

• Enable your customers to leave reviews 
• Show off the reviews 

It might take some time for you to sell, gather reviews, and display them right under your product description pages. 

Showing off your product reviews (for each product if you have multiple products) could be the single-most critical conversion booster ever. 

Focus on Customer Experience 

On top of everything above, here’s an often ignored part of your eCommerce store: focus and improve customer experience. Here’s what that means: 

• Your eCommerce site pages should load fast (within 3 seconds, if you need a benchmark). Remember that every second delay in page load causes a direct loss of conversions (and hence sales). 
• Continuously improve how your site displays across devices, while also paying attention to how pages load in terms of design, elements, fonts, and more. 
• Be sure to keep the product pages simple, with added effects such as a magnified product image on hover. 
• Product description copy should be clearly visible, easy to read (pick the right fonts, and make them slightly larger while being relevant to all devices such as mobile, tablets, and desktops). 
• Little things go a long way -- free and fast shipping (and actually delivering products on time), easier eCommerce checkout flow, one-click shopping, and more.

This is not an exhaustive list and you’d have to work on these on an incremental basis, slowly, and improve over time. Yet, when you make progress with work around improving conversions, it’s the best thing you can do to grow sales and increase profits. 

Wondering how to boost eCommerce conversion rates in a planned way? See what we do with our eCommerce strategy, eCommerce marketing, and other services. Specifically, take advantage of our Conversion rate optimization for eCommerce stores.