Syed Balkhi — November 8, 2019 There’s a lot that goes into planning for a successful eCommerce holiday season. Many eCommerce site owners focus on driving traffic to their online store by optimizing for SEO, creating holiday-themed content, using online advertising, and more.
But, even if your online store has a ton of traffic this holiday season, that doesn’t mean a ton of online shoppers are going to buy your products. Luckily, there are a number of easy and sometimes overlooked improvements you can make to your online store in order to increase conversions.
Check out these 5 improvements to make your online store more successful this holiday season.
Combat cart abandonment.
Shopping cart abandonment is one of the biggest obstacles eCommerce websites face when working to increase conversions during the holidays. In fact, according to Barilliance, over 3/4 of shoppers choose to leave eCommerce sites without completing a purchase. So, how can you turn those abandoning shoppers into customers?
One way to combat cart abandonment and increase conversions is by implementing an abandoned cart popup. A cart abandonment popup displays a message at exactly the right time to entice users into buying before they leave.
For instance, take a look at the cart abandonment popup below. It reminds users they still have items left in their cart and offers them 10% off if they head to the checkout.
You can also use email marketing to reduce cart abandonment. Using an email marketing service, you can automatically send an email to shoppers after they leave items in their cart unpurchased. With these tactics for combating cart abandonment, you can turn more holiday window shoppers into customers.
Improve product search.
Many online shoppers head to a website knowing exactly what type of product they’re looking for—whether it’s an item they want for themselves or a gift they want to give a loved one. And if they can’t find the particular item on their mental wishlist, then they’ll leave your online store in search of the product elsewhere. Improving your product search so shoppers can find exactly what they want is important, especially for online stores with a large inventory.
So, be sure to add a product search box to multiple pages on your site. If you’re running your online store on Shopify, you can use a powerful Shopify app like Instant Search +. This app gives users search results as they’re typing, provide search results even if your shoppers misspell an item, rank results based on customers’ preference, and more. People that use the search box are shopping with an intent to purchase, make it easy for them to buy by improving your product search.
Create better product descriptions.
Once shoppers land on your website, you need to convince them to buy your awesome products; better product descriptions can help you do that. Many online store owners forget about the power of the product description. The product description shouldn’t just be a list of specs like measurements and ingredients. It should also explain why a product is worth purchasing.
For example, look at this product description from Zappos. Rather than only stating facts like “Molded EVA cushion midsole,” they say “Molded EVA cushion midsole for all-day under-foot comfort.”
Each bullet point highlights a feature of the product and the benefit for the consumer so they can quickly and easily understand why they should buy.
Use social proof to your advantage.
Social proof is one of the most effective ways to increase conversions for your online store. One of the most common forms of social proof is online reviews. When a shopper sees that a product has a ton of great reviews, they’ll be more likely to purchase it for themselves.
Plus, seeing that others are happy with the product will help hesitant shoppers get over their fears of purchasing, which is especially helpful when selling higher priced items. In fact, according to statistics, higher priced items need at least 5 reviews to see maximum conversion impact.
Sephora knows this well, check out how they use online reviews to encourage shoppers to purchase a $ 240 face cream.
Notice how Sephora’s review system also includes a short profile of the reviewer that includes facts like eye color, hair color, skin tone, and skin type. This lets shoppers find reviews from people that have features similar to their own so that they can be sure the makeup or skincare product will work for them too.
Be sure to use social proof to your advantage by displaying online reviews and customer testimonials.
Make the checkout process easier.
If you want to make your online store more successful this holiday season, you also need to reduce checkout abandonment. We covered shopping cart abandonment previously, but shopping cart abandonment and checkout abandonment are not the same. When a shopper makes it all the way to the checkout page, they are intending to purchase the items in their cart. But something causes them to give up, typically it’s a lengthy and confusing checkout process.
So, you need to make the checkout process easier for shoppers. There are a number of ways you can improve the checkout process including:
- Offer a guest checkout option
- Display security trust marks
- Only request the necessary information
- Add a progress indicator
- Provide multiple payment options
When your checkout process is a breeze, more online shoppers will be willing to become customers.
Over to you.
With these tips, you can improve the online shopping experience for your website visitors as well as build a trusting and loyal relationship with them. Start making these improvements to your online store today and you’re sure to see an increase in conversions this holiday season.
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