E-commerce Conversion Rate Optimization: Best Practices for 2021

Blog: MattsenKumar Blog

COVID-19 has accelerated the growth of the e-commerce industry. Strict lockdown imposed by governments has coaxed users to rely on e-commerce platforms for delivering essentials. Now the addictive experience is ushering users into a world where everything can be bought and delivered with a few clicks.

In India, e-commerce adoption accelerated and the country’s e-commerce industry is expected to achieve the target of 2030 by 2023. The increased penetration is inspiring multiple organizations to expand in the e-commerce domain. One thing they are missing out on is the low conversion rate. Only 2-3 out of 100 people who visit e-commerce stores make a purchase.

What is E-commerce Conversion Rate?

Conversion rate is the metric that represents the percentage of users who took the desired action out of all the users that visited the site. An e-commerce player can have a conversion rate for newsletter signup, account creation, order placement, and even for survey participation. For example, if 1000 users visited a product page and only 100 people made a purchase then the conversion rate here is 10%.

E-commerce conversion rate is leveraged as a tool to measure how effective the ads are, how helpful the product descriptions are and how convincing the ad copies are. A higher conversion rate means all the key elements are contributing exemplary to the end goal, which yet again can be anything from form-filling to a product purchase.

Benefits of measuring e-commerce conversion rates

Highlights campaigns that are failing
Often brings opportunities under the spotlight
Help identify areas that require immediate attention
Allows stakeholders to keep a tab on multiple avenues of advertising

What is a Good E-commerce Conversion Rate?

Well, the importance of conversion rate varies from one industry to another. For people running online blogs, every impression on an ad pays hence every user that scrolled through an ad contributes to overall conversion. For e-commerce players, users who take decisive actions like filling a form, sharing contact details, or ordering a product contribute to the overall conversion.

On average 3-5% is considered to be a good conversion rate; according to Invespcro, for the e-commerce industry, the average conversion rate stands at 2.58%. A study published by Growcode highlights how the conversion rate varies for an online store from one industry to another. Arts & Crafts and Healthcare stores seem to do better than other industries with a conversion rate closer to 3.5%.

A good conversion rate ranges between 3-8%; which is often influenced by factors like:

The actual price of the product
The on-site user experiences
Speed of product discovery
Quality of information provided in the product description
Standard of images used

Best Tools to Analyse and Calculate Conversion Rate?

To effectively collect data, analyze information and reach a consensus, e-commerce players need tools that can fetch information from the site and display them in a presentable manner. Analytical tools are often integrated with the online stores to identify geography, browser, age, gender, and source of users.

Later, these tools do the calculation at the back and provide key stakeholders with actual information, which can be acted upon. The final data provided by these analytical tools are bankable and can be used for taking entrepreneurial decisions.

Some of the top and most popular tools for calculating conversion rate are

Google Analytics: Coming from the house of Alphabet Inc. the parent company of search engine Google, this tool is packed with all the requisite metrics that Google itself uses. Perhaps the most trusted and widely used tool for calculating conversion rates, this tool also offers genuine insight into optimization.

When followed and implemented religiously, the suggested optimizations can influence the final numbers positively. The fact that Google Analytics is a power-packed tool and is available for free, everyone starts with it only to pivot to fancy when they start generating cash.

VWO: A high-end analytics tool that collects varied information from a website and uses it for offering genuine insights. Preferably used for identifying channels that bring in traffic and to highlight all the opportunities and challenges. With a better dashboard and high-end suggestion, this is growing in popularity. E-commerce platforms prefer VWO as an analytical tool because it segments the collected data better. One simple click integration makes the task easier and more fun.

Optimizely: A high-end tool that is growing in popularity and is likely to go past Google Analytics in coming years is packed with features. A/B testing, impressive dashboard, and quality graphical representation of data are some of the reasons, e-commerce executives prefer Optimizely over other conversion management tools.

Best Practices for Increasing E-commerce Conversion Rate in 2021

Well-written copy, optimized website, educational catalog, and high-quality images together help e-commerce customers to make an informed decision. With any of these taking a hit the overall on-site conversion is likely to go down. While the marketing, optimization, and catalog management tasks are on-going processes, there are tips, tweaks, and changes which when made can drive the conversion positively.

Here, we will be looking at some changes that can affect the overall conversion rate positively. Our aim here is to identify opportunities, which are hidden in plain sight. Leveraging these opportunities to offer a better customer experience and assist with decision-making will impact the overall growth of an e-commerce company.

1. Improve Product Discovery

If you have been overlooking the impact of product discovery, let us tell you, 72% of users now prefer Amazon over Google for discovering new products. People directly go to Amazon looking for products based on their requirements and challenges. Faster product discovery not only reduces the amount of time spent in finding relevant products but it establishes an e-commerce company as the preferred shopping destination.

Product discovery does better for online stores than a well-written ad copy. It can alter the entire notion and help customers have a quality online shopping experience. Some of the other benefits of improving product discovery include:

It reduces the bounce rate
Improves the brand reputation
Increasing customer loyalty
Generates recurring sale

Here’s how e-commerce players can improve product discovery to see an upsurge in e-commerce conversion rate:

Remove errors from the catalog
Include important keywords related to the product in the description
Optimize the on-site search engine
Use alt text for images
Use tags effectively

2. Establish Easier Navigation

Not discussed enough but navigation needs attention. We all know how irritating it is to locate “My Order”, “My Account” and “My Address” tabs on a desktop as well as a mobile e-commerce site. By making these pages quickly accessible, e-commerce sites are helping customers save time, which adds up to the overall customer experience ensuring recurring visits.

If e-commerce companies take up the navigation optimization a step ahead, they can reduce the number of steps involved in completing a purchase. Customers often abandon carts because of innumerable checkout steps. By reducing steps or by removing compulsory steps like account creation, account verification, and manual enter of addresses, e-commerce players can save customers a few seconds and keep their carts from getting abandoned.

Cache feature that automatically fills address and OTP system that generates and verifies account together can reduce up to 5 checkout steps, which leads to a great boost in customer experience and guarantees improved revenue.

3. Payment Security Optimization

34% of users are likely to look for PCI Certification when using their cards for making a purchase. A huge percentage of users just look for the green padlock before sharing their card details. By catering to these requirements, e-commerce players can improve their conversion rate impressively.

Getting PCI DSS certified allow organizations to

Command loyalty of userbase
Ensure end users that their data is safe
Allow customers peace of mind
Attract third-party business integrations

Also, apart from offering a secure payment option, adding multiple payment options is a great way of improving the e-commerce conversion rate. Offering cash on delivery in countries like India, Bangladesh, and China can boost e-commerce conversion rates and bring in referral orders too.

4. Optimize Product Pages for Search Engines

Well, optimizing product pages for search engines like Google should be the ultimate goal. Over the last 2 decades, Google has introduced multiple algorithm updates and with every new roll-out, it has improved customer experience. With a focus on customer effort score, Google algorithms prefer ranking genuine businesses, have authority, and fresh content.

Once product pages are optimized as per Google requirements, they are ready to serve customers with their varied needs. Customers can access the information on product pages through image, audio, and text search, which is a great way of improving e-commerce conversion rates.

Search engines like Google want online sites to

Evenly distribute keyword throughout the content
Include the keyword in headers
Use alt text on images
Want to make text easily readable
Offer a better understanding of the product

When all the aforementioned points are covered, the content caters to the search intent of users, which can drive the sale or visibility of products. E-commerce companies can blindly follow the optimization norms of Google and achieve impressive results.

5. Optimize E-commerce Store for Mobile Devices

In coming years, a huge percentage of e-commerce traffic will come from mobile devices. While mobile applications are becoming the preferred mode of shopping, e-commerce players are required to optimize both mobiles as well desktop sites. Mobile application optimization ensures a quality customer experience while desktop optimization assists with search engine traffic acquisition.

If e-commerce players overlook either of the mediums, they are likely to visibility, loyalty, and opportunities to build a better business. With mobile applications taking the center stage, the focus should be on offering more in less time, which can be achieved by:

Optimizing product images to load faster
Highlighting key features of a product
Including search keywords in the product title
Offer better sorting and segmentation opportunity

6. Leverage User-Generated Content

Of all the products returned 24% were returned because they looked different from the store. Often e-commerce companies invest in product photography, which enhances the product but it also impacts the original colors. When products are delivered, customers are not fully satisfied and they end up returning the product.

To ensure a better e-commerce conversion rate and lesser return requests, e-commerce companies can leverage user-generated content. Allow users to upload photos and reviews of the product. Since, we all know the magic of word of mouth, where a customer trusts the other customer, e-commerce companies can bank upon this and generate a good number of sales.

Here’s how user-generated content helps:

They showcase the true product
They highlight the usability of the product
They clear doubts prevalent to color, size, and application
They assist with improved decision making

UGC can boost e-commerce conversion rates by catering to all the weird questions of a user and portraying how the product looks in real life.

7. Invest in Catalog Management

The key to offering fast product discovery, optimizing a site for SEO, and ensuring qualitative experience lies in effective catalog management. Robust catalog management ensures that everything from product description to images is optimized to offer customers an exceptional experience.

Some of the top challenges effective catalog management addresses

Brand Interference: All errors that occur due to errors committed by sellers can be addressed at once with affordable e-commerce catalog management services. Brand interference when reduced or controlled can lead to lesser return requests and an improved browsing experience. With lesser interference when looking for branded products, one can easily offer faster product discovery and a memorable shopping experience.
Cart Abandonment: A lot of customers abandon their carts just before making payment because they are not sure about the product. With a catalog management system that ensures product title, description, and image optimizations, customers can be sure about their purchase and spend money with confidence.

Investing in catalog management pays the biggest dividend because it

Improves the on-site visibility of products
Increases organic traffic from Google
Guarantees better conversion rate
Offers opportunities to up-sell and cross-sell
Helps in creating theme-based bucketing
Simplifies product recommendation
Reduces customer pain points

8. Work on Your CTAs & Highlight Customer Support

In the end, the e-commerce conversion rate is a measure of how well the marketing campaigns are doing. Since marketing campaigns for online platforms are dependent upon content and funnels, it is necessary to ensure all Call-to-Action buttons are up to mark and effective.

An effective CTA copy that excites and creates a sense of losing out can be a great way of improving e-commerce conversion rates. Businesses can invest in catalog management and get highly effective CTA copies written and embedded on their website. Call to action buttons when made appealing and visible can convince users either to make a purchase or reach out with a genuine query. Making customer support accessible through live chat is perhaps the most effective way of boosting the e-commerce conversion rate. Live chat can be used as a tool to:

Reroute customers to the correct product
Answer product related queries instantly
Offer a better understanding of the product
Control return rate by offering quality support

9. Learn from Your Competitors

Let the truth be out, every e-commerce company is taking a cue from Amazon. How Amazon is handling it? Is perhaps the most repeated question in every e-commerce board meeting. By acquiring over 100 million Prime Users alone in the US, Amazon has established itself as the GOAT of the e-commerce industry.

Well, in the recent past, there’s been a paradigm shift, companies today are looking at minuscule start-ups that are led by tech enthusiasts. These Silicon Valley geeks are talented and have a much better understanding of customer intent. Their innovation and developments are helping many companies offer better products and services to customers.

The irreparable contribution of millennials’ top innovation is helping the e-commerce industry thrive, be it Lenskart from India using augmented reality to accurately predicting the best-suited glass frames to other stores that leverage AI and ML to recommend the most useful products.

E-commerce benchmarking service can be of great help when trying to understanding competitors. These services allow organizations to benchmark their performance against the peers and develop an understanding of how competitors are dealing with nuanced challenges.

10. Browse and Wishlist without Login

A simple change that can be implemented within hours but has a gigantic impact. By letting customers browse and wishlist products within logging in can go a long way in acquiring and retaining customers. Multiple B2B marketplaces demand email and phone numbers as soon as customers start browsing products, which puts customers off.

Customers have no issues in sharing information once they have found the right product. This is a problem that is pertaining mostly to B2B marketplaces and needs to be addressed immediately.

Final Thought on E-commerce Conversion Rate

Well, e-commerce players cannot pick an example of an e-commerce conversion rate related to product discovery or catalog management and claim it worked wonders. To ensure higher conversion on e-commerce sites, companies need to focus on everything mentioned in this post. It needs to be a collective effort made at on-site experience, product page optimization, and the SEO side to ensure the conversion rate for e-commerce companies continues to grow.

The post E-commerce Conversion Rate Optimization: Best Practices for 2021 appeared first on MattsenKumar.