Increasing conversion rates is one of the most important aspects when selling online. Knowing what you are doing wrong and how to change that can help with increasing conversions and sales.
We have gathered the 4 most common mistakes made by online merchants and sellers which are preventing them from garnering more sales.
1. Insufficient product information:
It is important to remember what your physical counterpart offers that you do not. While there may be no difference with the items you are selling to those found in a stores, brick & mortar customers are able to reach out, touch, and examine it. It is because of this, product information is a very important aspect.
When describing your product, the longer the description the better. For example when dealing with large high ticket items you should elaborate on materials, features, and most importantly size. The same goes for smaller items, expand all you can on describing the item, such as technical features and performance.
A picture is worth a thousand words, so use them. High resolution photo galleries are important for getting the general notion of the product across. The higher resolution the better too, as most devices, big and small, are now sporting high resolution screens and you do not want your photos to be grainy and pixelated.
2. Unclear delivery pricing and costs:
A leading factor of shopping cart abandonment is hidden or unclear shipping prices. This issue can be handled if the shipping price was made available prior to checkout. It is not the pricing itself that may be causing the lack of conversion, but the fact it was not clear from the beginning.
Taking the lead from other top Ecommerce platforms like eBay and AliExpress, which both offer geo-location based shipping quotes, it shows the importance of shipping costs before calculating the price of the item itself.
Another good example of shipping quotes done right is obscure product Ecommerce platform Vat19.com, which offer a shipping calculator for every item. The calculator asks for the destination country and postal code to offer the shipping prices for standard and UPS parcel services.
3. Not enough payment options:
While the 2 primary card types, MasterCard and Visa, remain as the most used payment methods online, more alternative payment options, like PayPal, Ewallets, and mobile solutions are becoming more and more mainstream. Also, less used card types such as American Express, Discover, and JCB are important to support, as cardholders tend to use these cards when supported due to loyalty programs associated to them.
Also offering obscure payment options such as the cryptocurrency Bitcoin has proved successful, with large retailers such as Overstock.com, TigerDirect, and NewEgg showing impressive results after offering Bitcoin support.
4. Clear and present communication outlets:
One major advantage of physical points of sale over its online alternative is the fact there is a store to return to. When looking to buy a product, a large percentage of customers do not only calculate the item alone, but also from where they are acquiring it. Customers want ease of mind and a responsive outlet to turn to if needed. The key term is trust, and you acquire that trust by simply making yourself communicably available.
When it comes to communication outlets, do what is right for you and your store’s financial status. The “Holy Trifecta” of customer service is Phone, Email and chat. It is advised to offer at least 2 options, with Email of course being the primary outlet.
You can add more customer service and support outlets as your business grows.
Image courtesy of PixaBay
