Every online store owner would agree that a visitor who leaves your site without buying is a missed opportunity. This applies to any retail store even if you are selling Spectrum specials. Hence, optimizing your website for sales matters. It is the key to bringing more conversions.

Average eCommerce conversion rates are 1 to 2 percent. If you are doing everything right, achieving 2 percent is very much possible. Now the question is, how to achieve this baseline goal for your online store?

 Let’s help you keep your customers happy and engaged, and optimize your conversion rate.

1: Use High-Quality Product Images and Videos

What do you want to see when shopping online? Everything about the product!

Of course, you can’t touch the product but with the right imagery, you can get a good idea about what it’s like. Don’t just stop on high-quality product images, include detailed product videos so that the visitor knows what they are getting exactly.

 2: Offer Free Shipping

Because of Amazon, online shoppers have come to expect a certain standard. They are pretty accustomed to it by now. Hands down, if your store does not offer free shipping, customers are going to switch to another provider.

Free shipping is mandatory in today’s times. To cover the cost of shipping, there is no harm in increasing the product prices.

3: Add Checkout as Guest Feature

There is nothing more annoying than having to register an account before placing an order. You would be driving a new customer away if you make sign up mandatory.

The easiest solution is to add checkout as a guest. Even if they checkout as a guest user, you will have their name and email, which is good enough for marketing purposes.

4: Write Detailed Product Descriptions

After seeing the product image or video, the next thing a buyer wants to know before making a purchase decision is the product details.

They can’t touch the product and they are not in store. Hence, they will be relying on the product description to make a decision. Make sure the description describes the product’s features in detail. This would prevent product returns.

If possible, add a product video or demo to tell the buyer what they are getting exactly.

5: Allow Customers to Review Your Products

Ever wondered why people prefer buying from Amazon? One of the reasons is product reviews! All they have to do is check the product’s rating and read the reviews to learn about the experience of other buyers.

These reviews are an opportunity for customers to voice complaints which can be taken as customer feedback.

6: Show the Contents of the Cart

Always display a shopping cart icon with a link after the potential buyer has added an item to the cart. If the user fails to find the cart, they can’t checkout.

Show the customer what they are buying exactly as they checkout.

7: Reduce the Steps in the Checkout Process 

A typical mistake that drives a potential customer away is a lengthy checkout process.

Try out the checkout process yourself. It should be smooth and quick. There should be more than 6 buttons on checkout paths. Include alternative payment methods (like PayPal, bitcoin, Apple Pay, etc.)

To keep things simple, include only two buttons “view cart” and “checkout” and watch how happily visitors complete the purchase. This change will reduce the cart abandonment ratio big time!

8: Improve Your Product Return Policy

Almost half of the customers don’t read the return policy before buying a product online or in-store. When they are faced with a product return situation, they decide never to do business with the brand again.

Make such customers stay by providing a great product return policy. Don’t over-promise but make the process as painless as possible.

9: Optimize For Your Store for Mobile Devices

Mobile devices account for significant retail sales particularly in 2021. If your online store does not offer a great mobile experience, you are driving customers away.

Tweak the looks of your store and test in on different mobile devices. The experience should be crisp!

Summing Up

With all these tips combined, you should be able to assist the customer in navigating your website and complete the purchase as conveniently as possible.