Improving eCommerce Conversion Rates
One of the basic principles for improving eCommerce conversion rates is this: remove barriers to buying. While there are other active measures you might take to improve conversion, think about removing barriers first.
Barriers to buying can come about in many ways. It might be hard to understand what products are for sale. Or the products might be well understood, but visitors can’t find them. Visitors might want to buy but have concerns that haven’t been answered (worried about security, privacy or whether they will be able to get a refund). Or visitors might not want to share as much information as you are asking for.
We are strong advocates of using a simple sidebar based checkout that makes it easy for a visitor to add products to their cart and see shipping costs and/or taxes in real time. And avoiding forcing visitors to register or provide too many details just to buy products from you (if you had the choice of a sale with limited information or no sale at all, what would you choose?)
Here are some useful articles that talk about eCommerce conversion factors. You’ll notice more than a few links to Khalid Saleh’s articles on Conversion Rate Optimization over at his Invesp.com site – his blog is well worth subscribing to.
Reduce Your Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate by 30%
Increasing Online Sales – Simple Usability Problems to Avoid
Making your eCommerce Site Convert (interview with Khalid Saleh of Invesp)
Six Deadly Mistakes of Web Page Testing
10 Ways to Encourage Prospects to Take Action
