There are many steps involved in making your e-commerce website a success. We all love to see online traffic coming to our stores, but as a business owner you have to ask yourself- is your traffic converting into sales?
When customers visit your website they need to feel like your product is exactly what they are looking for and that your e-commerce store is trustworthy. In this article, we explore what ‘add-to-cart conversions’ are, and how you can improve your online stores’ conversion rate with our top six tips!
What are Add-to-Cart Conversions?
When a customer adds a product to their basket this is also known as their cart. When the customer follows through with this cart and purchases the product this is known as a conversion. The average conversion rate was reported at 1.84% in Wolfgang Digital’s 2020 KPIs report. They analysed 130 million website sessions of European and US clients. Yes, you read correctly, only 1.84% of your traffic on average becomes a sale (conversion).
Before that, the first challenge is to encourage your customer to add an item to their cart. Littledata analysed 994 online stores and found their average add-to-cart conversion rate was 5.0%. However, there are a few factors that could help to increase your add-to-cart conversions. Check out our top six tips below!
How to Increase Add-to-Cart Conversions
Top 6 tips to improve your add-to cart-conversion rate!
1: Product descriptions
The description of a product can either lead to an add-to-cart conversion or to a potential customer going to your competitor. You may have the best product on the market but does your customer know that? By writing a brilliant and engaging product description you can make your potential customer feel like your product is the best one they can get. When a customer lands on your product page you have limited time to impress, your points need to stand out. Include all the important information a potential customer might be looking for in a way that is easy to understand and lets the customer know about the benefits of your product.
2: Free shipping!
Shipping cost can either make or break your sale! If you have an item for sale at let’s say €14.99 and shipping is €4.99, more than likely the customer is going to rethink and ask themselves do they really want or need this item and do they really want to pay €4.99 for shipping?
Let’s flip this around and give ourselves the best possible chance of conversion here. Can we offer free shipping and sell the product for €19.99? Yes, we are still charging the exact same amount (adding an extra cent!) but it now feels completely different in the customer’s eyes. If they are willing to pay €19.99 and reach the checkout, you can guarantee they won’t be leaving the checkout because of delivery charges!
3: Test your checkout
Sometimes you might run into the issue that your customers are adding products to their cart but not converting, what could be wrong?
This could be your website, you know everything about it, you think it’s brilliant but why aren’t your add-to-carts converting? Sometimes it might be helpful to look at your website from a different perspective. Try to take a step back and look at it from the customers’ point of view. Ask some friends about their opinion, take note of all feedback. Try to checkout yourself, add products to the cart and see the experience the customer goes through.
It may surprise you but something so simple as a faulty mandatory address line plugin could be the reason your customers are leaving. Take a look at your page loading time. Enter the customer conversion journey to see what they see. If you are looking for a way to make taking online payments easier, take a look at LumiPay’s flawlessly integrated payment solutions. Try this and you might see a rapid increase in your add-to-cart conversions!
4: Make your checkout simple
The customer has made their way to your website, they have added their items to their cart and are ready to purchase let’s not let them slip away now! Make your checkout process simple and straight forward. Only ask for what is needed, if you don’t need their contact number don’t make it mandatory to fill out. Do you really need your customers to create an account or could you offer checkout as a guest? Just remember, making the checkout simple and easy will give you a better chance of getting a conversion.
5: Is your site easy to use and trustworthy?
When a customer lands on your website for the first time it important you make this first impression count. After all, the end goal for you is that the customer will add a product to their cart and convert into a sale. Make sure your site is easy to navigate and customers can find what they are looking for. Don’t have menus upon menus where customers give up in frustration.
If you have a small website with only a few products, why not put some of these benefits and features on the homepage. Do you offer free shipping, free returns, 30 days’ money back or 1-year warranty? If you do you need to make sure the customer is aware of this- they need to feel a sense of trust and if something goes wrong or there is an issue you will be there for them. This also comes with having a secure and easy to use payment gateway. Having your payments managed externally is a much easier way to ensure high security for your customers and for you as a merchant. Payment gateways are offered by companies specializing in this field who are regulated and have to adhere to very strict procedures. For the customer, the checkout is straightforward, the payment gateway automatically directs them to the payment processing platform and back to you as a merchant. Implementing a trustworthy payment solution will give your customer a reason to become a returning shopper on your website.
6: Reviews
Okay, so we have a trustworthy website, a great product and free shipping. Add-to-cart conversion rates are good but we can do even better. Potential customers love to see reviews; after all, reviews come from people like themselves who came to buy your product. Send an automated review email to every customer you have had and ask for feedback. Hopefully, you have been doing a great job and they will all be 5 stars! Make an area available on your homepage and product page and let potential customers see these reviews. This could put their mind at ease and turn them from a potential customer to adding to their cart and converting in minutes!
Follow these 6 tips, your customers will thank you for it and your online revenue might grow to unexpected levels.
