Top 14 Proven E-commerce CRO Strategies to help you optimize your Website

“Your website is like a leaky bucket, and e-commerce CRO plugs the biggest holes.” – tweets Peep Laja.

As a marketer, you want your products to sell like hotcakes. This will require your e-commerce store to be a success.
For that, you need to make customer convenience a priority.

All e-commerce stores drain their brains to achieve high conversion rates.

But, what is a good e-commerce conversion rate?

Okay, so a good conversion rate is somewhat higher than what your website’s conversion rate currently is!

Your store’s conversion rate will be directly impacted by the industry type, the product costs, target demographics, etc.

If you go by stats, then a good conversion rate is generally something between 2% – 4% of your traffic.

Here’s the formula in case you wish to calculate the conversion rate percentage of your e-commerce store:

Wondering how you can optimize your website to not just get leads, but turn those leads into customers?

Read along to unveil all those e-commerce CRO tactics that will deliver an exceptional online shopping experience for your customers.

1. Showcase your products creatively:

Studies reveal that people consume 80% of what they see.

So, why not make your products a treat to their eyes?

75% of the online shoppers will rely upon your product pictures to make a purchase.

Your prospects want to be able to visualize themselves with your product! And, they want to look and feel good about it.

• Display the product from different angles.
• Pay extra attention to delivering a quality experience by adding high-quality, crisp, and clean product images. Don’t be careless about this aspect!
• Style a professional e-commerce design for your product page. Spare no effort! Make sure that your customer thoroughly understands your product.
• If it complements your product, try adding product videos that explain it all.

Look how Crate&Barrel does a great job

• displaying products through multiple angles,
• easy-click options to see the various colors it is available in,
• the zoom-in and zoom-out options.

Along with that, they share a video that might help the customers better visualize the sofa in their own living room.

2. An attention-arresting product description:

A whopping 98% of buyers have been discouraged to make a purchase due to inaccurate and incomplete product descriptions.

A detailed, crisp, and clear product description is one of the most important determinants of your sales.

Think about what you would want as a shopper!

• Follow the 5Ws Rule of Whom, What, Why, When, and Where to pierce through your customer’s heart. In fact, describe all the important information!
• Write the product specs, wearing your customer’s specs! Twist the words to make them work like a call-to-action.
• Keep it simple, easy to understand, covering all the basic features of your product, without forgetting to mention the benefits.
• Make bullet points to make it easier for your buyers to go through what extra can your products offer.

Here is how Nike is nailing it! The description clearly conveys the value of the product.

3. Highlight Social Proof:

9/10 customers always read the product reviews before they make a buying decision.

This is a very powerful CRO tip when it comes to encouraging your customers to make a purchase.

• Incorporate product reviews and ratings directly on your product page. Basically, you should place them somewhere your customers don’t miss them!
• These testimonials will consolidate their trust in the authenticity of your product.
• Also, your customers will be able to better understand your product if you provide them with unbiased feedback.

Glossier understands what its customers are looking for. Below the product page,
they provide crystal clear product reviews – both negative and positive, to add a personal touch.

• With this, they also display the average rating given to the product.
• Plus an option to filter the reviews based on age, skin tone, skin type, etc.
  

4. Use live chatbots for assistance:

A Facebook survey revealed that more than 50% of consumers say that they are more likely to shop from a brand that connects with them via chat.

In order to make their websites highly interactive, more and more brands are integrating chatbots into their marketing strategies.

• Optimize your chatbots! A Chatbot is like that salesman in your e-commerce store, who is available 24/7, and whom you should train to its full potential.
• It helps you build a strong bond with your customers.
• You can also use smart chatbots to deliver a personalized experience to your customers.
• To make it more user-convenient, you can use a sequence of some basic engaging dialogues to help address the common queries and concerns of your customers.
• To get ahead of your competition, you can also use your chatbots to direct the customers to the products they are looking for.
• Make sure that you don’t fail to offer assistance at any stage of their presence on your website.

The only thing that might hold you back from making the most of this, is the price-front of this software. Where all-in-all, it is an invaluable CRO tool that makes the shopping experience seem seamless.

Levis has a very impactful AI-powered chatbot with multiple options that lead the customers to the products of their choice.

They also have a virtual stylist to help their customers with instant recommendations on fit and style.

5. Simplify the checkout process:

Did you know that 1 out of every 5 shoppers does not complete their purchase because of a very long and complicated checkout process?

This is the eventual goal of your website, and so you must not ignore it. Try to make it as simple as possible!

• Eliminate all the not-so-required fields from your checkout page. Keep the forms short and simple!
• Use address shortcuts to make it a breeze for those lazy customers.
• Offer a guest checkout or a social sign-in to help them ditch the hassle of account creation. Also, make it smoother for them to reset all their forgotten passwords.
• Make the checkout process mobile-friendly! Try using progress indicators so that your customers are aware of the stage they are at in their checkout journey.
• And, always remember to provide alternative payment options as well as delivery options.

ASOS believes in simplicity when it comes to the final step of the purchase – the checkout page.

They also provide their customers with various payment options to choose from, so that they are left with no reason to not make the purchase.

Plus, they have added the “continue to shop” button near the cart summary, which makes it easier for the customers to go back and scroll through more products.

6. Insert Powerful CTA’s:

7. Offer Free Shipping and Easy Returns:

61% of customers are somewhat likely to cancel their purchase if free shipping is not offered.

And,

92% of customers surveyed state that they’d repeat the purchase if the product return process is simpler.

Shipping costs are a bummer for most people. Customers usually prefer to buy from stores that offer free shipping and free returns.

• If possible, try to offer free shipping and easy returns to your customers. It will help you massively reduce your cart abandonment rates.
• Setting a price limit for free shipping is yet another very impactful incentive. This will entice the customers to stuff their shopping carts with more and more items so that they can qualify for free shipping.
• To turn your prospects into repeat customers, do make it a point to make the return process absolutely trouble-free.

ASOS also believes that free shipping and free returns are the perfect persuasive incentive to turn those leads into customers. And, they do not miss the scope of flaunting it big and clear!

8. Spotless website Layout with easy Navigation:

80% of the online buyers have stopped purchasing from a brand due to poor customer experience.

Your customers want an e-commerce site that minimizes their effort!

• Simplicity is the queen! Try to make your website look well-defined, precise, and explicit.
• It must clearly display each and every feature of your e-commerce store.
• The main categories like products, features, pricing, etc. must stand out on your website. Add subcategories in the drop-down list.
• Allocate a section to new arrivals and products on sale.
• Include a notable search bar for customers to easily reach your products.

9. Optimize the speed of your website:

53% of customers will abandon your website if it takes more than 2 seconds to load.

This is one of the most important e-commerce factors that instantly form your reputation. You can either highly impress your customers with it or totally turn them off.

• Keep a constant check on your website’s speed. It must take minimum time to load.
• Go through your website hosting plan to see if you are subscribed to the latest high-performing version.
• Also, make it a point to go by e-commerce image optimization. With product image optimization, you can expect a good hike in the performance of your website.

10. Use multiple filters for easy search:

Almost 50% of the audience navigates your e-commerce site using the website search functionality.

Think like a customer! Do you also not find filters a blessing?

Filters make it very easy for your customers to find the exact products they want.
They will spend longer hours on your website if they find it convenient.

• Include filters like price, brand, color, popularity, size, theme, occasion, etc. Be wise while you add filters! Only add the filters that your brand demands.
• Also, try to add product recommendations or similar products below the liked or selected product.

11. Use exit-intent popups:

According to Conversion Sciences, you can save 10 – 15 % of your lost visitors by using exit-intent popups.

While some people find them to be annoying, most people love exit-intent popups.

Integrate these into your website. Make the most of them.
After all, this is your last chance to reach out to the visitor who is about to leave your website, only to never return.

You can customize them for each visitor, use them to collect emails, segregate your audience, entice your customers with attractive offers and discounts, etc.

Do you not feel like grabbing the offer that J. Crew is proposing to you? That is the power of exit-intent popups. Exit-intent popups are an added benefit for almost all e-commerce stores.

J.crew keeps the

• frame subtle and clean,
• uses the right words to create a sense of urgency and
• asks for just an email submission to claim the discount.

Would you think of denying the offer? No? Me neither!

12. Make your product pages SEO friendly:

68% of online experiences begin with a search engine.

And, so, as an e-commerce brand, it is very important for you to set your product pages SEO-right!

• Start by implementing a keyword research strategy.
• Follow through by optimizing your titles and meta descriptions.
• Insert details like brand name, product name, model number, etc.
• Use structured data and make it more user-friendly by adding FAQ content.
• Write unique product descriptions with simple and easy-to-read typography.
• Always, always, always test your product pages.

13. Make your websites Mobile Friendly:

72.9% of all retail e-commerce is expected to be generated via m-commerce.

Don’t forget to optimize your website for both – mobile and desktop versions if you want to run a successful e-commerce website.

Making it mobile-friendly means that all the important information is visible on both screens, but is adjusted according to the screen size.

• Make sure that all the useful information is easy to find. And, should not hide behind the pop-ups and the ads.
• To improve the speed of your website, deploy AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages), and Compress images and CSS.
• Design the button sizes large enough to be easily clickable on a mobile device.
• Make use of large font sizes so that it is easier to read on a small screen.
• Make the forms easy to fill, and turn off the autocorrect for them.

14. Include Social Share Buttons:

Social share buttons allow your users to broadcast your products to their connections, multiple groups, or to specific individuals.

• On your e-commerce store, you must add this feature on individual product pages to save your customers, the extra hassle of taking screenshots, copying, pasting, and posting the product.
• Encourage your customers to share your content, so that more people see it and, it increases brand awareness. You can also offer loyalty points against each share!
• This is a simple technique to present your brand to a larger audience with minimal effort.
• It can also be a performance indicator in most cases, as it can also tell the number of times, an item has been shared.

Summing it up:

At the end of the day, your e-commerce store should bring maximum ROI (Return on Investment). Be calculative! Test what works best for you! Integrate the above-given e-commerce CRO tips and tricks to your website strategy, and watch them skyrocket your sales.

Go break a leg!

If you find it hefty, you can always hire reliable CRO professionals to work for you.