The goal of any webshop or ecommerce site is to sell more, that’s a given. Owners, webmasters and developers are constantly trying to improve their conversions in an effort to make more and sell more. Constant testing and tracking will, over time yield results, but here are some quick and easy additions you can make to help your webshop sell more. Most of what you will see in this list is no more than common sense but hopefully it will be enough to spur you into action and get you thinking about how you can improve your sales.
Free Shipping
It’s been done to death and every site offers it, but this is why I want to talk about it. If your competition offers free shipping you need to think of a way to differentiate your store. Offering free overnight and next day shipping is something that is becoming more popular because it’s working, soon this will also become the norm. To get ahead of the pack why not offer an extra incentive like free gift wrapping or a personalized message with every gift order. Another option that I really like is instead of offering free overnight shipping why not make a donation to a charity on behalf of the buyer, I have found that this works especially in the run of the holiday season.
Check Out Process
Keep the checkout process quick and simple, having potential customers drop off half way through checkout is not an option. What you should aim for is to collect all the necessary details and check out in as few clicks as possible. Request only the info you really need to fulfill the order, Name, address, email and of course credit card details.
Images
Depending on what you are selling having detailed images can make or break the sale. Many people are tactile and they may prefer to see and feel something before they buy it. This will never happen with a webshop so you need to get as close to this as possible, offer as many images as possible in the highest resolution possible allow them to see every detail of the product. Many online clothes retailers do a great job here, by offering a 360 degree view and close ups of the material used, some even offer videos of models wearing the clothes. This not only increases sales but can help to decrease returns as the customer has a better idea of just how the item may look and feel when it arrives.
Sales Copy
The object of every product page is to help sell that item, copying the description from the manufacturers page may not cut it. Many manufactures just describe the products features and uses. What they miss is how to entice people to buy. The aim of the copy is to portray an emotion of how the customer will feel if they own this product, how it can enrich their life and what they may be missing if they don’t have this product.
Up Selling and Cross Selling
Now that you have potential customers on your site, the first task is to get them to buy; the next thing is to get them to spend more. Having a “customers also bought” will help but most sites have this. To move things on, why not offer and extra incentive to add something else to their cart. So when they click the add to cart button use a pop up to highlight the “customers who also bought” section. Test conversions by offering a free gift or the donation we talked about earlier.
Reviews And Testimonials
Product reviews and testimonials can be a great deciding factor in whether prospecting customers clicks the add to cart button. In the internet age we all read reviews of product before we buy, having reviews on your site can not only helps get the sale but they can also drive traffic that converts. Writing your own reviews is not something I can recommend, why not incentivize customers who bought the product to write frank and candid reviews and reward them for doing so. This is another good way to get repeat customers returning to your site.
Repeat Customers
It’s easier to increase conversions than it is to increase traffic and it’s easier to get old customers to buy again than it is to get new customers. Keep connected with your customer base, through newsletters social media and any other outlets that are available. Segment your customer base by their buying habits and make them aware of any new product lines when they become available. Loyalty schemes work well but constantly offering discounts and money off can back fire as some customers may choose to wait for a discount before they buy from you again and in a sense many of us who excessively offer discounts are training our customer base to wait for a discount before they visit again. Use discounts and vouchers sparingly.
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Rahul
As a customer, i would also prefer buying products with a proven testimonial and also where I can avail it for less.
Great suggestions! Testimonials can work wonders, as well as explaining why folks should buy from you compared to their competitors.
Murlu
You’d be amazed at how well free shipping does for converting visitors – the mindset you should remember is that no matter how long your price is – people still want free shipping because it’s such a common practice online; don’t lose out on that sale, ya know? Just front the bill and get them coming back time and time again.
Brilliant article. Really useful and informative. We too have been into eCommerce business here from long. I think we need to look into few more things to make it look more profitable for us. Having managed online sales here in recent times, I have analyzed that people are more concerned about the pricing and also, its been a number of times where the product description hasn’t been sufficient for them. As a customer, they are looking for more details which if they don’t find, they just leave without making any further inquiry and so no leads or sales.
I think yes, we should be offering discounted prices. Plus we should be having a much better sales copy followed up with clear and bigger images of the product we want to promote and sell. Also, we need to have a better checkout system so that everything is made quick and simple. Thanks a lot for sharing all these valuable points.
Patricia@lavenderuses
Hi Neil
Some interesting points you have made. I have just started selling sourced products so will take note of your suggestions. Some are viable, others are not. Offering free shipping from Australia to any person overseas, would mean unless they bought a reasonable amount I would be working at a loss!
I am building up trust with my readers on my blog and through regular posts, including product reviews hopefully more sales will come. As I said, just new to this. So far have been making steady sales offline and started online so will have to see what actually works for my business.
Have already been getting re-orders which tells me my customers are satisfied with the products and hopefully the customer service. Have testimonials up on my site also which I am pleased with.
Patricia Perth Australia
Great tips, but I wonder, when you keep in touch with your customer via social media. How do you interact with them? At a personal level or you keep your distance and talk with them as a brand (I am referring to the tone and how you address them).
I think that making a personal connection with the customer is benefit because they tend to have more trust in you and are more likely to buy from a person they know, but this way you might lose your serious firm/company status.
What do you think?
Huzefa
I liked your post very much. I myself am studying drop shipping and how it can be used profitably on eBay.
I have question. If you I offer free shipping, how do I cover the costs of shipping? Do you put include the cost in the product price or do you bare it yourself? I hope this isn’t a stupid question that only I don’t know the answer to.
Andrew
I think your right about the free shipping part. People love to get things for free especially for things like shipping. The rest of your post was brilliant. It’s really nice to see blogs like these. Full of relevance and quality information. Big help for online entreprenuers
sam
Great article. I like your idea of making a donation to a charity. The recipient of the donation is happy, the customer is happy because they’re making a donation to charity and you (the store owner) are happy. I wonder if there are any store owners out there who offer free shipping AND a donation to charity? Could you actually make a profit? I imagine it would be impossible for drop shippers. Any drop shippers out there have an opinion on this? Thanks
Sam
Shannon Suetos
These are all great points. I think free shipping is obviously working for most sites. I liked how you mentioned offering personal packaging. That would get me to pick a site over another.
Neil
Hi Guys,
Gonna try and answer some of your questions!
@Patricia: I love Perth, you’re so lucky to live there I would drop everything to have the chance of moving back there, back to your question, offering free shipping to someone over see’s won’t work for you, but I think people would not expect free shipping if they are in a different country to you. If you don’t want to go down the route of free shipping you will need to offer your customers something that will make you stand out, if you have the time read the “purple cow” by Seth Godin. It’s a great book and talks about how you can stand out from your competitors. Well best of luck with your new business, it sounds like you have made a solid start, it’s always easier to get old customers to buy again then to try and find new ones.
@Alex: A great suggestion, it can be beneficial if your customers can put a face to your business, if you want to act as the figure head for your business it can portray that you are a real person running a real business. But this can backfire (and has done for me), if you customers have any issues they are more likely to come to you, rather than go contact support and as they have contacted you directly, you will feel an obligation to help them. This can take up a lot of your time.
@Huzefa: it depends, is there enough of a margin to allow for free shipping? Look at what your competitors on ebay are doing are they offering free shipping?
@Sam: Offering a donation was only a suggestion as to what you can do to help you stand out from the crowd, but you are right there is no point doing any of these things if there is no profit left after you make the sale.
Phew, I hope that has helped a little!
Jack
Make sure the product you sell are worth it, I would never sell a product that can hurt my customers