What’s up with businesses, driving traffic to their site, yet finding themselves falling short of the sales target. A significant attribute in this phenomenon is a poorly designed catalog page.
Even a boost in prospects arriving at your site is failing miserably since your website doesn’t impress. As a result, visitors barely spend any time or money on your brand, while making a smart switch to your competitors.
A dwindling CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) creates panic, something that causes companies to look for measures to escalate incoming traffic, but since your core site is still the same; the fresh new set of traffic doesn’t feel interested, and they drop off.
A move that makes you reconsider your standard procedure. In the process, you discover multiple new age features that exist and haven’t been incorporated into your site.
Such a fresh perspective is what you need to reach out and grab the soonest, to see a drastic improvement in order placements.
Let’s through this write-up and get an in-depth understanding of the world of eCommerce:
Conversion
The percentage of visitors who navigate the product store but do not make a purchase is the non-converting visitors. They browse, click, view, even add a product to cart but abandon the same at the last moment.
Something stops their journey to the final checkout page. High shipping or the absence of next day delivery, trust issues with payment, no detailed product specification are just some of those factors that make your average user reconsider.
Observe how visitors are interacting with your page and acquire the list of channels that are performing the best for you and have become the source of major income.
The conversion relies on a host of parameters that come together to drive the business forward; a chink anywhere may even lead to a domino effect, that takes down the entire enterprise.
A customer-centric approach, where the business is customized to your audience will create a greater scope of conversion. Prioritize what a customer wants and simply re-tune the web-shop to their liking.
All done well, the traffic would escalate, and when the site visitors are greeted with a more sorted website - the sales will pick up, and the profits will compound.
Business Model
Are you a B2C, B2C, direct to Government or any other will become a factor in how you set your webshop. Running it like a traditional site may seem productive if your customers are government entities where anything fancy won’t be needed.
However, if you are serving civilians directly then, this may not be such a wise move. They are attentive about every intricate detail, and a washed-out layout, slow speeds, and a pictureless interface will only send your webstore downhill.
Devices
Mobile eCommerce has seen a tremendous boost in recent years; this means more revenue for you going ahead. Capitalize on this and customize properly.
Is your audience, more localized on phones or do they prefer laptops? Is a question all upcoming and existing stores will have to address to determine the interface of your product store.
As elaborate texts in mobile phones give a tedious vibe, in the same way, images and other rich media grouped will send a negative vibe too. Condense your information where need be.
On phones, you either want an app that works specifically to your business agenda or set the content on your site in such a way that it serves the purpose without becoming an ugly mess.
Your product store should work along similar lines, all the essential products listed in a neat grid, with the best visibility, page load due to the ever-growing impatient audience with faster internet speeds and vital info but without coming at the cost of user experience.
Once you have tapped this, and altered your site’s product page accordingly, the visiting customers will no doubt want to place an order on the site.
Clean up your mobile design or invest in headless commerce that makes it easy to display content and is not device dependent.
What can be done
In need of an overhaul, then a systematic reordering of the website is a must, before acquiring any major sales.
Such a strategy focuses on in-house cleansing before expecting any rewards from your visitors. No one’s going to want to stay in a slow medieval site. Tweak the website based on speed, security, and design.
It is crucial to tackle the sensitive areas on the site and ensure that they are regulated consistently for the overall stability of the site.
Once, this is out of the way you’d be on the path to monetizing every single prospect.
Let’s look at some of the things, that you can do to make the product store work in your favor:
- Images – Not paying attention to the accuracy of images, leads to dismal sales for most businesses. Corresponding high-resolution product images offer the ability to view the product.
- Specs – A product’s relevant features are listed as specs. Size, weight, dimension or any other characteristic that’d assist your buyer’s decision-making process, should come under this section.
Lack of this leads to uncertainty, and in a rush to complete the process the buyer abandons your site, so close yet no conversion and adding to the customer churn even more.
- Videos - A good portion of conversion is your ability to persuade your customers. An HD video does just that, a video on the side of your product will give the customer a better understanding of its workings. Rich media is the go-to for any brand.
- Reviews – A honest review will help you to introspect on where you or your product lags, and positive feedback will give the next customer another reason to buy from you. Display them anywhere near the item.
- Return policy – A dissatisfied customer should be able to return the item. As such it is paramount that you show the effective ease in which this return can be made, and refund calculated.
- Shipping - A turn off for some customers is the delay in shipping the parcel. Display numerous options that guarantee speedy as well as economic delivery routes, and if you happen to be trading globally, then this aspect becomes even more critical.
- Payment Options – A site’s credibility can be gauged by the variety of payment gateways that are made available. A user would like to go through the one that suits him the most. From PayPal, Visa, MasterCard and more; picking the most reliable one to close the payment formality.
- Checkout – Consider trimming down the number of steps, introduce one step checkouts to simplify the ordering process. Even allow guest checkouts, without the need for account creation and offer the same post order placements.
- Loading times – Sites tend to clutter their product pages with drivel, that is meaningless to their sales agenda, this, in turn, affects the loading times profoundly and further weighs down the site. A customer sees this as a flaw and quickly exits the site. Prompt responsiveness is the key here.
- Dead End – A broken link will take you to one of those “404” pages, and this immediately sends a backward impression on the user about the reputation of the site. Get to work and eliminate these voids.
- Platform – Certain times the platform that you choose results in incompatibility. The core issue here is not recognizing the correct platform during the planning Phase. Opting for Magento when Volusion would have been a better choice.
The wrong choice proves to be expensive later when you realize that your investment is getting wasted, the cost to profit ratio is looking bad. To optimize the platform for orders and justify the high costs of the premium package, it comes with; the platform should tie with your business goals.
- Top Selling – Feature the products that sell the most at the top, these sell like hot cakes, so don’t let go of them. A common mistake that most companies make when they shelf marketing on them and focus on other items.
Something that results in neither of them doing too well in the coming months. Never let go of the best product. Treat it like an asset, and it will continue to give you more rewards.
- Discounts – If you are serious about them, them make sure you run an effective campaign in the form of flashy banners, carousels, pop-ups and more on the site itself to catch your visitor’s attention.
Willingness to bring this is not enough, you also got to pitch the same on top of your website to get your prospects to look at it, and of course, deep discounts and sales would also be nice.
Conclusion
Interact and engage with your customers and innovate these tactics from time to time, to ensure you always have their attention.
Within a product store, it is necessary to identify areas that cause customer deviation and result in drops. Close these gaps, and you will see a noticeable change in the way people perceive your store.
Don’t let your product catalog go to waste if you are displaying it then ensure you make the most out of it. If it is there in your inventory, then it is meant to be sold; as such should be disposed and not be allowed to rot away in a warehouse.
Get in touch with Virtina, the expert leaders in eCommerce that sit with you and devise a business-based strategy. We help you to select a platform, in case the current one is under performing and not able to yield the desired results.
We will make the correct fixes and elevate the brand to the peak, where it deserves to be. Contact Virtina and become the ace standard in your field.
Virtina can help you to increase your revenue, improve profit and enhance customer experience.
