How’s your ecommerce conversion rate doing? Has it improved lately? If you are like the bulk of online retailers, the answers are, in order, “poorly” and “no”.

In May of 2012, Invesp reported average online conversion rates of 2.14% in their “Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics” infographic. Three years later, Monetate analysed almost 8,500,000,000 (yes, eight and a half billion) shopping sessions and found an average conversion rate of 2.25%. It’s up, but if we claim a victory from a tenth of a point uptick in conversion rates over three years, then no one should wonder why conversion rates absolutely suck.

To top it off, that rate increase is not consistent. The same Monetate data shows a decrease in conversion rates between Q1 2014 and Q1 2015.

Conversely, online sales continue to skyrocket as more shoppers turn to mobile and desktop ecommerce sites to make their purchases. According to statista.com, online retail sales in the U.S. grew by 104% between Q2 2010 and Q2 2015. That compares to overall retail sales growth of about 28% in the same period.

So the stunning revelation is that ecommerce sales growth outpaces overall retail sales growth by almost 400% despite measly 2.25% conversion rates – and those rates might be getting measlier.

Why are Conversion Rates So Low?

It’s quickly becoming the eternal question of ecommerce. With bricks and mortar conversion rates well into the double digits, online conversion optimizers continue their search for a responsive chord in the customer.

With years of efforts to improve conversion rates and little to show for it, explanations are difficult to come by. But there are a couple glaring clues:

1. Digital marketers continue to devote a dizzyingly disproportionate share of their budgets to getting people to visit their sites, versus actually converting those who arrive. The best estimates put it at $1 spent on conversion rate optimization (CRO) for every $20 spent on traffic generation.As we pointed out in a recent Invesp post, a study conducted by Unbounce discovered that the highest ROI from a digital marketing budget occurs when 30% of it is devoted to CRO.That means we should be spending 600% more on CRO than we do now.
2. Customer experience is your unique selling proposition. Online shoppers look for something different in a site before they buy from it. If yours looks the same, has similar prices and works the same as your competition’s, then a shopper has no reason to choose you over them.Online, transparency is at an all-time high. The price, product and service differences between you and your competition are in the palm of your customer’s hand and they increasingly exploit that fact.

So what are you going to give them that they can’t get elsewhere, something that will make you stand out, and get the customer to click?

Give A Better Experience

The big picture of online customer experience is way too large to cover in this post. In a nutshell, the better you engage your customer, solve their concerns, answer their questions and give them what they seek, the better their experience. The experience of your company, brand and product begins when they first become aware of you and, hopefully, it never ends.

Conversion Optimization is Experience Optimization: That’s really how it boils down. When your customers perceive a better experience on your site, they are more likely to convert.

Because we can’t cover every point of experience optimization, we’re going to look at one particular element of one particular step. One that is severely neglected.

The “Call-to-Search” on Your Homepage

While you have product pages, landing pages, a blog and many other places for your customer to start their online experience of your brand, your homepage is still the “signature” page of the site. It sets the tone and pace for the rest of the site, regardless of where the customer entered.

To compare homepages, we looked around for “best ecommerce sites” and found one at WeMakewebsites.com titled “60 Best Fashion Ecommerce Sites”. While the sites listed are no doubt intended to show off the WeMakeWebsites platform, we were impressed by the variety and creativity of the homepage designs and layouts. There is no hint of a template here.

A scroll through the 60 sites shows each one to have either a unique look, feel, layout, colour scheme, and/or experience.

With one exception. The “Call-to-Search”.

Is “Search” the New “Submit”?

On all but two of the 60 very distinctive sites, the homepage call-to-search falls into one of the following categories:

1. Non-existent
2. A small magnifying glass icon
3. An entry field with the word “search” in it

The two exceptions? The two sites used wording other than simply “Search”, including:

1. “Search all products…” (really? ALL products? No thanks)
2. “Search entire store here…” (Ditto. No thanks.)

Do you like to be told to “Search”? Not likely. You might do a bit of searching on your own, but in the absence of help, you will probably bounce if you don’t find your quarry soon.

Not one of these highly-designed sites bothers to offer a better or truly different call-to-search. Imagine if just one site thought to say “What are you looking for…” or “Let us help you find what you need…”.

And the story is no different with the traditional big ecommerce players like Amazon and Ebay.

Why We Haven’t Optimized the Call-to-Search

KissMetrics asked 100 shoppers to describe their online ecommerce search behaviours and found the following:

• 60% of the shoppers preferred using the site’s navigation over the search function to find specific products
• Only 30% do “long tail” searches
• Almost 100% considered themselves well-versed online shoppers.

On the surface, digital marketers couldn’t be blamed for marginalizing the call-to-search in their efforts to optimize experience. Why bother if most seasoned shoppers prefer navigating the site on their own?

But is the preference for navigation really due to the poor experience customers have with a function that has yet to be developed past the burdensome invitation to “Search”? Or that the lack of development gives them little faith that a Search will produce any practical results?

One Big Reason You Should Improve Your Invitation to Search

Whether or not you believe that improving your call-to-search will bear any conversion fruit, you should consider it for the following reason: if conversion optimization is ultimately experience optimization, then the more you know about what your customer seeks, the better you will be able to provide it.

By enhancing your call-to-search, using semantic searches and improving your product indexing, customers will come to rely on your search function more often. Each time a customer uses your search function, it is another piece in the puzzle of what they are looking for and how they think.

When you get more into your customers’ minds, you get a better understanding of how to improve their experience. And your conversion rates.

The post The “Call-to-Search” for Ecommerce Conversion Rate Optimization appeared first on Invesp.

Last week I attended a webinar held by elastic path’s Jason Billingsley with guest speaker Mellissa Burdon of Future Now. The topic was 7 ways to boost your holiday conversion rate. It’s always nice to hear the guys at Future Now talking about conversion, and I thought that this webinar was particularly interesting.

The webinar’s main goal was to present 7 solutions that can be easily implemented to improve conversion rate. I will list the 7 points and elaborate on my thoughts of each:

1. Product Images Tell a Story

Your products need to elaborate more on their details and features within the photographs or images representing them.So basically, when I see the dress I want to be online through several different angles, and encourages me a hundred times more to buy the item. Of course this is not always a simple task. If you’re an ecommerce site, going through and changing all your images will be a challenge. You need to decide which images truly need to be elaborated upon. And really, depending on the product you may only need one really good image.

2. Headlines

We’ve said this over and over again: you need to hook your readers with a great headline. The webinar explained 3 different ways you can write the headline. Other sites such as copyblogger and Jacob Nielsen have great tips about how to write the perfect headline.

3. Calls To Action

Again, it’s true that calls to action throughout your document, placed in the right positions will significantly boost conversion. The correct placement of calls to action will help walk your visitors through the conversion funnel.

Visitors are coming at different stages in the buying process, ESPECIALLY during the holiday season. People tend to shop around to find the best deals, etc. So what you need to do meet the buyer at which ever stage he/she may be.

4. Point of Action Assurances

If you want your visitors to buy, make sure you help them feel at ease to give out their personal information. Nobody wants to give out information to insecure site.

5. Make Contact Info Obvious

Maximize on your conversions, if you have a call center, by placing your number somewhere visible (like the top left corner of the webpage). Sometimes your visitors want to call to get some type of clarification on an item. Little changes can truly go a long way.

6. Don’t make your visitors wait

Sometimes your site is all flashy and fancy, and quite attractive, but in order for your visitors to see your images, it takes 1 minute to load! In this day in age, people hate waiting, ESPECIALLY internet users. Pages should load in less than 3 seconds.

7.    Relevant Scent

Don’t let the visitor figure out your site, you need to figure out what stage of the buying process they are in. Okay, so what now your buyers are similar to dogs! No silly!! Let me explain: Let’s take me for an example: I have a toddler and an infant, I’m on the go all the time. I am looking for a simple, light, and easy to use double baby stroller. It also needs to be durable and comfortable for both children in the various stages of their growth. So, I go online to search for the term “double baby stroller”.

I know what features I want, but I don’t have a clue which stroller presented is the best for my particular needs, unless the information is clearly stated (the scent).

Well, when I land on the site, I don’t want a page full of jogging strollers, and heavy strollers! I want an easy way to find the light, simple to use strollers. The idea is your visitor needs to be able to SNIFF their way through the buying process. So if I land on a site that presents a functionality that helps me find the stroller with the features of my choice, that’s a site I will buy from. I also like to read reviews, so if I find a site that has everything easily displayed, they are guiding me through the conversion process by presenting all the information I am looking for, and I want right under my nose.

In a nutshell, those are the 7 points, which are great to help boost conversion. I don’t know if they are all “quick fixes,” it takes time to figure out your buyer, and that is done through understanding your market and the creation of personas. But if you’re a site with no Calls to Action for example, placing a few here and there can boost your sales significantly. If you’re a site with flash and slow loading times, that’s an easy fix. Your headlines and crucial, and that may help you see people stay a bit longer on your site rather than exiting immediately! Some other ideas I have for to boost your conversion rates this holiday season are:

8. A clean site design

When I visit a site that looks unprofessional, I’m outta there faster than you can say wait! Your site design can easily be cleaned up by removing unnecessary images, using normal and toned down colors, and making sure the copy is free of grammatical errors or slang.

9. Adding testimonials and reviews

Your visitors need the assurance that you are someone they can trust. What better way than what other clients have said about you! Give your visitors easy access to the testimonials so they can see what others have to say about you. Additionally, like the above examples, reviews are essential to help buyers make the plunge. If I read a bad review, it does not mean that I will not purchase the item. It just means that I am aware of this issue that may come up and I will continue reading other reviews until I am fully satisfied (or dissatisfied) with the product. If I see an item with 0 reviews, I almost NEVER purchase it. Elastic Path actually also had a webinar about the power of reviews on e-commerce sites.

10. Incentive Offers

Well you’re up against thousand of ecommerce and retailers out there. What can you offer your visitor that’s going to give them that extra encouragement to go with you over the 10 other sites they’ve visited? Free delivery? 25% off of their order? You have to stand out amongst the competition, so know who and what you are up against, as well as understand what your buyers want!

Any other ideas on some things you can do to boost conversion rates?  Share your thoughts!!

The post 10 simple ways to boost your holiday conversion rate appeared first on Invesp.