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The eCommerce industry is booming.
eMarketer forecasts that online sales will reach 4 trillion by 2020-end. Even the COVID-19 slowdown hasn’t impacted the eCommerce industry as much as other industries, decelerating it by a mere 2%.
Yet, 40% of e-sellers are not satisfied with their returns and marketing methods. Despite having extensive catalogs and competitive pricing, they are simply not able to earn conversions.
With 2-3 million online businesses out there, you need aggressive and fail-proof tools to win over discerning customers. Quickly evolving eCommerce trends make your task even harder.
In this post, I’m going to explain four super-effective conversion tactics for eCommerce businesses. Read on.
How to Convert eCommerce Visitors into Customers: 4 Strategies
Unlike brick-and-mortar stores, e-stores don’t have the advantage of attractive storefronts to draw customers. That’s just one of your challenges, which can be overcome if you market your eCommerce business well. To push visitors to the check-out page, you can use the tactics below.
1. Welcome Mats
Scoring the first conversion from a visitor is the hardest since they are unfamiliar with your brand. Welcome mats (or entry overlays) can make the task easier.
Welcome mats are pop-ups that greet first-time visitors. They are designed to incentivize people to make their first purchase and reduce your bounce rates. You can offer exclusive coupon codes, free shipping, redeemable store credit, or premium gated content in the pop-up. Create FOMO by time-limiting your offer.
2. Entry Pop-Up
It’s relatively easier to convert subscribers than first-time visitors. Even if your contacts don’t convert in the first visit, you can nurture them through emails.
You can build your email subscriber list with entry pop-ups. These contain single-form fields that ask for email addresses. I’d recommend slide-in pop-ups that don’t disrupt the user experience. Keep the design uncluttered and copy short so that people can quickly get back to browsing.
3. Optimized Checkout Pages
You can reduce cart abandonment rates by optimizing your checkout pages. Baymard found that 21% of customers abandon their purchase because the checkout process is “too long/complicated.”
We often overlook checkout pages, which is a serious misjudgment considering that they receive maximum high-intent traffic. Granted, they don’t draw as much attention from visitors as product pages, but a flaw in their design/copy is enough to drive away potential customers who are a single step away from purchasing.
To make checkout frictionless, minimize the number of fields for customers to fill out. For example, don’t ask for feedback, referrals, or things like, “where did you hear about us?”
Ask only critical questions such as shipping and delivery instructions, since they vary person-to-person. Instead of having lengthy forms to gather customer insights, leverage lead-tracking tools to segment customers.
4. Exit Intent Pop-Ups
Out of all the cart-abandonment issues cited in the above Baymard survey, “not prepared to buy” was blamed by 56.7% of online shoppers.
Visitors often abandon a purchase because they came to your site only to window-shop or wishlist things to buy later. But they conveniently forget or get busy elsewhere. Or, they are put off by exorbitant shipping charges and decide to leave.
That’s when exit intent pop-ups come in handy. They appear when a visitor drops-off or bounces after reaching a pre-set funnel stage. A nifty pop-up saying “Hey! You forgot your cart. Your 20% discount expires in 10 minutes” can be enough to jog memories and recapture about-to-leave visitors.
Final Thoughts
Apart from the above methods, you can retarget lost customers with emails or flash deals in opt-in bars. The aim is to timely target people with the right content and to make the purchase decision a no-brainer.
Can I help you with more eCommerce tips? Let me know in the comments below.
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This content is brought to you by Shane Barker.
Photo: Shutterstock