Forum Moderators: buckworks
I think we miss something in what we can do to improve the sales since the traffic is there and the site is profitable but the client would like to archive 1-2% of sales.
Is there any suggestion of what can improve sales on ecommerce websites?
[edited by: Keilo at 10:28 pm (utc) on Dec. 29, 2003]
The thing with ecommerce sites is that they are nearly all different in what they do and their conversion rate - the first thing you need to do is analyse your websites log files and understand where your visitors are dropping out of your site.
You can draw a lot of conclusions from this information alone - you can see which pages are working and which pages aren't and then try to work out why.
If you know there's something wrong with the page, borrow a less web-savvy person and ask them to try to move through the site starting from the same point your visitors are... Lots of things that make perfect sense to you or I in terms of site navigation can baffle users no end!
- Tony
this are the stats
1/3 of visitors go from the cart to the check out 1 page from there 50% drop out on page 2 and from there we only loose 10%
to the final page.
however we checked the site and pages we pretty much in standard with succesfull sites in doing our process of checkout.
if we can convince to get 50% to move to the first checkout page we would have a 1% conversion
1/3 of visitors go from the cart to the check out 1 page from there 50% drop out on page 2 and from there we only loose 10%
to the final page.
So the checkout process takes three pages? I'd make finding a way to streamline that a priority -- sounds like you're making it pretty hard to actually buy something. :)
It's no secret that every time you make people move to a new page you'll lose some of them.
the page you guys referring to ask for Contact details or login details if you are a exciting customer.
since this is a lingerie website I'm not sure how conversions are on that in general. but I have been told between 1-2% should be normal.
the process we have build is
1. page Check your cart
2. page Enter contact details/ login if exciting customer
3. page enter payment details ( shipping gets taken over from Contact but you can change that if needed)
4 page confirm your purchase you get your transaction id etc
5 page is order receipt with all info on it shipping credit details ( no CC number) products even with images so you always know what you have ordered and expected shipping date
We're not talking about a ton of people, but if it even helps a tenth of a percent, you've still made more money.
and can update there details
Converts well.
The only sure thing which will work is to lower your prices dramatically compared to your competitors. But this will only work for a short time before you trigger a price war.
1/3 of visitors go from the cart to the check out 1 page from there 50% drop out on page 2 and from there we only loose 10% to the final page.
1. page Check your cart
2. page Enter contact details/ login if exciting customer
3...
we ask for a password so that people can check and track there orders and can update there details
From this I would say that 50% of your highly interested buyers who have started the process to purchase are getting turned off by the second page of your checkout where you are requiring them to either register or login to an existing account. I would change that page immediately if it was mine.
While it is nice to be able to check up on an order, I will admit I hardly ever do unless it is somethign that I need quickly, or has not arrived by when I expect it. The ability to log in is a nice feature that can really save time for repeat buyers, and the tracking ability is another nice feature, but a lot of people just want to give you money and get a product shipped. Make the registration optional! For even more convenience to the customer just send an email to the customer when you ship with the tracking information. Most shippers have this option available in their software.
we ask for a password so that people can check and track there orders
What if you have a tracking page where they can enter their e-mail address and zip code and it will track their order? Much easier for a customer to use and remember than a password - and not so much of a turnoff.
RedWolf's advice is on the money. Optional registration- but only AFTER they've given you their credit card number :)
Tx
I'm certainly not saying that there's anything at all wrong in trying to improve! However, you might try to base your goals on something else or at least understand that typical conversion rates are likely excessive for that type of product.
We sell some lingerie as well, and I had been very worried about our similarly low conversion rates when I first stated following threads about that. Taking a close look at where most of the traffic came from or what they were searching for did a great deal to clear up my confusion. In keeping close tabs over this last holiday season logs, I've noticed an extremely small increase in traffic compared to sales. I'm thinking that we likely always have had a certain base level of traffic where there's little to no chance of a sale. I'm concentrating on the rest and not worrying about how my conversion rates compare to most other types of businesses.
Sometimes I find that we're showing up way too high on searches that are inappropriate such as, let's say, "sexy women". Too much of that type of thing really seems to skew our conversion rates so I try to make changes to reduce it.
Having high search engine ranking across the board lowers overal conversion ratio.
Too much non-targeted or semi-targeted traffic.
What you can do is remove all visitors who only had one page-view from your logs before doing any analysis.
This will give you much more useful info.
I try to figure out what is the conversion ratio between shipping time and cart usability eg do u ask the user to register ( means maybe less sales but less fraud as well) like what makes a online buyer tick to get his card and buy a product.
1/3 of visitors go from the cart to the check out 1 page from there 50% drop out on page 2 and from there we only loose 10% to the final page.
That's a 55% failure rate for those that start check-out, which seems far too high to me. Isn't that a bit high compared to the industry average?
Keilo- have you gotten rid of registration yet? Any results you can share?
That's a 55% failure rate for those that start check-out, which seems far too high to me. Isn't that a bit high compared to the industry average?
Actually, that's normal.
