In the meantime, read this article to learn how CartHook post-purchase offers can help your store.
Building an effective conversion funnel on your ecommerce website is absolutely essential. Here's why: high-performing funnels drive significant revenue gains for your business and increase the number of purchases made by visitors that land on your website, converting them into long-term customers.
However, building a funnel is much easier said than done. There are no strict guidelines as to how a funnel should be built because every website, and therefore every funnel, is bespoke.
This means that when it comes to optimizing a funnel that isn't supplying results, often ecommerce stores have no idea where to begin.
But we're here to help!
In this blog we will cover 3 essential areas that will help you begin to make impactful changes, and ultimately, see improvements.
Product pages are where the majority of customers make a decision to either complete a purchase or leave the store. In fact, research from OneSpace found that 87% of consumers rated product content as extremely or very important when deciding to buy.
Despite this, it's still often overlooked as part of the sales funnel. Let's look at ways you can make the most of your product pages.
There are many different ways you can deploy social proof on your product pages such as product reviews, scarcity, or urgency signals and even celebrity endorsements or showcasing awards.
There are many different ways you can deploy social proof on your product pages such as product reviews, scarcity, or urgency signals and even celebrity endorsements or showcasing awards.
95% of shoppers read reviews before purchasing a product, and 84% trust reviews on a website more than they would trust the review of a friend.
Social proof is therefore one of the most powerful and influential tools in helping your visitors convert to customers. There are various different types of social proof you can use on your product pages.
The more 5 star reviews you can display on your product pages, the more your visitors are likely to be influenced into making a purchase. If your product solves a specific problem, it can also sell its value proposition for you, making it even more of an enticing buy.
Most of the time this is simply displayed as a star rating at the top of the page underneath the product name. This quickly showcases to users the product is of good quality, but the trick is having a one click navigation to see the full reviews in all their glory. Scheels does this perfectly.
Scarcity and Urgency tactics are nice and subtle ways you can entice visitors to make a purchase without coming across as pushy. A great example of this is Missguided who display quick pop up messages on their product pages to highlight a product that is selling fast.
Another key element of optimising product pages is really to finetune their content. Good SEO practices should be taken into account, so pages should center around targeted keywords. This allows the page to begin ranking, pushing the store higher in search results and ultimately driving more traffic.
Once you have that traffic it's important to show your customers that you understand their needs and concerns. A relationship always exists between your customer and their purchase: They usually have a motivation for wanting to buy the product.
Speak to this motivation by highlighting how the product either resolves the problem or enhances their lifestyle, this can be a powerful motivator in helping sway their purchase decision.
In addition, make sure that the product pages are highlighting a CTA. On any product page the main Call to Action is normally in the form of a button, and the language should predominantly be "add to cart" because this is the language that we as consumers recognise and are comfortable with.
Chatbots & live chat services are seeing phenomenal growth in adoption because they are producing high customer satisfaction levels as a support option. In fact, 79% of customers say they prefer live chat purely because of the immediacy it offers compared to other channels.
Customers feel that live chat is an efficient use of their time because they can get answers faster and can also multitask - it's possible to remain talking to a chatbot as they continue navigating throughout the store or even through the web browser.
Targeted live chatbots support customers by acting as an interactive FAQ. Customers can get their questions answered quickly and easily, speeding up their decision making process.
Live chat can also be used to help build trust because it informs your customers that you're easily and quickly accessible, reassuring them in the wake of there being a problem or question.
Product pages also present a great opportunity to drive higher value transactions.
7 out of every 10 visitors abandon checkout pages without making a purchase. However, thankfully, there are several ways to prevent this from happening.
Trust badges are seals that can be placed throughout an ecommerce store and are designed to instill trust in potential customers.
These seals serve as visual cues that assure the shopper their personal information will be kept secure and their privacy is protected.
Worthwhile trust badges to add include those of major financial companies like VISA and MasterCard, but also include Norton Security, McAfee and Verisign. All these seals provide shoppers with comfort and increase conversion rates.
When a user has added an item to their basket and has initiated checkout, the majority will abandon it here as we pointed out earlier. But, this also presents you with another opportunity.
You can potentially utilize exit intent software to give users an incentive to purchase there and then. This could be reminding them of low stock levels or something as simple as giving them a unique discount code. A great example is below from SivanaSpirit.
You don't have to do this for every person though. For example using behavioural segmentation you can identify those most likely to convert and only show the discount to those who clear a certain threshold of basket value.
Not offering a guest checkout option could be harming your ecommerce funnel. Encouraging account creation is something that can often place barriers in the way of purchases because some consumers may not want to register an account. The Baymard Institute found that 24% of users will abandon a checkout if account creation is required.
One way to implement this is by displaying a separate login screen for new and existing customers, and then within that new customer section providing an option to check out as a guest.
There are a number of reasons why consumers may not want to register accounts. It could be that they only see a purchase from the store as a one-off, or they may only want to visit occasionally and therefore do not see an advantage of opening an account. They may also be under the impression they are going to get marketing emails from you and do not wish to share their data with you.
Forcing their hand will drive them to competitors, so it's best to provide a guest checkout option. And they really work, too. Removing mandatory login requirements on one retailer's site led to a massive $300M increase in revenue, whilst another study found that around 30% of users abandoned their carts if they were asked to register before checking out.
One way to implement this is by displaying a separate login screen for new and existing customers, and then within that new customer section providing an option to check out as a guest.
Make sure your visitors know when they can get their purchase and how much it's going to cost them. A great example of this is from ecommerce giant ASOS. In the example below you can see they have a wide range of delivery options and costs so shoppers can choose the best option for them.
There are a number of statistics which display the importance of free shipping. Around 60% of consumers will abandon their carts if the price of shipping is too high, whilst 39% will abandon their carts if free shipping isn't offered.
Free shipping is a huge advantage in increasing sales, even though many ecommerce stores fail to provide the service.
To negate cart abandonment and to increase conversions, offer free or reduced shipping costs where possible. If it's not possible to offer this for the entire store, deploy it on certain products or bundle products and implement it as part of the bundle.
Other alternatives include offering free shipping once a consumer spends a certain amount, or offering free shipping coupon codes as part of a discount or promotion. Just ensure the store can balance the bottom line.
Research from Barclaycard suggests that free returns are the ‘new normal,' with a fifth of shoppers saying they will only shop at retailers that offer them.
Make sure you have every aspect of your returns policy nailed down and clearly communicate this to users. Make sure they know what they can and can't return, the timeframes they need to do this buy and how much it's going to cost them to send stuff back.
At this stage you need to reassure shoppers that transacting with you is safe. Savvy shoppers will be looking for things like a HTTPS link, payment badges and checkout guarantees. You can see Home Depot address this subtly on their payment page in the example below.
Alternative payment methods, such as Buy Now Pay Later solutions like Klarna, are making high-end purchases more affordable for a number of different consumers which in turn boosts the potential audience an ecommerce store can sell to.
BNPL solutions are an attractive proposition for ecommerce stores because it offers flexibility in payments, but allows shoppers access to the product right away.
Where possible try to implement solutions like Shop Pay and BNPL solutions like Klarna to appeal to a wide range of consumers.
If your new customers have chosen to use your guest checkout option, now is the time to try and get them to create an account. You have all their details, so if you can offer a one click account creation.
This is probably your last chance to get a user to sign up your email list before they leave your website. You'll need to keep this subtle and make sure to highlight the benefits they will get by signing up. Highlighting things such as first access to special offers, or exclusive deals normally work well. This could be linked to the account creation option as also.
Keeping your customers loyal to your business is a process that never stops, but it can often be overlooked when it comes to optimising a funnel.
Loyalty programs which promote rewards and special offers for those who purchase more than once are proven to change spending behavior. These incentives can encourage repeat custom and help to build brand loyalty, so they're worth implementing.
After all, the cost of acquiring customers is higher than the cost of retaining them. At this stage if the user has an account with you and is logged in it's also a great opportunity to remind them of any point that they have and how they can redeem them.
To take this one step further you could also send them a thank you note within the packaging of their purchase. This could be done to both highlight loyalty programs and add a nice personal touch to their purchase.
Post purchase offers are a great way to increase your average order value. They are so effective as you already know this specific user is ready to purchase from you. By utilizing Shopify apps such as CartHook you can display a relevant one time offer specific to that users purchase.
And the results speak for themselves. On average, Shopify stores using CartHook Post Purchase Offers see a 15% conversion rate on their offers! That's new revenue that doesn't risk a dip in your checkout conversion rate, since post-purchase offers are displayed after the checkout event.
Hopefully the above points have provided you with food for thought and some ideas to test out in your current checkout funnel.
As you can see, there's a lot you can do to improve your ecommerce checkout funnel and ensure it converts as many people who enter it as possible.
So make sure you optimize and take full advantage of the opportunities available!
