Complete Guide: How to Increase Your Average eCommerce Conversion Rate Today

As an ecommerce store owner, you’re doing well. You’ve created your store, have a generous amount of products and/or services and are starting to see visitors flowing in from your various marketing efforts. 

However, something’s not right. Visitors aren’t turning into paying customers and your ecommerce conversion rate is low. 

This low conversion rate is probably the reason you clicked on this article. So here we’ll discuss a few simple yet effective changes you can make to your website to start turning those valuable visitors, into even more valuable customers.

In this guide I’ll show you:

• What an ecommerce conversion rate is.
• How to calculate your ecommerce conversion rate.
• How to increase your ecommerce conversion rate.

By the end of the article you’ll be an ecommerce conversion rate expert!

What is ecommerce conversion rate?

Your ecommerce conversion rate is the percentage of users visiting your website who have purchased something from your online store (in a set period of time).

What is a good ecommerce conversion rate?

Back in 2017 SEO experts, Moz released a study on KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) in which it was revealed that the average eCommerce conversion rate is just 1.6%.

Does that mean it’s a good conversion rate though? Well, yes and no.

If you have a conversion rate of 1.6%, you’re average, less than this, and you need to look at various tactics for optimizing your current conversion rate.

Ultimately though in any eCommerce business, you’ll always want a higher conversion rate, and the best conversion rate is one that’s higher than it is now.

Also worth noting is that ecommerce conversion rates vary wildly by industry seen in Intelligent Commerce’s report.

How to calculate your ecommerce conversion rate

The simplest way to calculate your ecommerce conversion rate is to take the number of sales you’ve received in a set period of time, then divide it by the number of visitors to your site in that same period (this can be done with Google Analytics) and times it by 100.

So: (conversions / total visitors) * 100

So, if your site has sold 2 items and is getting 2000 visitors a month, then your conversion rate is 1%.

According to Econsultancy’s Performance Benchmarks tool, average conversion rates of food and drink stores are at 2.4% but technology and computing, for example, are at 1.10%. So depending on your industry, the average fluctuates. 

Your conversion rate may also differ from another store due to the type of products you’re selling. If you’re selling $10 t-shirts and another store is selling similar ones for $30, then your conversion rates may be different.

How to increase your ecommerce conversion rate

Okay, let’s get to the good stuff. We all know that slight changes to your online store can have an incredible impact on your sales. So here are a few of our favourite online store tweaks you can implement to make a real difference.

7 Actionable tips to increase your ecommerce conversion rate

#1 Use your customer’s pain points

The point of any product or service is either to solve a problem or meet a need. Somebody needs something and they buy a product to meet that need.

Pain points are the needs, wishes, or worries (real or perceived) that customers have and could be solved by buying your product/service.

For example, a customer is frustrated with the lack of options for displaying product images on their WooCommerce store. They want something which allows them to have greater control. 

On our product page for WooThumbs, we have done a few things:

• Recognised the customer’s pain points (lack of WooCommerce functionality)
• Explained simply how we’ve solved this problem
• Listed additional problems the plugin solves

So, when writing your sales pages or product descriptions, make sure to focus on how your product/service will solve your customer’s problem, or meet their needs in the simplest way possible.

#2 Relieve doubts about your product with images and video

When purchasing products online, customers don’t have the ability to touch and feel your product. They don’t even have the ability to properly see if its colour matches the one presented to them on screen.

To alleviate these concerns, make sure to provide clear, high quality and accurate images that represent what you’re selling. Add in lifestyle shots, shots to indicate the size and make sure your customer can zoom in on an image to see the detail.

69% of consumers believe a product demo best assists them when making a purchase decision – Wyzowl

Online stores are now starting to fully embrace the impact of video on their ecommerce sales. Even a simple video showcasing the product from different angles could be the difference between a sale, and an abandoned cart. 

Get both of these up and running quickly with our plugin WooThumbs for WooCommerce.

#3 Give them the answers

When visiting your site for the first or even second time, most potential customers know nothing about you or your online store. If they purchase anything, they’re essentially placing their trust in you to deliver what you say you’re going to.

At the same time, the customer may instantly have a bunch of questions on their mind about your product that you need to answer before you lose them. Things like:

• Is there a warranty?
• How long will shipping take?
• Is shipping free?
• Can I pay with PayPal?
• How easy is it to cancel or return?

All of these questions can be pre-answered by you in a FAQ right on the product page. Make sure the answers to these questions are obvious, honest and simple to understand. 

Another way to showcase the answers to some of these questions is to have the answers as prompts throughout the buyer’s journey or on the product page. Here’s an example of that in action on one of our product pages:

#4 Include live chat

Sometimes no matter how hard you try, you simply can’t know all the questions a potential customer might have. 

If your product is more of an investment, i.e it will take a little more time or money from your customer, then it might be worth adding chat functionality to your site. 

With this in place, customers can alleviate their concerns quickly and easily, instead of having to wait for an email in reply. 

#5 Optimise your checkout process

If you’ve done everything right, your product images are top-notch, you’ve answered all possible questions and are still not making sales, then your checkout may be at fault.

I’ve mentioned previously that customers need to trust you when purchasing a product. Well, it’s at the checkout where this trust needs to really ramp up.

By creating a simple checkout with payment logos, testimonials and trust seals, you can make sure that your site is seen as trustworthy. We’ve already broken down our favourite sales optimising checkout techniques which you can read in another post. 

#6 Optimize for mobile 

In 2019 77% of citizens in the United States spent their online time on mobile. 

Have you visited your eCommerce store on your mobile lately? Have a look and check the following:

• Is it responsive (a user shouldn’t need to scroll left and right)?
• Can you complete the checkout on mobile, including applying coupons? 
• Are your product images sharp for retina based screens such as iPhones? 

If the answer to any of the above is “no,” you have serious work to do! 

Here are some quick fixes to improve your mobile conversion rate:

1. Use a responsive theme for your WooCommerce store. 
2. Remove unnecessary distractions from mobile — that popup you have on your desktop version may not be too intruding; on mobile, it’s a whole other story.

#7 Send abandoned cart emails

Never overlook the power of email to increase your eCommerce conversion rate. 

Various studies put the average cart abandonment rate as high as 80%. This study from Barilliance places it at over 77%! 

MooSend, an email marketing platform, ran a study and found that over 45% of abandoned cart emails get opened.

And over 10% of customers that opened the email went on to purchase. 

If you’re running a WooCommerce store, one of the most popular solutions for abandoned cart emails is Jilt, an all-in-one eCommerce marketing platform that also works with Shopify.

There are many techniques you can use to increase your ecommerce conversion rate and we’ve shared some of our favourites here. But one thing’s for certain, to get the most out of your ecommerce store, you need to be paying close attention to what people are doing in your store and perhaps more importantly, why on earth they’re leaving.