E-commerce is a very challenging domain where success and sustenance come with dedication, perseverance, and diligence. As one has to beat a large number of competitors to stand out and be visible to the shoppers out there, it is a huge competition, which is one of the biggest hindrances in the domain. On the other hand, along with getting people, it is also about compelling them to convert. For those who do not know, Conversion refers to enticing the visitor to complete the purchase before he or she leaves the website.
Well, the conversion rate is the metric that measures conversion, which is defined as the percentage of visitors that have converted by completing the purchase. And, undoubtedly, any seller would want to maximize this rate to drive higher sales and revenues for his business. So, this is where the role of Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) occurs. Yes, for enhancing the performance of an e-commerce store, it is regarded as one of the main strategies.
Hence, you should know why CRO (conversion rate optimization) matters a lot for your online or eCommerce business. But before that, let’s understand what CRO is and what is a Good eCommerce Conversion Rate.
About CRO: The Building Block of a Digital Campaign
In simple words, the process of optimizing the e-commerce website for boosting its conversions is what we call CRO. The foundation of a successful CRO strategy is building high-end user experiences by working on the user interface of the e-commerce store. And, parameters such as the website design, loading speed, placement of CTAs, etc. are very important to consider for this.
Well, for redesigning the customer journey to drive more conversions, the idea is to combine data with creativity. Theoretically, the globally-accepted average conversion rate for businesses is between 1-3%, and this is the rate that you should set as a benchmark.
As a part of a CRO strategy, digital experts work on the shopping carts, landing pages, product pages, and sign-up pages, typically. There is also a need to focus on mobile conversion rates. Plus, stores can increase the CRO in two ways generally - firstly, by increasing the conversions with the same number of visitors and secondly, by boosting the traffic while maintaining the conversion rate.
As there is a need to put efforts only on hiking conversions, the latter is more feasible rather than trying to boost traffic, too (as it is required in the first option). Hence, to lift the ROI to boost the website’s CRO, a smart digital marketer will make an effort.
What’s a Good eCommerce Conversion Rate?
As we have mentioned above, when a web visitor completes a desired action, it is called a conversion, and the percentage of total web visitors who took that action is known as the conversion rate.
If we talk about typical eCommerce conversions, it simply includes adding items to a shopping cart, saving items to buy later, or completing a purchase. And, you have a big problem even if enough of your site visitors aren’t doing those things.
Hence the question arises that what is a good eCommerce conversion rate? Well, as with most metrics of this kind, it is based on who you ask because eCommerce conversion rate benchmarks can fluctuate widely.
Besides all, what you consider a low conversion rate in eCommerce relies on whether you’re aiming to achieve the average or reach double-digit eCommerce conversions.
And, there’s always room for improvement to optimize your eCommerce revenue, regardless of your current conversion rate or goals. So, let’s learn some of the reasons why conversion rate optimization is important for your eCommerce business.
Top 12 Reasons Why CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) is Important for Online Retailers
1. Rising Online Competition
There are more and more retailers online across the board, and all are competing for your customers. And, some of the big ones are easily eating away the other small retailers.
That means you need to have a website that is easy to use and which automatically funnels visitors towards taking the actions you want them to take, especially if you want to convert every visitor into a customer. Make sure that the more competitive you need to be if more competitors there are.
Well, Conversion optimization has the benefit of letting you stay ahead of the competition.
2. When Your Site isn’t Optimized
If when your site experiences a decline in conversion rate, then you need to focus on search engine optimization (SEO). Yes, you can
combine SEO & CRO to boost your business ROI. Because SEO is a factor optimizes content and web pages using keywords related to your products, so they appear on top when people search online.
Google aims to show the most relevant content when people search; hence, the word “related” is important. Because people won’t click, and traffic will be low if your pages aren’t showing up.
Besides that, conversions will also stay low if they don’t find what they expect when they arrive at your site. Hence, it is necessary to do proper keyword research for your niche and also ensure your web pages meet searchers’ needs.
Here’s a tip: Use the Yoast SEO plugin to guide you through key SEO tasks if you’re running your eCommerce site on WordPress, and also remove one cause of low conversion rates.
3. Simplify the Checkout Process - Make Shopping Easy
The simplicity of the checkout process is a major factor that has a far-reaching impact on your site’s conversion rate. Yes, and the reason behind this is that almost every online shopper is an impatient one and doesn't wish to spend much time in the checkout process. So, asking them to fill long forms with multiple fields will make their journey cumbersome and increase the chances of bouncing them away.
So, if you make the checkout process as short as possible, it will be a good idea and also provide the option of guest checkout to the users. Besides, by offering multiple and trending payment options, you can ease the checkout process so that the shopper has at least a few that she or he may prefer.
4. Rising Pay Per Click Costs
Pay-per-clicks (mainly Google Adwords) price is being seriously hiked, and it’s probably no secret to anyone now.
More and more demand for the platform is the culprit—that’s just easy economics; still, it doesn’t make shelling out more money any easier. For new or small businesses, pay-per-click used to be the best way to get some attention until when search engine optimization kicked in, but as not all of the clicks convert into sales, it’s becoming less and less of an option.
While conversions within the eCommerce store are decreasing, online retailers are noticing their PPC ad spend budgets increasing. And, this is where CRO or conversion rate optimization helps to make the most of the clicks that you do get so that the clicks pay for themselves.
5. Helps to Save Your Money
You might be thinking- how can you save money by spending more money to get your website optimized?
There will be a time when you’ll likely feel that you are spending a lot of money on each customer. Well, don’t think like that because maybe you are not necessarily saving money, but you are making more money out of it, which is nearly the same thing.
6. Increase in the Cost of Digital Marketing
Well, keep in mind that it isn’t just pay-per-click that is high on the cost. Print and television marketing—just about any form of digital marketing—is going to be more expensive right now than it was six months ago.
So, right now, the whole point of marketing is to direct users towards your store, but will you ensure that more of them make a purchase when they get there? And, guess what that’s where CRO helps.
You can combat the rising cost of digital marketing just by increasing the number of page visitors who make purchases by improving the conversion rate.
7. The Effects of Social Media
There is no doubt that for marketing and for connecting with new and existing customers, social media (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest) is a great venue, as well as building loyalty and increasing authority among your customer base. Yes, you can surely use
social media marketing to grow your eCommerce sales.
Plus, social media has also fostered an atmosphere of a shorter consumer attention span but has increased the number of page views. That means you need to be able to leverage and capture customer interest once you have it.
Well, I must say that having a product listed on your site is just not enough anymore. Because anyway, you will need to differentiate yourself from the competition, which will require you to have your own unique story tied to your offerings.
8. Helps You to Legitimize and Streamline Your Business
It is a fact that a business or an online store look more legitimate if it is continuously being optimized than a business that has not. Because being optimized builds a clear path from the landing page to making a purchase.
Especially for an online retailer, this usually refers to something like own an inventory that can easily be searched, or with clear categories so individuals can look at what they want to look at. It also means making the online shopping cart visible and easy to access, including perhaps even having it open up each time an item is added so that making a final purchase is as easy by clicking a button.
Besides, it’s also about showing answers to any question shoppers that might have queries about your product or ordering process (return policy, shipping fees).
9. Improves the Efficacy of Other Marketing Efforts—Especially Affiliate Marketing
If you work with many online retailers and affiliate marketers, find this to be a good way to get the news out about their products through a platform that already has an engaged audience. That is because it is the CRO, which makes your website more valuable to your affiliates and any other marketing platforms.
And, when a huge number of customers who click-through to your webpage make a purchase, your pay per click advertisers, affiliates, social media marketing campaigns, etc. make more as you are making more.
So, for both the online retailer and partners, CRO is a win-win solution.
10. Improves the Layout and Look of Your Online Store
There is a very important question you need to think about- Is your online store laid out so that it is easy to search, easy to scan, and easy to make a purchase?
A website redesign can help some achieve more sales while it may not be necessary for all online retailers. We usually recommend an evolutionary redesign rather than doing a full revolutionary redesign.
Well, in all, Conversion rate optimization makes your page make sense to users. It reduces shopper anxiety as well as friction.
Just make sure that your visitors are not you, and they did not build your store, so if it is not intuitive to use for them, they will surely go for another website there is—and no wonder there are some really good websites out there which are no less than a competitor. So, improve your eCommerce business by implementing the latest
web design trends.
11. Improves Your Website’s Efficacy Immediately
One best thing about conversion rate optimization is it provides immediate results, unlike search engine optimization that can take months to show real, positive results.
You will see a higher rate of users making purchases as soon as the changes are made, and your website drives users towards making a purchase, even instead of diverting to your competition and making their purchases there.
Another best part is, CRO may need continuous improvement and testing but gives long-term results.
12. Shortening Consumer Attention Span
The rising generation of consumers have short attention spans than their predecessor, and it’s not just a myth as plenty of psychological studies have proven this.
Want to know what does this mean for an online retailer? It simply means that if the average customer cannot quickly find what they are looking for, or at least figure out how to look for what they need, then they won’t give much time to the same website and leave shortly. Rather than that, they will go for a website that more readily offers them what they want, without giving any second thoughts to the higher/lower prices.
Well, Conversion rate optimization combats this mentality since online retailers will increase the chances of getting the shopper’s attention with CRO.
Thoughts to Remember
So all we want to say is, there is a need of CRO for your business to ensure that everything works, from home page to landing page, from the online store to the m-commerce mobile app, product pages, and checkout page.
So, improve your eCommerce by offering superlative customer support; you can take the experiences beyond expectations along with the live chat functionality. The idea is to serve customers perfection at every step of the shopping journey as only that will lead to conversion.
