According to Fevad, the number of e-commerce sites passed the 200,000 mark in 2016. For some years now, the online retail market has kept gaining ground on its traditional forebear and its future promises to be flourishing. This new era of commerce gives the seller as well as the buyer access to a freedom of choice never known before!
With a growth rate of around 10% in 2016, competition within the online retail market is becoming ever tougher. Technological innovations are only accelerating this process, in particular with the emergence of powerful new tools and a multiplication of distribution channels. These technological innovations change both the way a product is consumed and the way it is sold.
That is why e-commerce businesses have to adapt quickly to these transformations while setting themselves apart from their competitors.
We know that 70% of internet users who have added a product to their basket ultimately abandon the purchase process (FEVAD 2015). What strategy should be adopted to reverse this trend? In this article you will find innovative solutions that will allow you to improve your conversion rate.
In order to establish an effective e-commerce strategy, you must target two precise objectives: the generation and management of traffic on the one hand and the optimisation of the conversion rate of your online shop on the other.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Captivating & retaining your client
- “Design Thinking”
- Predictive analytics, a must
- Betting on web performance
- The key points to remember
- How do you calculate the conversion rate?
- What is a "conversion funnel", also called a "conversion tunnel"?
Captivating & retaining your client
To generate strong traffic, you have to know how to captivate and then reassure the client. Establishing a relationship of trust between you and your client is essential in order to carry the purchase process through. The client must feel that seriousness and honesty are essential components of your business. You must reassure your visitor.
“Design Thinking”
The upkeep of the site is the key here, because it is only on this virtual shop window that the client bases his first impression. It is your reliability as a trader and your e-reputation that depend on it. Even if the quality of your products is excellent, if your website is not attractive, clients will conclude that you are not reliable, even “incompetent”, or that your products are low-end.
More than 9 people out of 10 state that the design of the site and the visuals are the main factors behind the act of buying. Moreover, products are assessed within 90 seconds, so bet on the form and the aesthetics of your website. Optimise the ergonomics so that they are as intuitive and modern as possible. It is also a matter of stripping down the content so that the client has only relevant information at his disposal. Furthermore, consumer reviews, overall ratings and online chats guarantee the quality of your services.
Photos and videos are also a vector of interest. Offering several photos, for example, increases product sales by 58% and 31% of buyers have bought a product after watching a video. It is also the type of post that generates the most engagement on social networks. Be attentive, moreover, to the presentation of all the marketing channels you use, from social networks to e-mailings by way of the mobile site.
Predictive analytics, a must
The trend is towards “bespoke”, clearly identifying the profile of your clients makes it possible to offer them products that are likely to appeal to them in particular. Personalised offers and content capture and retain the client more effectively. An upstream targeting stage is therefore essential in order to lower the bounce rate and improve client engagement.
By increasing the conversion rate by 25 to 30%, predictive analytics has become a valuable tool in the new marketing strategies of online businesses. Web analytics tools allow you to identify the profile of your clients in advance. It is by analysing the history of their behaviour combined with their current activity that you will be able to interact with them in the right way and at the right moment. Processing this data will allow you to increase the visibility of your results and will guarantee you a more formal commitment on their part.
Moreover, A/B tests can help you grasp and anticipate what prompts the client to abandon their request and to better re-convert these abandoned purchases afterwards.
These predictive analyses are made possible by the accumulation of client data, which feeds your Big Data servers. With the multiplication of channels and the growing number of e-clients, web performance, especially in periods of heavy traffic, is the engine essential to your success. So, in addition to developing intelligent marketing tools, it is vital to make sure that your technology platform guarantees you fail-safe efficiency.
Besides marketing strategies and the overall analysis of data, operational challenges face you. Meeting them is urgent if your conversion rate is to increase visibly. In fact, this should be the first step of your action plan. Because even with the best marketing strategy in the Universe, if your technological support has gaps, your business, like a car without an engine, will struggle to grow.
Being available
An outage of your site, if your name is Amazon, can lead to more than 100,000 dollars of lost earnings per minute! But more than dollars, it is also your e-reputation that takes a hit… And to recover it, the process promises to be long and very costly, because a lost client is hard to win back.
To avoid this slight inconvenience, bet on flexibility: make sure that your IT infrastructure is capable of handling traffic at all times, and especially when it is heavy (such as Christmas and the January sales for example).
Moreover, pay very particular attention to the loading speed of your website, because it has been shown that after a wait of more than 3 seconds, 57% of users abandon the site and 80% of them will never come back to it. And that holds for all your channels, from web to mobile.
Finally, try to identify and resolve the problems all along the commerce chain in order to set off the industrialisation of the sales mechanism. This includes in particular better order processing and stock optimisation, from the design to the shipping of the product.
Guaranteeing security
A decisive stage in finalising the sales process is that of payment, a dreaded and often laborious stage. The point here is to simplify the action as much as possible and to guarantee the client inexhaustible security. Reducing the intermediate pages and making the process ergonomic and intelligent helps to reassure your client. It is also advisable to offer several payment methods: 40% of people feel more reassured if several methods are possible. But this security can be guaranteed only if your partner knows your priorities and makes security its primary objective.
The key points to remember
Many innovative tools today allow you to boost your conversion rate. You simply need to know your priorities in order to use tools suited to your needs.
The wider you broaden your field of vision, the better you can understand which mechanisms govern our business. Gaining visibility means optimising your profitability. Predictive analytics and web analytics tools allow you to obtain a 360° view as well as a better knowledge of your clients.
Finally, make sure you are available and that you guarantee security at all times by surrounding yourself with trusted experts who understand your project.
“Client demands, sustaining growth and tracking purchasing behaviour are today the top three business challenges identified by e-commerce managers”, according to the Retail Systems Research study, “The Great Leveler : e-Commerce's Next Move”, November 2013.
How do you calculate the conversion rate?
A simple calculation gives you your conversion rate : you have to divide the number of visitors received by the number of sign-ups or purchases (if you have an e-commerce site) and then multiply this figure by 100. We can thus say that the conversion rate = number of number of clients / visitors x 100.
What is a "conversion funnel", also called a "conversion tunnel"?
The conversion tunnel (or conversion, prospecting or sales funnel) is the journey that an internet user makes on your site before converting on a defined objective (sign-up, purchase, download, subscription…).
For more information, contact us!