You have a great website and you are really excited about the potential sales you can make, but you are not making any. Why? You scratch your head. You check your analytics. Visitors seem to like your website. They visit, they stay for a while, but they do not buy anything. They seem to spend most of their time browsing and adding stuff to the cart so your products are a hit. So what are you doing wrong? It is time to go back and re evaluate.
Market the Product
Your hits/unique visitors may be steady, but you need big numbers to make big sales. Keep in mind that for every hardcore shopper, there are about 10 people who like to go into stores, touch things and then go home. One quick change that can really boost sales for your eCommerce site is to check your links. Do you have enough of them? Where are they placed?
How is the content on your website? Is it search engine optimized to make your site easier to find on search engines? It may be basic, but sometimes simply putting the keyword product x product x does not work. Sometimes, it can be an easy as putting images on the website. Customers do not buy things that they cannot see, no matter how lovely your description is.
You're boring.
Really. Your website is plain, unattractive and frumpy. Despite a great design, it lacks visual appeal, which is one of the number one things that attract people to websites. Visual design is more than how attractive your website is. It is also about how easy the website is to use. Does it naturally draw the eye to where you want it to go? Do you spend more than a minute looking for what you need? Does it take forever to load a page?
Customers just close the browsers. You, sir, need a little pizzazz to keep that customer in the store. This is more than just the window display, this is about the promise you make to your customer.
You're good looking but stupid.
This means that your website looks awesome, but there is nothing worthwhile in it. Nothing that would interest a customer, too many of the same product, too little of one, etc.
High Pricing
Check your competition. Unless you offer an extremely unique product, there will be imitators and competition everywhere. How much are they offering and why are they making sales instead of you? What about packaging and shipping? How much is it costing your customer? Not you, the customer? You need to think long and hard about this, because this is the core of your business. Are you not selling anything simply because your customers think it costs too much?
Here is where it gets tricky – where you balance the needs of your business with the needs of the customer. Here is where it also gets a little confusing because it depends wholly on the type of business you do. For example, small businesses with specialized products often focus on a local shipping and charge a higher fee for national or international shipping.
This is easily understood by a customer who is looking for a speciality product and willing to pay a little extra for it. But what if you provide a product that they can get cheaper on Website B? Then you have a problem
Bad Shopping Flow
Before you let a customer purchase a product, you ask them to sign up for your lovely-but-boring-newsletter. You also offer them a free puppy. But they do not need your newsletter or free puppy, so they stop their purchase right there and then. Maybe they click the purchase now link and end up bombarded with an advertisement they cannot close, or they end up at a dead end.
Changing your customer experience or shopping flow can be vital to upping sales. Ask yourself
It is easy?
Is it seamless?
Do I allow my customers to pay the way they want to?
Can they navigate my website from product to my shopping cart to thank you for ordering easily?
If the answer is no to any of the questions above, then you need to change your flow.
