Tips for Increasing Conversion
At the Internet Retailer 2006 show in Chicago our President, Jeff Schueler, gave a presentation on increasing conversion on etail sites through design changes. We thought it might be beneficial to present a synopsis of it here.
The 7 Commandments of Conversion
- Encourage account creation - but don’t demand it - and make it easy - since people fundamentally don’t like to register, do not require it as a part of a new visitor checkout process. Just collect all their required information to pay, name, address, credit card, email, etc. and let them complete the checkout. Then at the end explain to them why it is to their advantage to create an account and have them make up a password and confirm it. Bingo! They have created an account with their email address as the ID.
- Make your product images as impressive and functional as possible - our data is consistent across all etail sites. People who purchase on site are twice as likely to use rich media - zoom, larger images, rotate, etc. - as those who do not. The message for you is make your rich media a focus of design. Offer all the functionality you can and make it very usable. And this is true of any site - not just etail sites. Enhanced imaging, rich media, enhances the user experience.
- Provide a simple product comparisons function - when people are shopping online they like to be able to compare similar products easily in a grid. The rules to follow are: a. Make the compare checkbox very visible in a search result or landing page b. Allow a minimum of 4 products in the compare grid c. Provide “add to cart” and “remove” functionality in the grid d. Put prices at the top of the grid e. Highlight differences between products in some way
- Place the “Add to Cart” above the fold - Do not put the “Add To Cart” below the fold. Make it obvious and accessible. Encourage the impulse buy!!
- Checkout should be obvious and available - Shoppers should be able to start a checkout process from almost anywhere in the site. Make the “Checkout” button obvious and available. And don’t force people to go through the cart to checkout.
- Set the default quantity to “1″ - why on earth sites have the default quantity set to zero or blank is beyond us. All this does is create an error for the shopper who doesn’t notice it and hits the “add to cart” button. Then they have to handle the error and you risk them getting frustrated and leaving. Default the quantity to “1″.
- Make errors easy to understand and correct - Some sites do a really good job of error handling and some don’t. The basic rules of error recovery for the shopper - or any web site for that matter - are: a. Make it obvious that there is an error b. Tell the shopper what’s wrong c. Tell them how to correct it d. Show them where to correct it e. If they make an error, don’t clear the fields and make them re-enter data
Hope these ideas help. If you have questions please feel free to Contact Us