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6 Effective Ways to Boost E-Commerce Conversion Rate

Tag: E-commerce

6 Effective Ways to Boost E-Commerce Conversion Rate
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

6 Effective Ways to Boost E-Commerce Conversion Rate

If you are running your e-commerce business, you don’t just want traffic; you want as many conversions as you can. So how do you actually get the traffic to convert without looking desperate. Here is a list of ways you can use to boost your conversions when your budget is restricted and the year is winding down.

Customizing Checkout Experience

Based on a study conducted by the Baymard Institute, the average cart abandonment rate is 69.89%. If you can optimize checkout experience, you can drastically boost the conversion rate.  There are various options to do so. If the customer plans to exit at the last moment, you can give an exclusive offer like a discount coupon. Ensure that the integrated payment gateway offers enough payment methods to take payments online. In addition to these, let users log in using their social media credentials, and keep the checkout process short and simple.

Make Product Pages Look Better

The website layout plays a crucial role in the user experience, and when it is an online store, product pages must be organized neatly to boost conversions. The most prominent aspect is to include influencing visuals, comprising of images, 360-degree photos, videos, and so on. Adding a countdown, depicting the number of units left of a product, works wonders by instigating visitors to buy at the earliest. Focus on filters so that buyers can streamline products as per their requirements. At the same time, avoid adding too many filters to avoid confusion.

Call-to-Action Prompts

The aim of call-to-action (CTA) is to engage visitors and prompt them to take an action. The simplest way is to add sharing options, ensuring an extended reach of your online store. If the visitor decides to bounce off the website, a popup should emerge showing exciting deals or exclusive discounts or other product options. Placing a floating “Add to Cart” button impels buyers to conveniently add a desired product in the cart, thereby, boosting conversion rate.

Welcome Offers

A new customer or a visitor is a special person because this is the first interaction of yours with the visitor. Be ready with welcome offers such as giving freebies, sign up discounts, and so on. You can also give them a referral code. If they promote or share your online store link with their contacts, they will earn a commission or a gift voucher. One of the most effective strategies is to offer free delivery on the first few orders.

Sell on Marketplaces & Social Media

Other than selling on your e-com store, you can exploit social media platforms for selling products and services. Social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest let you add a “Shop” option on your website’s social media page. Once a user clicks on the shop icon, the link redirects to the payment gateway process, allowing the user to check out instantly. And since mobile e-commerce is on an exponential rise, it is wise to expand your presence on social media apps.

Enabling Customer Reviews

Humans are influenced by humans, at least when it comes to online shopping. Enabling reviews and ratings on your store assists in building connections with your visitors. When real humans, not robots, leave genuine reviews, whether positive or negative, buyers become aware of product attributes. This further convinces them to buy. Let customers log in using social media credentials to write a review of their purchase or send them a personalized email asking to write their views.

 

Now we cannot say that a particular strategy will work for you if it has worked for others. It is recommended to continue with A/B testing to identify the right strategy for increasing conversion rate. And this is an ever-going process since the online shopping experience is always evolving.

6 years ago
Are You Spending Too Much on Shipping?
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

Are You Spending Too Much on Shipping?

One of the easiest ways to provide excellent customer experience in your online business is by providing convenient, excellent and affordable shipping. However, this comes at a cost, and in a business environment where all expenses seem to be rising, you need to have a look at your shipping costs once again. You have to maintain a balance by offering the best customer experience while at the same time cutting costs on shipping logistics.  According to a recent survey carried out by Jupiter Media Matrix Inc and published by Forbes, 63% of customers abandoned a purchase due to excessive shipping costs.  With such insight, the free shipping threshold set by giant retailers such as Amazon becomes all the more significant.

So, are you spending too much on shipping? Is there anything you can do about it? This article gives insights on how to optimize your shipping strategy without compromising on the customer experience.

How to Start Reducing High Cost of Shipping

Most experts put freight spend at 9-11% of sales. According to a Canadian Shipper Report, transportation spend is about 10-11% for businesses with less than $250 million in sales. For those with revenues more than $9 billion, freight costs range between 2-3%.  Some of the ways to deal with high shipping costs include:

  1. Identifying Overspending in Shipping

Common pitfalls leading to high costs of shipping include:

  • Using flat rate boxes to ship everything: “If it fits in the box, it ships at the same price every time,” and this is a great thing for you up to a point. Other alternatives can save you money depending on the item you wish to ship including Regional Rate Boxes and Priority Mail.
  • Relying on SmartPost and SurePost alone: These two options are great but they still depend on the United States Postal Service at the last mile to deliver a package to the customer’s doorstep. A cheaper option would be to use the United States Postal Service all the way as they now match the rates offered by SmartPost and SurePost and other shipping services.
  • Failure to account for dimensional weight: If you haven’t started factoring in a dimensional weight (DIM weight) introduced by FedEx and UPS in 2015, you might be paying more for your shipping. Today, shippers use DIM weight calculation and an actual weight calculation for every package, and you pay the higher rate. You have to start considering overall package size and weight more keenly to pay a lower rate when shipping.
  • Failure to use other packaging options: Don’t use boxes for everything and instead consider Poly mailers for items which are not fragile. It cuts down the cost of shipping.

 

  1. Optimize Your Free/Affordable Shipping Strategy

To offer free shipping without breaking the bank, consider the following options:

  • Free Shipping for Domestic Orders only
  • Free Shipping for orders over a certain order amount
  • Free shipping for return customers
  • Free Shipping for a minimum number of items purchased
  • Adjust the price of product downwards to reduce “stated” shipping costs

 

  1. Find Ways to Reduce Costs of Shipping

Consider the following strategies:

  • Buying packaging from discount suppliers
  • Negotiating bulk discounts
  • Reusing and recycle
  • Using shipping rate calculators to find the best rates
  • Batch-process as much as you can for higher efficiency and reduced costs
  • Use hybrid services for bigger shipping discounts. Delivery takes longer but you save money in the process.
  • Use a third party logistics company/international warehouse

It is also important to audit all invoices for errors, consolidate shipments and seek referrals from other businesses to find the best shipping rates. If you feel your shipping spend is too high, these strategies will help reduce costs and keep your business going.

By combining an affordable shipping experience with seamless payment processing using the best payment gateway, your business stands a better chance in the competitive e-commerce landscape. It is a high time you choose the best payment gateway and be able to streamline your shipping process.

6 years ago
5 Reasons You Need To Use a Fast Shipping Partner
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

5 Reasons You Need To Use a Fast Shipping Partner

The e-commerce landscape is changing drastically every now and then. With faster options of delivery, the shift is towards instant gratification and reducing the wait time.
Many e-commerce giants are bringing innovation to their delivery systems, so as to facilitate the curious new generation of customers, who want instant gratification. The drive to bridge the gap between physical stores and e-commerce stores is primarily responsible for speeding the vehicle of e-commerce.

Fast delivery is an essential element of fulfilling your business obligations, where customers give you a deadline. Gone are the days, when people would wait for 5 to 7 days for delivery. Nowadays, it’s considered too long a time except for a few categories such as books or software that are not easily available at the local stores.

Here are five benefits of using a fast shipping partner that will help merchants grow their online businesses further.

  1. Branding

Imagine that a customer is flying in the next three day and would like to order a dress on an e-commerce store. If the delivery option says that it cannot be delivered before 4-5 business days, it will be of no use. She will need an e-commerce vendor who can deliver it in less than two working days. And if you are such a vendor, it will not only help you gain competitive advantage in terms of branding and customer service, you’ll most likely attract more customers in future.

  1. More sales

There are many customer types these days and among them, people craving instant gratification form a sizable chunk. If you are able to deliver quickly, you will definitely be able to catch hold of this additional chunk. Besides that, you can also charge extra for faster delivery and that will definitely add to your revenues.

  1. Lesser inventories

When you offer faster delivery options, your inventory immediately goes down, making you a lean and thin organization with a short order cycle time. It will help you to manage your business more efficiently without having to worry about managing a large inventory base.

  1. Better service to urban shoppers

With same day delivery, e-commerce giants are already working hard to grab the lion’s share of the market often referred to as urban shoppers. Faster delivery will make life easy for time-constrained urban customers and this way, online retailers will get access to a large niche without spending a single penny in advertising. Major online retailers for example are working hard to improve their services in urban areas, where they have regular customers with purchasing power.

  1. Build customer trust

The other benefits of fast delivery include the customer trust you gain and the word of mouth publicity you achieve. Your ability to deliver much faster than your competitors will make sure that you get the required attention, and customers will start flocking to you.  Customer trust also translates into free advertising and referrals, which increases your sales in geometric progression.

In order to do it, your shipping partner should be reliable and fast. Orders should in no way get lost or confused in the process of speedy delivery. Make sure that delivery is not only safe and cost-effective, but is also transparent and customer-oriented.

6 years ago
5 Tips to Protect Your Business When Dealing With Payments
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

5 Tips to Protect Your Business When Dealing With Payments

Most of the credit card frauds that took place earlier were related to “card-present” cases. These days with adequate security procedures like EMV (Europay, MasterCard and Visa) chips to make transactions secure, something sinister is happening.

A new type of card fraud is emerging with “card-not-present” type of transactions. In such type of card payments, you are not physically swiping the card, but are using it on online platforms to perform E-Commerce transactions.

In order to deal with such type of card or identity theft, users are requested to get back to their credit card provider or the issuing bank for the reversal of the fraudulent charges. In the normal E-Commerce environment, where a buyer and a seller are involved, merchant is held liable for any fraudulent charges and they are supposed to reverse these charges.

These days, a new type of e-Commerce environment is emerging, where different buyers and merchants come together on a single platform. In this case, the platform-merchant relationship decides as to who is to be held responsible for frauds.

Recently, a trend is emerging where a swindler masks as a merchant and then they manipulate the platform to commit fraud before disappearing from it. In such cases also, the platform is held responsible for the fraud.

Now we’ll discuss what a platform owner can do to protect itself and its buyers against such frauds. Here are 5 tips to prevent such incidents and minimize the losses due to fraudulent cases.

Educate yourself on credit card fraud
There is no fixed modus operandi for credit card and other types of payment frauds because they are constantly evolving. Criminals in cyberspace use innovative techniques and latest technology to commit such acts. So what is recommended today may not be relevant in the future.

Constantly update yourself and keep on exploring newest fraud tactics. Employ latest technology and find the best ways to deal with the current threats efficiently. There are different types of frauds prevalent in the online marketplace today and these include buyer identity fraud, merchant identity fraud and merchant credit risk. Scammers can mask themselves as legitimate buyers and sometimes merchants as well.

Implement simple protection
To start with, employ the proven tools and techniques to avert fraud. For example, user data should be validated first with database companies like Equifax, Lexis-Nexis and Experian. You can also perform a history and credit check about the user, so as to make sure that he is a legitimate buyer or seller.

Do some social data mining
Entering into advanced fraud protection measures, social data verification can supplement our efforts to protect customers from fraud. We can perform data-mining from platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. We can pull these social insights to validate user identity through them. Scammers can create fake social media IDs, but it doesn’t take much to find if it is their regular ID or if it is designed in a hurry in order to commit a fraud.

Use your instincts
If something sounds too good to be true, stay away from it. If someone offers a deal that they are going to pay for the project in advance and it sounds too good to be true, there is high probability that it can be fraudulent.

Don’t do dilly dallying
Frauds are inconsistent and unpredictable in nature. Sometimes, frauds do not take place for a long time and suddenly you observe a surge in fraudulent activities. So, regularly monitor these activities with the help of latest tools even if no fraudulent activity is detected on your platform. Always stay alert as fraudulent activities can come as surprise and hamper normal business activities. They can also affect your profits and employee morale negatively.

6 years ago
New Web Store? Your Checklist for Success in 2018
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

New Web Store? Your Checklist for Success in 2018

The world today is way more digitalized than ever before, and this has immensely impacted the way stores, showrooms and even small merchants are getting their business done! Everyone has an online presence and every business is trying to rope in as many potential customers possible through web stores or online stores. Naturally, the competition for attracting the target audience is high, and if you too have joined the bandwagon of online merchants recently, here are some cool tricks that can help you stand out!

Web design that attracts and engages

No matter how great the product or service you sell is, without a wonderful web design, your marketing campaign will fall flat on its face. Either you can learn to create a visually appealing web store yourself or you can hire a professional web designer. The investment will be worth it. Or, check out sites such as TonyTemplates or TemplateMonster to get hold of an attractive e-commerce template with the latest designs and layouts. Minimal text and high quality full-width images are the way to go.

Focus on “About Us”

Your “About Us” page is the biggest bait after your landing page to hook potential customers. Keep the design minimal and mention clearly how your brand was born, what you offer, and why it is important. Include testimonials and achievements to gain customer trust and also mention contact details like address, email, and social media pages.

Don’t ignore the power of online support

Your interaction with the customer is not just till the moment he or she makes the payment and gets the product delivered. It should go beyond that in the form of awesome online support or after-sales services that they might need before using the product. Pre-purchase support in the form of live chats on your website can boost the conversion by more than 10% as well. It will also encourage new buyers to trust your store. Make sure that the chat box or the phone line is clearly visible on your homepage.

Choose the perfect payment gateway  

Without a secure and fast payment gateway, your online business will do anything but prosper. So, go for a gateway like PayTabs which lets you sell your products globally and receive payments even within 24 hours! It has a very robust 2-layer fraud protection system, and accepts 168 currencies too. You can integrate PayTabs very easily into your system and benefit from features like online invoicing, mobile apps, and convenient payment processing. Customer details and purchase history are well-protected, and PayTabs also generates financial reports that can help you monitor cash flow. This payment gateway is ideal for every type of business, it can make your business cycle easier to handle and it will keep a track on recurring customers too.

Make your website and blog SEO-optimized

Ensure that both your website and blog (everyone has one these days) follow Search Engine Optimization or SEO. This means, that the content, product titles and descriptions must contain keywords that will help you rank higher on organic search results. Or in other words, using the right keywords will increase your visibility to the online audience. Before incorporating the keywords which you think will work, type them into a search engine like Google and see who your business competitors are. If they are big ones, change your keyword to something that is not so competitive. For your blog, use SEO tools and Google Analytics to track page views and see which posts do better.

Other tips

Advertise creatively on social media, track analytics of your site, make your site is mobile-friendly, offer free shipping and assured refunds, use email marketing, and network with industry bloggers, traditional reporters and social media influencers to create a buzz about your product. Don’t forget to keep an eye on your competition too.

6 years ago