7 Simple Ways to Convert More Customers on Your Ecommerce Website
Make more sales from your online shop with these e-commerce website tips!
You’re putting in the hours marketing your online shop - sharing your products on social media, maybe experimenting with influencer marketing, ads or blogging & content creation - but when people land on your website, they’re not buying.
If you’re getting good amounts of traffic (and the right traffic) to your website, you don’t have a marketing issue; you have a conversion issue.
This means that when people land in your shop, they’re seeing what you offer but they’re not converting into paying customers. And this can be for a number of reasons! Of course, a clean and beautiful website design, and professional photography important, but there are some other things you can try to encourage sales.
You could also try focusing not on getting more customers, but increasing the amount each customer is worth (aka how much each customer spends with you)! This means you can make more money from the same amount of website traffic.
1. Help them to imagine owning the product
One of the most important parts of a customer’s buying decision is being able to see themselves using or owning the product; does it fit with their style/values/aspirations/life? Rather than just talking about the benefits and how it will make them feel, showing them will be much more powerful.
One of the best ways to do this for e-commerce stores is to invest in ‘lifestyle photography’, where you have professional photos showing your products being used or in situ, in a way that relates to your target customer. This could be a very smart investment (as you can use these on your website and for marketing purposes), but if you can’t afford this just now…
Ask your customers to share photos of them using their products and what it looks like for them with you.
You could use either or both of these ideas to create a ‘Lookbook’ or ‘Gallery’ on your website; a whole page or space dedicated to showcasing your items in real life (or ‘styled life’) situations, helping potential customers imagine themselves there.
2. Offer an incentive to sign up and make a purchase
Building an email list is pretty essential if you’re running an e-commerce shop! Followers on Instagram or Facebook are great, but social media platforms have algorithms that change all the time and limit who can see what you publish, whereas you own and are in control of your email list.
But people won’t sign up for nothing; you need to incentivise them by giving them something in exchange. In the case of an online shop, offering a discount code that they can only access once they’ve signed up to your email list kills two birds with one stone.
They have an incentive to sign up, and with a potential discount code they are more likely to make a purchase.
Further reading: Building your email list with opt-in offers
3. Create a ‘waitlist’ for sold out products
What happens in your shop when you sell out of a product? Does it simply have a ‘SOLD OUT’ sticker next to it? Does it disappear from the page completely?
If one of those is true, and it’s a product that you anticipate you’ll be restocking in the future, you’re turning away easy money.
Add a ‘waitlist’ feature your e-commerce site, which gives customers the opportunity to sign up to be notified when a ‘sold out’ product comes back in stock! This means you’re not losing customers who can’t take action in the moment but who want to. (PS. This is super easy to set up in Squarespace).
4. Send ‘abandoned cart’ emails
Another thing that sometimes happens is you’ll have customers get all the way to adding a product to their shopping cart, and then just don’t take the next step to check out and pay. This could simply be because they got distracted and left unintentionally, or something like not having their payment details easily accessible when they went to pay so gave up.
These are ‘hot leads’! They’ve mentally primed themselves to actually buy your product, so they are probably some of your keenest customers - so don’t let them disappear.
Set up automatic ‘abandoned cart’ emails in your online shop, which (after a certain period of time, like 12 hours or a day etc.) send out an email notification to that customer showing them what they left in their shopping cart, and asking if they’d like to finish their checkout process.
Common subject lines for these types of emails include ‘Did you forget something?’, or ‘Complete your checkout!’, and some companies also offer a small discount code in these emails to incentivise people even further to finish the process.
(Again, easy to set up in your Squarespace ecommerce website!).
5. Upsell other products
Now let’s take a look at how to increase the value of each customer. ‘Upselling’ basically means to recommend other, complimentary products that the customer might want to purchase alongside the original product.
You can do this by adding a ‘related/recommended products’ section at the bottom of each product page (you can set this up to apply to all products automatically in Squarespace), or by talking about complimentary products in the product description.
A great way of incorporating some ‘social proof’ is by using the phrase ‘Customers also bought…’ or ‘Customers also liked…’.
6. Package with a 'thank you’ note & discount
You can also upsell once they’ve actually bought and received the product too. Including a thank you note in your packaging (personalised is always best, if possible!) is a great way to make a personal connection with a customer, but also gives you the opportunity to provide them with an incentive to become a returning customer.
You could create a discount code specifically for these thank you notes, that encourage people to come back and buy again. To go one step further, you could also include some kind of flyer or mini brochure featuring your other products in this note/packaging, to remind the customer what else you can offer.
7. Send a follow up email
So you’ve ‘upsold’ to those customers at the point of purchase, and the point that they receive the product, but what about after this - a week later, or a month later?
With a bit of set up and the right email marketing software, you could send out automated emails to your customers after a certain period of time after they’ve received their item, reminding them of your existence and the other products you offer - and a reason why they should return to you (possibly a discount, or something exciting to grab their attention)!
