To say online shopping trends have fluctuated in recent years is an understatement. While we’ve seen it creeping up slowly since the initial drop of the pandemic, cost of living pressures and changing consumer behaviour means that retailers’ online stores need to be as sophisticated as possible to ensure maximum conversions (the measure of how many customers who begin their digital shopping journey complete their purchase), writes Shaun Broughton, Managing Director, Shopify JAPAC.

There are a few key areas that retail leaders should consider when reviewing how best to increase conversion rates, to turn interested parties into paying customers.

Multiplying your sources of web traffic

The traffic sources that lead customers to an eCommerce store can make a big difference in terms of overall conversion rate. Site visitors arriving from organic channels such as word-of-mouth or social media recommendations are more likely to follow through with a purchase, especially for smaller sellers.

To step this up, integrating social media, email marketing, customer reviews and user experience tools on-site can deliver convenience to shoppers, enhance social proof and improve site functionality to encourage higher conversion rates; an effect which is multiplied when multiple integrations are used.

With that said, the conversion rate for different integrations will vary depending on the business, so online retailers must think critically about which ones are most relevant to their site.

Filling up the shopping cart

Customers who add more than five to ten items to their shopping cart yield notably higher rates of conversion. In fact, the conversion rate can increase by as much as 63 per cent when a customer who initially puts just one or two products in their cart continues to shop and ends up with more than ten items.

With this in mind, sellers should consider new ways to increase the number of items that customers add to cart. Providing relevant product recommendations or upselling to meet a free shipping threshold are just two examples of this.

Enhancing the checkout experience

When a customer reaches the checkout stage, they should be able to do so with as little effort as possible. Any step that slows the process or feels insecure increases the risk of cart abandonment.

Autofill streamlines the completion of predictable information such as shipping and billing addresses. While fraud detection is essential to the customer’s peace of mind and security, it should not derail the checkout flow. It is also wise to steer clear of forms that include blank discount code fields, which may cause customers to abandon the checkout process and wait for a sale, or search for a discount code on third-party sites.

According to a recent study by BCG, providing customers with efficient and multiple payment options during checkout is also key, as the presence of accelerated payment methods such as Meta Pay, Amazon Pay, PayPal, Shop Pay, Apple Pay and Google Pay can increase conversion rates by upwards of 50 per cent.

Sealing the deal

Retailers who want to maximise conversions should ensure the customer journey from discovery to payment is both intuitive and convenient. By ensuring a steady flow of traffic and a seamless and frictionless experience when they come through the door, retailers will quickly reap the benefits in not only higher conversions, but lower churn, at what is the most important step in the customer journey – sealing the deal.

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